“Oh, Chakra, I couldn’t help it. I would have gone—”
“Den you nebba hear nodder word more. Won’t do let you go now. You come hya; you stay hya. You nebba go out ob dis ’pot. Whugh!”
And giving to the monosyllable an aspirate of fierceness, that caused it to sound more like the utterance of a wild beast than a human being, the monster threw out his long dark arms, and rushed towards his intended victim.
In another instant his long muscular fingers were clutched round the throat of the mulatta, clamping it with the tightness and tenacity of an iron garotte.
The wretched creature could make no resistance against such a formidable and ferocious antagonist. She tried to speak; she could not even scream.
“Chak-r-a, de-ar Chak-r-r-a,” came forth in a prolonged thoracic utterance, and this was the last articulation of her life.
After that there was a gurgling in her throat—the death-rattle, as the fingers relaxed their long-continued clutch—and the body, with a sudden sound, fell back among the bushes.
“You lie da!” said the murderer, on seeing that his horrid work was complete. “Dar you tell no tale. Now for de Duppy Hole; an’ a good long sleep to ’fresh me fo’ de work of de morrer night. Whugh!”
And turning away from the image of death he had just finished fashioning, the fearful Coromantee pulled the skirts of his skin mantle around him, and strode out of the glade, with as much composure as if meditating upon some abstruse chapter in the ethics of Obi.