“He is—he is going to do as Vladimir says!” she cried. “Do not let him do it! Oh, do not——”
Stephan turned and spoke in a low tone in the unknown tongue of the Strangers. And where there had been rebellion among the defiant folk on the peak before he spoke, afterward there were grim smiles. Men’s hands loosened the knives in their belts.
Stephan shouted again in apparent panic, pointing up to the flying things that circled suddenly above them. And Vladimir’s face contorted in a grin of direst cruelty. He called over his shoulder and rode forward until he was just out of throwing-knife range. Then he shouted once more.
At Stephan’s low-toned order a cloud of knives went licking through the air and fell at his horse’s feet. And Vladimir grinned savagely and rode up, quite up, among the Strange People.
They cowered as he drew close to them. They crawled upon the ground as he stared savagely about him. They shook in seeming terror as he snarled a phrase or two at them. Cunningham gripped his revolver, his eyes blazing amid all his bewilderment. He had never seen such beastly cruelty upon the face of any living man. Maria clung close to him, shaking in unearthly terror.
Vladimir rode his horse toward a cowering group. They rolled away, gasping in apparent horror, as the horse was upon them. Not one lifted a finger to defend himself. They seemed stricken with utter, craven terror. They crawled abjectly upon the ground before him.
Vladimir came upon the bullet-headed servant he had sent to kill Cunningham. The man fawned up at his master, bound hand and foot as he was. Vladimir gazed at him sardonically and spoke in a purring tone. Then he deliberately shot the man dead.
The Strange People cringed. Then Vladimir saw Cunningham. He rode over and stared down with cold, beastly eyes.
“Ah, my friend,” he purred. “You know the secret of my folk, you say. Perhaps you lie, but it does not matter. You saw the end of my servant, did you not? That was for failing to kill you as I ordered. Do you remember that after that you struck me?”
Cunningham’s fingers itched on trigger.