"Really?" said Amaryllis.
"The head is mine. I plan. And, because you will never leave this place I do not mind to tell you that it is I have done it. All this. We have the New Drug. I hold the man that shall make it and sell it. I am the leader. I get the key. I catch you by the throat, there in The Manor House, my pretty, red-haired mistress! I catch you while my Melchard, who is clever, prick your arm with the needle. I—I—I!"
"Oh, yes," said Amaryllis. "But I do not think you are wise to tell all this to me."
"Because you tell again? Oh, no, ma'am! I squeeze harder next time—and there are other things. This is good old establish firm, no risk taken."
And Dutch Fridji came slowly towards Amaryllis.
"You make love with my Alban," she said, "an' I stop it." Lifting her skirt, she fetched from a sheath in her stocking a sharp-pointed knife. "I have enough of you. Two months I must say 'ma'am'! And now, it is Alban!"
"You mean to kill me?" asked Amaryllis.
Dutch Fridji was like the nightmare vision of a Fury.
For a moment Amaryllis was paralyzed. But Fridji liked the clatter of her own tongue.
"It is that I mean," she said. "To kill you very slow. Your beautiful frock, it burn now. Soon your shoes, your stockings, your long petticoat, the corset shall burn, till there shall not be a shred they can say was yours. And then the body shall be burned—but first carve and chopped like meat at table."