He still stood and looked down on her. She turned again to David, and, thrusting her hand into his bosom, drew it forth with blood upon it.
"I say, you Frale!" she cried, holding it toward him, quivering with the ferocity she could no longer restrain, "leave here, or with this blood on my hand I'll call all hell to curse you."
Frale turned with bowed head and left her there.
CHAPTER XVIII
IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG AWAKES
Thryng lay in Hoke Belew's cabin,—not in the one great living-room where were the fireplace and the large bed and the tiny cradle, but in the smaller addition at the side, entered only from the porch which extended along the front of both parts.
He still lay on the litter upon which he had been placed to carry him down the mountain,—an improvised thing made by stretching quilts across two poles of slender green pines. The litter was placed on low trestles to raise it from the floor, and close to the open door to give him air. David had not regained consciousness since his hurt, but lay like one dead, with closed eyes and blanched lips; yet they knew him to be living.
Cassandra sat beside him alone. All night long she had been there unsleeping, hollow-eyed, and worn with tearless grief. She had done all she knew how to do. Before going for help she had removed his clothing and bound about his body strips torn from her dress to stop the bleeding of his shoulders where the silver bullet had torn across them. How the ball had missed giving a mortal wound was like a miracle.