Escape! What did it mean? What could it mean?
She abruptly turned away. She bent down and gathered up her sewing and her book. Then she passed rapidly behind the screen which sheltered her couch. Only for one instant did she pause before passing out of view. It was to regard again, with a gaze that was filled with horror and terror, the poor thing that had brought her warning.
Usak was standing in the middle of the great room. He was gazing about him. His dark eyes were aflame with furious desire. His great body bulked enormously and his rough clothing left him a sinister figure in a place of such lavish refinement.
He took in every detail of the place, and at last his fierce eyes came to rest on the dead creature lying just within the doorway. He stared at it without pity or remorse. Without a sign of added emotion. His thin lips were shut tight and the muscles of his jaws stood out with the intensity of their grip. That was all.
After awhile he moved away. He passed over to the couch sheltered by the screen. He bent over it searching closely, and from among the cushions drew some fragments of sewing silk and cuttings of material. He gazed at them. But he was not thinking of them. He was thinking of another woman, a woman whose hands had been accustomed to ply a needle, and to cut out material. But the material was different. It was less refined, rougher. In Usak’s mind Pri-loo’s sewing was mostly to do with the buckskin and beads so dear to the Indian heart.
He flung the things aside. Then he hurried from the room, passing again the doorway through which he had followed the man he had slain.
CHAPTER VIII
THE VALLEY OF THE FIRE HILLS
The sun blazed down on a silent world. The glare was merciless, and the heat, by reason of the weight of moisture saturating the atmosphere of the valley, was almost a torture.