“They have killed them all. Even the dogs. There is not one left. All—all are killed. Myso, Oto, Lalman. Oh, they murder them with the knife. I hid in the secret place. It was Oto who gave me warning with his dying words. He was dead—all dead in a moment. I can see the blood on the floor now. Devils came to the house. An army of them. They—Oh!” she cried breaking off the torrent of her disjointed story in a spasm of new horror.
Her gaze had fallen on the still, prone figure at her man’s feet. Her hands dropped from his arm. She moved a step from him, and bending forward, peered down.
“Dead, too,” she said, in a low hushed voice. “Dead!”
Then she recognized the dark features of the boy who was her son. Suddenly a piercing cry broke the silence of the woods about them, and echoed against the far walls that shut in the river.
“Sate!” she cried. “Our Sate!” And in a moment she had flung her frail body upon the still figure stretched upon its bed of wild flowers.
The man looked on. He watched the delicate hands as they beat the ground in his wife’s paroxysm of grief. He listened to her demented shrieks of lamentation. But he gave no sign; he offered no comfort. Maybe he found himself simply helpless. Maybe in his hard, unyielding mood he felt it best that the woman’s storm of grief should spend itself. Perhaps, even, the disaster of his journey home had left him indifferent to everything else. Certainly his cruel eyes were without any softening, without any expression but that which was usual to them.
The woman’s lamentations died down to heart-racked sobs, and the man turned away. He passed slowly down to the boat, so deeply nosed into the mud, and the lessening cries of the distracted mother pursued him. But he no longer gave heed to them.
He laid hold of the canoe and set to hauling it clear of the water. Once, twice, thrice he heaved with all the strength of his powerful body. The boat was half way up the bank. Then, as he lay to the work again, a cry that was something like a snarl broke from him. Some great body had leapt on him from behind. His hold was torn loose from his task, and he was flung bodily, with terrific force, sprawling amidst the radiant flowers that littered the river bank. The dark, avenging figure of the Indian, Usak, stood over him.
For one brief instant eye searched eye. No word passed the lips of either. It was a moment of furious challenge, a moment of murderous purpose. It passed. And its passing came with the lunging of the Indian as he precipitated himself upon his victim.
They lay writhing, and twisting, and struggling on the ground. No vocal sound, no sound but the sound of furious movement came in the struggle. The Indian was uppermost, as he had intended to be from the moment and the method of his attack. He had one object, and one object only.