The face of the young Apache became impassive. He turned about and spoke softly to Slade. The trader, half dead from his wounds, raised his big head to mumble a denial.
At a word from Cochise, one of his men ran to fetch Elsie's brazier from the living room. In the bottom of the brazier was still a bed of glowing coals. The Apaches cut free one of Slade's feet and started to thrust it in upon the fire.
Carmena flung up her hands before her eyes.
"No!—no, Cochise!" she cried. "Kill him—he deserves to be killed! But not the torture—I can't bear it! I'll try to find Elsie for you. I think I know where she's hidden."
Lennon stared, more than ever filled with horror of her treachery.
"You—you!" he grasped. "That child—give her, to save that scoundrel?"
"And ourselves," added Carmena, her lips curved in a cajoling smile at Cochise. "When I've found her—and the tizwin—we'll be friends. Won't we, Cochise?"
"Sure. Dam' good friends," smoothly agreed the Apache. "You find my woman quick, I let you go. Sabe?"
"And the tizwin—the barrels of tizwin," added Carmena. "Come on, all of us together—— You, too, Jack."
She signed to the Apaches and called out a few words in their own thick guttural tongue.