“O-o-h!–he didn’t see me!” she murmured. Her frantic strength vanished, and a deathly sickness came upon her. She felt herself going, and sought to kneel to ease the fall.
She was roused from the swoon by Blake’s resonant shout: “Hey, Miss Jenny! where are you? We’ve got your laundry on the pole in fine shape!”
The girl’s flaccid limbs grew tense, and her body quivered with a shudder of dread and loathing. Yet she set her little white teeth, and forced herself to rise and go out to face the men. Both met her look with a blank stare of consternation.
“What is it, Miss Genevieve?” cried Winthrope. “You’re white as chalk!”
“It’s the fever!” growled Blake. “She’s in the cold stage. Get a pot on. We’ll–”
“No, no; it’s not that! It’s only–I’ve been frightened!”
“Frightened?”
“By a–a dreadful beast!”
“Beast!” repeated Blake, and his pale eyes flashed as he sprang across to where his bow and arrows and his club leaned against the baobab. “I’ll have no beasts nosing around my dooryard! Must be that skulking lion I heard last night. I’ll show him!” He caught up his weapons and stalked off down the cleft.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Winthrope; “the man really must be mad. Call him back, Miss Genevieve. If anything should happen to him–”