Then I knew that she had understood all the love she had seen in my face. For, indeed, I would rather had killed my sweetheart a hundred times, than let her fall alive into the hands of such a ghastly, bestial devil's crew.
So Nell Kennedy, trusting me with the manner of her death as though it had been a little love-tryst between ourselves, sat looking up at me with such eyes of love and trust that they went nigh to make me forget that Cimmerian den and the ghoulish beasts that rioted in it.
CHAPTER XLI
THE WERE-WOLF OF BENERARD
Thus we sat a long time, waiting. Suddenly there was a pause in the noise which filled the cavern below. I thought for a moment that they had discovered us. But Marjorie moved her hand a little to bid me keep down. And very carefully I raised my head over the rock, so that through the niche I could as before look down upon them.
The water-door of the cave was now entirely filled by a black bulk, in shape like a grizzly ape. Even in the flickering light I knew instantly that I had seen the monster before. A thrill ran through me when I remembered the man-beast, the thing with which I had grappled in the barn of Culzean the night I out-faced the Grey Man. And now by the silence and the crouching of the horde beneath me, I learned that their master had come home. The monster stood a moment in the doorway as though angered at something, then he spoke in a voice like a beast's growl, certain things which I could not at all understand—though it was clear that his progeny did, for there ensued a tumultuous rushing from side to side. Then Sawny Bean strode into the midst of his den. It happened that by misadventure he stumbled and set his foot upon a lad of six or seven, judging by the size of him, who sprawled naked in the doorway. The imp squirmed round like a serpent and bit Sawny Bean in the leg, whereat he stooped, and catching the lad by the feet, he dashed his head with a dull crash against the wall, and threw him quivering like a dead rabbit into the corner.
The rest stood for a moment aghast. But in a trice, and without a single one so much as going to see if the boy were dead or only stunned, the whole hornet's byke hummed again, and the place was filled with a stifling smell of burning fat and roasting victual, upon the origin of which I dared not let my mind for a moment dwell.
When Sawny Bean came in, he had that which looked like a rich cloth of gold over his arm—the plunder of some poor butchered wretch, belike. He stood with this trophy in front of him, examining it before the fire. Presently he threw it over his shoulders, with the arms hanging idly down in front, and strode about most like a play-actor or a mad person—but manifestly to his own great content and to the huge admiration of his followers, who stood still and gaped after him.
When he had satisfied himself with this posturing, the monster looked towards our place of refuge. A great spasm seized my heart when I saw him take the first step towards us, for I guessed that it was his forbidden treasure-house in which we lurked.
So I thought it had certainly come to the last bitter push with us. But something yet more terrible than the matter of the boy diverted for the moment the monster's attention. The lad whom he had cast to the side had been left alone, none daring to meddle. But now, as he passed him, Sawny Bean gave the body a toss with his foot. At this, quick as a darting falcon on the stoop, a woman sprang at him from, a crevice where she had been crouching—at least by her shape she was a woman, with long elf-locks twisting like snakes about her brow and over her shoulders. She held an open knife in her hand, and she struck at the chieftain's hairy breast. I heard the point strike the flesh, and the cry of anger and pain which followed. But the monster caught the woman by the wrist, pulled her over his knee, and bent back her head. It was a horrid thing to see, and there is small wonder that I can see it yet in many a dream of the night. And no doubt also I shall see it till I die—hear it as well, which is worse.