And of a sudden he heard before him, in the centre of the room, an outburst of breath, an outrush from lungs in the extremity of pain, thick, laborious, fearful. A coughing up of dammed air.
Pushing himself from the arms of the chair, Boaz leaped.
His fingers, passing swiftly through the air, closed on something.
It was a sheaf of hair, bristly and thick. It was a man's beard.
On the road outside, up and down the street for a hundred yards, merry-making people turned to look at one another. With an abrupt cessation of laughter, of speech. Inquiringly. Even with an unconscious dilation of the pupils of their eyes.
"What was that?"
There had been a scream. There could be no doubt of that. A single, long-drawn note. Immensely high-pitched. Not as if it were human.
"God's sake! What was that? Where'd it come from?"
Those nearest said it came from the cobbler-shop of Boaz Negro.
They went and tried the door. It was closed; even locked, as if for the night. There was no light behind the window-shade. But Boaz would not have a light. They beat on the door. No answer.
But from where, then, had that prolonged, as if animal, note come?