As I spoke, the Indian woman grew ungovernable in wild excitement.
“They are on you! They are here!” she screamed.
I felt Manmat’ha stiffen in my arms with deadly terror. Resistless hands dragged us apart and held me absolutely motionless in spite of the deadly agony which filled me, while Manmat’ha’s stifled shriek arose from midway across the room.
“Rachel!” I cried. “For God’s sake, Rachel, bar the door!”
My cry roused the woman from a stupor; she sprang to the door. I heard the noise of many light feet, the sound of a blow, a heavy fall; then a deep silence came.
Bounding from the spot to which unseen hands up to that moment had pressed me, I sprang from the room and followed into the night. The earth reeled past me in my swift flight, until I suddenly stopped myself to ask where I was going. Where indeed? As well follow the wind. Wild as was the hope that moved me to return, I hurried back again to the house. Rachel alone, clad in her poor Indian finery, the medicine-stick broken by her side, lay stretched out dead in the moonlight.
A DARING FICTION.
By H. H. Boyesen.