Part 36 (2/2)
Undaunted, her courage arose to the occasion. She had come prepared for trouble of a most serious nature, and in her determination to succeed, it mattered little, now that she had shaken off the first trembling of fear, whether one or more men stood in her way.
She stepped over close to Jack, bent forward and looked up sideways in his face, a magnetic fire scintillating from her eyes that seemed to pierce his inmost thought, and slowly drew his gaze to her. Under the spell Jack forgot his a.s.sumed character, for once he forgot to use the Dago dialect.
”Don't look at me in that way; it was not all my work,” he said, apologetically.
He had spoken in plain English. Yet in Virginia's tensely excited frame of mind it pa.s.sed unchallenged.
”You acknowledge a share in it. And if you lay a hand on her child, I'll call down upon you the blasphemy of a madhouse.”
The art she employed to play upon his heightened imagination was intensely eloquent, and exquisitely enacted. On the impulse of the moment the threat served to unnerve him completely and had Jack been the only one to deal with, their escape at that moment would have been certain.
A prey to his own secret superst.i.tion, though openly ridiculed theosophy, Jack stood spellbound, his fear distorted by the influence of the liquor he had drunk.
True, Rutley had braced him some, but Virginia threw about him a glow of such awesome consequences that he again weakened and unconsciously repeated under his breath: ”The curse of a madhouse! Oh, I can't do it! I'm a bit human yet.”
Then came a second roar from Rutley, impatient and contemptuous.
”Separate them, you chicken-hearted knave! Separate them, d.a.m.n you, and be quick about it, too!” A slight jar at that moment struck the cabin.
Jack came out of his semi-trance with a shudder and, recovering his nerve, seemed to be disgusted at his momentary weakness, and forthwith he attempted to get between the women and the cabin door, addressing the child:
”A Daize a mus stay a dare. Yous a lak a me, eh a Daize?”
”Wretch, stand back!” Virginia commanded. She realized that the supreme moment had come.
Jack leered at her. Without further heed he addressed the child:
”A Daize, yous a da know I beez a kind to you,” and he took hold of her arms. ”Let a da go Eesa say hic. Let a da go da kid.”
”No, no!” Constance cried, as she resisted his effort to separate them. ”You shall not have my darling! You shall not take her again.”
”Take your villainous hands off!” ordered Virginia, and at the same time she dealt him a stinging blow in the face, which caused him to loose his hold on Dorothy and stagger back.
At that moment, too, he was startled by footsteps on the roof. He paused with a confused idea whether the sound on the roof had not really emanated from Rutley in the other room. Concluding in favor of the latter, he continued: ”Yous a da defy a me eh, hic, sacramente!
Eesa mak a da let a go da kid, or eesa break a da arm.”
Meanwhile Virginia had placed herself between Constance and Jack and, drawing a revolver from under her jacket, leveled it at him.
Utterly reckless of her own danger, and her eyes ablaze with daring she exclaimed in a voice low and thrilling with intense determination, ”Stand where you are, you vile epitome of a man! Dare try to bar our way out, and witness heaven, I'll rid the earth of a scoundrel too long infesting it!”
A quaking pause followed, more trying to her nerves than the peril of the situation itself, and she backed toward the door.
Her action provoked an exclamation from Jack. ”G.o.d, the girl's game!”
He stood mentally measuring the s.p.a.ce that separated them, while a cunning leer developed on his face. He was about to spring, when Sam's shuffling on the roof became distinct.
”Another accomplice! G.o.d protect the child!” murmured Virginia. And then in the moment of her dismay, Jack sprang forward and grasped her pistol hand. She fired, but the excitement had unnerved her, and the bullet went wide of its mark.
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