The Tomahawk., 1920-03-11
CHAPTER X.-Continued.

With her breast rising and falling In
aching accompaniment to the mount
Ing rhythm, cheeks pale, lips parted,
eyes staring in vain pursuit of the In
credible flight of sound, she stood,
slim tense figure for once made free
of that domain that is beyond art, be-
yond genius and is called quite simply,
Gift of God. With toss and back
ward shake of the mans great head,
the voice climbed smoothly to that stu
pendous high 9 that has wrecked the
reputation of many pygmies and
brought fame to daring few. 1t held
and still held until earth and moon and
stars seemed little things that paused
to listen, INSTRUCTED in unimpOrtant
courses. Breath suspended until her
lungs were near to bursting, Andrea
waited for that note to come down in
to the range of normal belief, but to
her mind at least it was destined to
hang eternally in the heavens, for the
man had turned.
Her eyes knew horror for the first
time. The mans face was half oblit-
Grated. 1t had been plowed by conf1u-
ent smallpox and destroyed by worse
disease. The nose was gone, leaving
an ignoble ruin of stripped cartilage,
dried in the air till it was like wealth
cred parchment. One ear had been
ravaged in a clean cut so that it rose
to a needle-point. That the wounds
were healed only added an inexorable
Rno1txv to fhoir ronr1 SfvQnQSS
Only the mans thick red lips and
his blazing eyes seemed to have es-
capped the pestilence. AS his startled
gaze fell upon Andrea his mouth
opened to q wide, soundless laugh.
With broad shoulders stopped, his abb
normally low-hanging hands curved up
like monstrous talOns and his shaggy
beard wagging to that silent laughter,
he advanced upon her, encircled her
waist with his fingers and shot her up
lightly so that she fell doubled across
his back and chest. He gave a .low
whistle and sped from the craal at an
Incredible pace. The boat-boys arose
stealthily and fitted after him.
To Andrea's transfxing terror was
added memory-a fleeing glimpse
Of Trevor, standing, hands in pockets,
before his door. On his face was an
ger-cold, white, unforgiving anger.
She thought she cried out to MacClos-
ter to stop, to give her but one moment
to explain, to beg forgiveness, to
grovel at the feet Of the one man In
all the world, but no sound came from
her lips.
Not until she stood tottering on the
canted bottom Of MacCloster's boat did
life come back to her heart and veins
and lungs. She threw up her head
and screamed as she had never known
mortal could scream-a wild, terror
winged wall of desperate appeal. Mac
Closter snatched tiller from rudder,
struck her across the shoulders,
knocked her, face down, into fetid
bilge-water.
The stencil Of the stale water pro-
6a.ced in her , !. faction; it was so
nauseating that it m omentarily drove
thoughts Of ar. other things from her
mind. She drew away from it and,
crawling to the grated floor Of small
cockpit, crouched in the corner formed
by the gunwale and the after thwart.
Just to her left, so close that even
with head bowed she could not avoid
seeing his enormous feet, sat MacClOs-
ter.
He talked to her steadily in NUT
tering undertone, but a long time
passed before she began to distinguish
one word from another. The mutter-
Ing swelled slowly to a clear and
liquid enunciation; the voice became
like music undefiled. But no longer
could it drug her senses; she shud-
dered, cringed under its terrible
caress. Its beauty had become forever
leprous.
Dear, lovely, vile and sullen per-
son." it was saying, "who would have
thought it? Who would have imagined
that you, q Helen among women, pos
sessed of beauty, youth and a really
lovely evening frock, should have
come so far for a man? Cheer up!
You've found two; one dunghill ban
tam and-and me-"
He laughed, not silently and still not
quite aloud. It was an extraordinary
sound. It awoke in Andrea a chord of
memory. It was not the stereotyped
laughter of the stage; it was more spe-
cialized than that. Then she remem-
bered. His was not the laugh Of an
Individual; it was the clipped, stacca-
to, maddeningly deliberate, "Ha! Ha!
HaNHa! Ha! Ha" Of chorus and
conspirators In the 'Ballo in Mas
chera."
81 ask you, who could have imagined
it?" he continued; then, his voice
thickening to sinister intensity, he
added, II could, d your soft car
cass. Women! Fair women! Ia Ha
Ha! Dreams of fair women! CARR!
Spawn Of hell! Pestilence that sleep
by day and lurk in the shadows of
night and wine. Damnation Of the
flthy byways of the world, parading