Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/249

237 by that wicked man with the scar in his face—who almost killed you?" she shuddered.

"I can find the place, Linda."

"You may be lost—drowned. The sea is not always kind, mon cher."

"Even so, it would not end much. But it is only a voyage of forty leagues! I will see you, before I go."

He passed through the ancient, crazily leaning gateway, and started up the street, when he heard a woman's scream, and hurried back.

The sullenness of the innkeeper had given way to violent wrath. One clawlike hand was clutched in her luxuriant hair, the other held the heavy leg of a broken stool, and this was falling again and again with a dull thud on the girl's body.

It was strange what strength those slender fingers of the Frenchman possessed. They twisted the dried-up, grasshopper figure of Linda's tormentor into a praying heap on the floor, then threw the offending bank-notes on the pavement beside him.

"Remember, Juan Ferrando, my ears can hear a very long way and if you ever so much as crook one of those evil talons of yours at the girl—I'll return!"

Then he strode out of the café and on up the street, pausing here and there under the striped awnings of the bazaars that lined the malodorous street. It took many impatient and long-drawn-out bargainings with the cunning-eyed, brown-skinned merchants before the necessary purchases for the voyage were completed, and twilight fell before he turned northward again.