Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/301

 fought with their bare hands. I was too frightened even to cry out. It was all a horrible dream. What Madame de Stämer did, I do not know. I could see nothing but two figures twined together on the floor. At last one of them arose. I saw it was my father, and I remember no more.”

She was almost overcome by her tragic recollections, but presently, with a wonderful courage, which, together with her daintiness of form, spoke eloquently of good blood on one side at any rate, continued to speak:

“My father found he must go to Cuba to make arrangements for the future. Of course, our life there was finished. Ah Tsong stayed with me. You have heard how it used to be in those islands in the old days, but now you think it is so different? I used to think it was different, too. On the first night my father was away, Ah Tsong, who had gone out, was so long returning I became afraid. Then a strange negro came with news that he had been taken ill with cholera, and was lying at a place not far from the house. I forgot my fears and hurried off with this man. Ah!”

She laughed wildly.

“I did not know I should never return, and I did not know I should never see my father again. To you this must seem all wild and strange, because there is a law in England. There is a law in Cuba, too, but in some of those little islands the only law is the law of the strongest.”

She raised her hands to her face and there was silence for a while.

“Of course it was a trap,” she presently continued. “I was taken to an island called El Manas which belonged to Señor Menendez, and where he had a house. This he could do, but”—she threw back her head