Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/201

Rh up his coat. She searched the pockets. No key was within. She must go to him once more.

He began to shout as he saw the nicker of the candle approach. "Here is the key, take it, and do as you said." His hand, a great coarse hand, was thrust through the opening in the door, and in it was the key she required. "Very well," said she, "I will do as I undertook." She put her hand, the right hand, up to receive the key. In her left was the candlestick. Suddenly he let go the key that clinked down on the floor outside, and made a clutch at her hand and caught her by the wrist. She grasped the bar in the little window, or he would have drawn her hand in, dragged her by the arm up against the door, and broken it. He now held her wrist and with his strong hand strove to wrench her fingers from their clutch. "Unhasp the door!" he howled at her. She did not answer other than with a cry of pain, as he worked with his hand at her wrist, and verily it seemed as though the fragile bones must snap under his drag. "Unhasp the door!" he roared again. With his great fingers and thick nails he began to thrust at and ploughed her knuckles; he had her by the wrist with one hand, and he was striving to loosen her hold of the bar with the other. "Unhasp the door!" he yelled a third time, "or I'll break every bone in your fingers!" and he brought his fist down on the side of the door to show how he would pound them by a blow. If he did not do this at once it was because he dreaded by too heavy a blow to strike the bar and wound himself while crushing her hand. She could not hold the iron stanchion for more than another instant—and then he would drag her arm in, as a lion in its cage when it had laid hold of the incautious visitor, tears him to itself through the bars.

Then she brought the candle-flame up against his hand that grasped her wrist, and it played round it. He uttered a scream of pain, and let go for a moment. But that moment sufficed. She was free. The key was on the floor. She stooped to pick it up; but her fingers were as though paralyzed, she was forced to take it with