Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/213

Rh "No mercy is to be looked for at your hands," said Mehalah sullenly. "Look you here. Glory! the moon is full, and that always makes him madder. I have to keep him short of food, and strap his shoulders, or he would tear the walls down in his fury." "Let me attend to him?" asked Mehalah. "You'd be afraid of him."

"I should pity him," said the girl." He and I are both wretched, both your victims, both prisoners, wearing your chains." "You have no chains round you, Glory." "Have I not? I have, invisible, may be, but firmer, colder, more given to rust into and rub the flesh than those carried by that poor captive. I have tried to break away, but I cannot. You draw me back." "I told you I could. I have threads to every finger, and I can move you as I will. I can bring you into my arms." "That—never," said Mehalah gloomily and leisurely. "You think not?" "I am sure not. You may boast of your power over me. You have a power over me, but that power has its limits. I submit now, but only for my mother's sake. Were she not dependent wholly on me, were she dead, I would defy you and be free, free as the gull yonder." Elijah put his hand inside his door, drew out his gun, and in a moment the gull was seen to fall. "She is not dead," said Mehalah, with a gleam of triumph in her sad face. "No, but winged. The wretch will flutter along disabled. She will try to rise, and each effort will give her mortal agony, and grind the splintered bones together and make the blood bleed away. She will skim a little while above the water, but at length will fall into the waves and be washed ashore dead." "Yes," said Mehalah; "you will not kill, but wound—wound to the quick."

"That is about it. Glory!" "Let me repeat my request," she said; "allow me to attend to your brother. I must have someone, something, to pity and minister to."