Page:Rowland--In the shadow.djvu/292

 the impact sent the man reeling backward; the rifle flew from him.

His companions, startled, fell back a pace and it was at this moment that Dessalines, trapped animal that he was, saw his opening for escape. Straight from the feet of Virginia he sprang, struck; sprang again like a black panther, and like the great cat he fell upon his prey. Before the terrified man could recover himself the negro's great paw was upon his throat.

Right from his feet he swung the screaming man as one might swing up a sack of corn; up he swung him, and with a circular twist of one great arm threw him across his shoulder, and as the writhing body went backward, suspended alone from that single strangling grip, those listening heard a muffled click; such a noise as might be made by a snapping twig, but duller—and the writhing ceased.

Before one could interfere or a shot be fired Dessalines, his body shielded in part by that of his victim, had dashed down the bank, out upon the dike, and so to the swamp beyond.

When he had disappeared Virginia turned. The men had gone; she was quite alone. The sun was setting; shadows were creeping over the Caw Caw Swamp.

The drab, flat line drawn by the stagnant water upon the cypress boles, marked the point of separation between life and death. Strangely the death was all above it, the life beneath; weird, monstrous, slimy, unknown forms of life; the life that is born of death, for the existence of which death is the primary necessity; the life of the reek and ooze which belongs itself to an age long dead. 282