Page:The Great Secret.djvu/263

Rh stubbly red beard all bristly and horrible; added to these his fang-like teeth, blackened with tobacco chewing, that showed up, now that the contracted muscles of the upper lip had drawn it back in a beast-like snarl. A savage of prodigious strength still and ravenous desires, with his freckled skin, like the others, baked almost black with twenty days of neglect and tropical sunshine.

He was speaking in a husky and horrible whisper while the doctor listened.

"When the Indians are on the march, and grub becomes scarce, they tomahawk their women, and wolf them. She won't last long, and every day will dry her up more. What's the good of keeping her?"

The baroness had fawned upon, kissed and fondled this uncouth monster on the island, but he owed her no gratitude for that.

"She isn't half the bulk she was three days ago; she'll go most likely to-morrow, and then there won't be any moisture in her—it will be like chewing one's boots."

"You seem to know about these affairs," said the doctor.

"I have been lost at sea before, therefore, of course, I do know how they taste, if it is put off too long," replied Dennis huskily. "She won't be much good now, but to-morrow she'll be worse."

"Wait till night, comrade, and then you can do as you like with her; I don't care to take that kind of feast in daylight."

They sat together, and watched the thin figure of the woman at their feet, as a cat watches a canary, all through the afternoon. She did not move, but lay as if asleep, insensible to all as yet, for women develop