Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/148

 in the forest, the girl appeared, standing at a distance of a dozen paces, one hand raised to her pale and distressed face while the other grasped an automatic pistol. Her eyes were fixed upon the body of Eckstrom slowly crushing a new bed for itself in the ferns.

"Lahleet!" Harrington cried.

"The—the horrid brute!" she shuddered, and flung the pistol from her with the last atom of her strength, then fell fainting to the ground.

Harrington caught her almost as she fell.

"Lahleet!" he pleaded frantically, at the same time shaking her gently as if to rouse her. "Lahleet!" Slowly the dark eyes opened, slowly consciousness of her surroundings appeared to bear in upon her mind.

"Your gold!" she exclaimed with a start. "Your gold! Did you leave it alone? There are other men upon the island."

"Never mind the gold!" cried Harrington fiercely. "Are you injured?" His eyes searched her face solicitously, as tenderly he pressed her soft body against his own. How dear she was! What an exquisite little thing of her kind! But she would not be coddled and swung her feet to the ground, steadying herself by a clasp upon his shoulder.

"No, not injured!" she gasped, with a natural satisfaction, and her expression—it seemed to him—was not so much horror that she had taken human life as satisfaction that she had done a viper to his death.

"It's the Indian in her," Harrington thought.

"Your gold!" she insisted. "Your gold!"

Harrington had become suddenly anxious enough. The mere thought of the twenty thousand dollars alone and unguarded—for a time he had not thought of it