Текст книги "Eagle in the Sky"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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verge beneath the standing sheets of water, and it swamped the

windshield, so that the efforts of the wipers to clear it were defeated.

David switched on his headlights and drove as fast as he dared, craning

forward in his seat to peer into the impenetrable blue-grey curtains of

rain.

Darkness came early in the rain, beneath the lowering black clouds, and

the wet road dazzled him with the reflections of his own headlights,

while the fat falling drops seemed as big as hailstones.  He was forced

to moderate his speed a little more, creeping down the highway towards

Bandolier Hill.

In the darkness he almost missed the turning, and he reversed back to

it, swinging on to the unmade surface.

It was slushy with mud, puddled and swampy, slippery as grease.

Again he was forced to lower his speed.

Once he lost it, and slid broadside into the drainage ditch.  By packing

loose stones under the wheels and racing the engine he pulled the

Pontiac out and drove on.

By the time he reached the bridge over the Luzane stream, he had been

six hours at the wheel of the Pontiac, and it was a few minutes after

eight o'clock in the evening.

As he reached the bridge the rain stopped abruptly, a freak hole in the

weather.  Directly overhead the stars showed mistily, while around them

the cloud banks swirled, turning slowly, as though upon the axis of a

great wheel.

David's headlights cut through the darkness, out across the mad brown

waters to the far bank a hundred yards away.  The bridge was submerged

under fifteen feet of flood water, and the water was moving so swiftly

that its waves and whirlpools seemed sculptured in polished brown

marble, and the trunks of uprooted trees dashed downstream upon the

flood.

It seemed impossible that the bed of this raging torrent had been the

narrow sandy bed in which Johan Akkers had run down Conrad with the

green Ford truck.

David climbed out of the Pontiac and walked down to the edge of the

water.  As he stood there he saw the level creeping up perceptively

towards his feet.  It was still rising.

He looked up at the sky, and judged that the respite in the weather

would not last much longer.

He reached his decision and ran back to the Pontiac.

He reversed well back onto the highest ground and parked it off the

verge with the headlights still directed at the river edge.  Then,

standing beside the door, he stripped down to his shirt and underpants.

He pulled his belt from the loops of his trousers and buckled it about

his waist, then he tied his shoes to the belt by their laces.

Barefooted he ran to the edge of the water, and began to feel his way

slowly down the bank.  It shelved quickly and within a few paces he was

knee-deep and the current plucked at him, viciously trying to drag him

off-balance.

He posed like that, braced against the current, and waited, staring

upstream.  He saw the tree trunk coming down fast on the flood, with its

roots sticking up like beseeching arms.  It was swinging across the

current and would pass him closely.

He judged his moment and lunged for it.  Half a dozen strong strokes

carried him to it and he grasped one of the roots.  Instantly he was

whisked out of the beams of the headlight into the roaring fury of the

river.  The tree rolled and bucked, carrying him under and bringing him

up coughing and gasping.

Something struck him a glancing blow and he felt his shirt tear and the

skin beneath it rip.  Then he was under water again, swirling end over

end and clinging desperately to his log.

All about him the darkness was filled with the rush and threat of crazy

water, and he was buffeted and flogged by its raw strength, grazed and

bruised by rocks and driftwood.

Suddenly he felt the log check and bump against an obstruction, turning

and swinging out into the current again.

David was blinded with muddy water and he knew there was a limit to how

much more of this treatment he could survive.  Already he was weakening

quickly.

He could feel his mind and his movements slowing, like a battered prize

fighter in the tenth round.

He gambled it all on the obstruction which the log had encountered being

the far bank, and he released his death-grip on the root and stuck out

sideways across the current with desperate strength.

His overarm stroke ended in the trailing branches of a thorn tree

hanging over the storm waters.  Thorns tore the flesh of his palm as his

grip closed over them, and he cried out at the pain but held on.

Slowly he dragged himself out of the flood and crawled up the bank,

hacking and coughing at the water in his lungs.  Clear of the river, he

fell on his face in the mud and vomited a gush of swallowed water that

shot out of his nose and mouth.

He lay exhausted for a long while, until his coughing slowed and he

could breathe again.  His shoes had been torn from his belt by the

current.  He dragged himself to his feet and staggered forward into the

darkness.  As he ran, he held his hand to his face, pulling the broken

thorns from the flesh of his palm with his teeth.

Stars were still showing overhead and by their feeble light he made out

the road, and he began to run along it, gathering strength with each

pace.  It was very still now, with only the dripping of the trees and

the occasional far-off murmur of thunder to break the silence.

Two miles from the homestead, David made out the dark bulk of something

on the side of the road, and it was only when he was a few paces from it

that he realized it was an automobile, a late model Chevy.  It had been

abandoned, bogged down in one of the greasy mudholes, that the rains had

opened.

The doors were unlocked and David switched on the interior and parking

lights.  There was dried blood on the seat, a dark smear of it, and on

the back seat was a bundle of clothing.  David untied it quickly and

recognized immediately the coarse canvas suiting as regulation prison

garb.  He stared at it stupidly for a moment, until the impact of it

struck him.

The car was stolen, the blood probably belonging to the unfortunate

owner.  The prison garb had been exchanged for other clothing, probably

taken from the body of the owner of the Chevy.

David knew then beyond all possible doubt that Johan Akkers was at

Jabulani, and that he had arrived before the bridge over the Luzane

stream had become impassable, probably three or four hours previously.

David threw the prison suiting back into the car, and he began to run.

Johan Akkers drove the Chevy across the Luzane bridge with the rising

waters swirling over the guard rail, and with the rain teeming down in

blinding white sheets.

The muddy water shoved at the body of the car, making steering

difficult, and it seeped in under the doors, flooding the floorboards

and swirling about Akkers feet; but he reached the safety of the far

bank and raced the engine as he shot up it.  The wheels spun on the soft

mud, and the Chevy skidded and swayed drunkenly in the loose footing.

The closer he drew to Jabulani the more reckless he became in his haste.

Before his conviction and imprisonment, ARkers had been a twisted and

blighted creature, a man of deep moods and passionate temper.  Feeling

himself rejected and spurned by his fellow men he had lived in a world

of swift defensive violence, but always he had kept within the bounds of

reason.

However, during the two years that he had laboured and languished within

prison walls, his anger and his lust for vengeance had driven him over

that narrow boundary.

Vengeance had become the sole reason for his existence, and he had

rehearsed it a hundred times each day.

He had planned his prison break to give himself three days of freedom,

after that it did not matter.  Three days would be enough.

He had infected his own jaw, running a needle poisoned with his excreta

deeply into the gum.  They had taken him to the dental clinic as he had

planned.  The guard had been easily handled, and the dentist had

cooperated with a scalpel held to his throat.

Once clear of the prison, Akkers had used the scalpel, vaguely surprised

by the volume of blood that could issue from a human throat.  He had

left the dentist slumped over his steering-wheel on a plot of waste

ground and, with his white laboratory gown over his prison suit, he had

waited at a set of traffic lights.

The shiny new Chevy had pulled up for a red light and Akkers had opened

the passenger door and slid in beside the driver.

He had been a smaller man than Akkers, plump and Prosperous-looking,

with a smooth pale face and soft little hairless hands on the

steering-wheel.  He had obeyed meekly Akkers instruction to drive on.

Akkers had rolled his soft white body, clad only in vest and shorts,

into a clump of thick grass beside a disused secondary road and pulled

the grass closed over him, then he had beaten the first road block out

of the city area by forty minutes.

He stayed on the side roads, picking his way slowly eastwards.  The

infection in his jaw had ached intolerably despite the shot of

antibiotics the dentist had given him, and his crippled claw of a hand

had been awkward and clumsy on the gear lever, for the severed nerves

and sinews had never knitted again.  The hand was a dead and insensate

thing.

Using the caution of a natural predator and helped by the newsflashes on

the radio, he had groped his way carefully through the net that was

spread for him, and now he was on Jabulani and he could restrain himself

no longer.

He hit the mud hole at forty and the Chevy whipped and spun, slewing her

back end deep into the mud and high-centring her belly on the soft ooze.

He left her there and went on swiftly through the rain, loping on long

legs.  Once he giggled and sucked at his teeth, but then he was silent

again.

It was dark by the time he climbed the kopie behind Jabulani homestead.

He lay there for two hours peering down into the driving rain, waiting

for the darkness.

Once night fell, he could see no lights, and he began to worry, there

should have been lights burning.

He left the kopje and moved cautiously through the darkness down the

hill.  He avoided the servants quarters, and went through the trees to

the landing-strip.

He ran into the side of the hanger in the dark and followed the wall to

the side doorway.

Frantically he spread his arms and felt for the aircraft that should be

here, and when he realized that it was not he let out a groan of

frustration.

They were gone.  He had planned and schemed in vain, all his desperate

striving was in vain.

Growling like an animal, he smashed the fist of his good hand against

the wall, enjoying the pain of it in his frustration, and his anger and

his hatred was so strong that it shook his body like a fever, and he

cried out aloud, a formless animal cry without coherence or sense.

Suddenly the rain stopped.  The heavy drum of it upon the iron roof of

the hangar ceased so abruptly that Akkers was distracted.  He went to

the opening and looked out.

The stars were swimming mistily above him, and the only sound was the

gurgle and chuckle of running water and the dripping of the trees.

There was the glimmering of light now, and he saw the white walls of the

homestead shine amongst the trees.  He could do damage there, Akkers

realized.  He could find there some outlet for his terrible frustration.

There was furniture to smash, and the thatch would burn, if lit from

inside, the thatch would burn even in this weather.

He stared towards the homestead through the dark sodden trees.

Debra woke in the silence.  She had fallen asleep in the midst of the

storm, perhaps as a form of escape.

Now she groped for the warm comforting body of the dog but he was gone.

There was a patch of warmth on the bed beside her where he had lain.

She listened intently and there was nothing but the soft sounds of water

in the guttering and far-off the growl of thunder.  She remembered her

earlier panic and she was ashamed.

She stood up from the bed and she was shivering with the cold in her

loose, free-flowing dark blue maternity blouse, and the elastic-fronted

slacks that were adjustable to her expanding waistline.  She felt with

her toes and found the light ballet pumps on the stone floor and pushed

her feet into them.

She started towards her dressing-room for a sweater, then she would make

herself a cup of hot soup, she decided.

Zulu started barking.  He was outside in the front garden.  Clearly he

had left the house through the small hinged doorway that David had built

especially for him in the veranda wall.

The dog had many barks, each with a different meaning which Debra

understood.

A self-effacing woof, that was the equivalent of the watch-man's Ten

o'clock on a June night, and all's well.  Or a longer-drawn-out yowl,

that meant, There is a full moon out tonight, and the wolf's blood in my

veins will not allow me to sleep.

A sharper, meaningful bark, Something is moving down near the pump

house. It may be a lion.  And then there was an urgent clamouring

chorus, There is dire danger threatening.  Beware!

Beware!  It was the danger bark now, and then growling through closed

jaws as though he were worrying something.

Debra went out on to the veranda and she felt the puddled rainwater

soaking through her light shoes.  Zulu was harrying something in the

front garden, she could hear the growling and scuffling, the movement of

bodies locked in a struggle.  She stood silently, uncertain of what to

do, knowing only that she could not go out to Zulu.  She was blind and

helpless against the unknown adversary.  As she hesitated she heard

clearly the sound of a heavy blow.  it cracked on bone, and she heard

the thump of a body falling.  Zulu's growls were cut off abruptly, and

there was silence.  Something had happened to the dog.

Now she was completely alone in the silence.

No, not silence.  There was the sound of breathing a heavy panting

breath.

Debra shrank back against the veranda wall, listening and waiting.

She heard footsteps, human footsteps coming through the garden towards

the front door.  The footsteps squelched and splashed in the rain

puddles.

She wanted to call out a challenge, but her voice was locked in her

constricted throat.  She wanted to run, but her legs were paralysed by

the sound of the intruder climbing the front steps.

A hand brushed against the wire scieening, and then settled on the

handle, rattling it softly.

At last Debra found her voice.  Who is that?  she called, a high panicky

cry that ran out into the night silence.

Instantly the soft sounds ceased.  The intruder was frozen by her

challenge.  She could imagine whoever it was standing on the top step,

peering through the screening into the darkness of the veranda, trying

to make her out in the gloom.  Suddenly she was thankful for the dark

blouse and black slacks.

She waited motionlessly, listening, and she heard a little wind shake

the tree-tops, bringing down a sudden quick patter of droplets.  A

hunting owl called down near the dam.  She heard the thunder murmur

bad-temperedly along the hills, and a nightiar screeched harshly from

amongst the poinsettia bushes.

The silence went on for a long time, and she knew she could not stand it

much longer.  She could feel her lips beginning to quiver and the cold

and fear and the weight of the child were heavy upon her bladder, she

wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run to.

Then suddenly the silence was broken.  In the darkness there was the

sound of a man giggling.  It was shockingly close and clear, and it was

a crazy sound.  The shock of it seemed to clutch at her heart and crush

the air from her lungs.  Her legs went weak under her, beginning to

shake, and the pressure on her bladder was intolerable, for she

recognized the sound of that laughter, the sick insane sound of it was

graven upon her mind.

A hand shook the door handle, jerking and straining at it.  Then a

shoulder crashed into the narrow frame.  It was a screen door, not built

to withstand rough treatment.  Debra knew it would yield quickly.

She screamed then, a high ringing scream of terror, and it seemed to

break the spell which held her.  Her legs would move again, and her

brain would work.

She whirled and ran back into her workroom, slamming the door and

locking it swiftly.

She crouched beside the door, thinking desperately.

She knew that as soon as he broke into the house Akkers need only switch

on a light.  The electricity generator would automatically kick in on

demand, and in the light he would have her at his mercy.  Her only

protection was darkness.  In the darkness she would have the advantage,

for she was accustomed to it.

She had heard the nightjar and the owl calling so she knew that night

had fallen, and it was probable that the raincloud still blanketed moon

and stars.  Darkness was out there in the forest.  She must get out of

the house, and try to reach the servants quarters.

She hurried through the rooms towards the rear of the house, and as she

went she thought of a weapon.  The firearms were locked in the steel

cabinet in David's office, and the key was with him.  She ran through to

the kitchen and her heavy walking-stick was in its place by the door.

She grasped it thankfully and slipped open the door catch.

At that moment she heard the front door crash open, with the lock kicked

in, and she heard Akkers charge heavily into the living-room.  She

closed the kitchen door behind her and started across the yard.  She

tried not to run, she counted her steps.  She must not lose her way. She

must find the track around the kopje to the servants hutments.

Her first landmark was the gate in the fence that ringed the homestead.

Before she reached it she heard the electricity generator throb to life

in the power house beyond the garages.  Akkers had found a light switch.

She was slightly off in her direction and she ran into the barbed-wire

fence.  Frantically she began to feel her way along it, trying for the

gate.  Above her head she heard the buzz and crackle of the element in

one of the arc lamps that lined the fence and could flood the gardens

with light.

Akkers must have found the switch beside the kitchen door, and Debra

realized that she must be bathed in the light of the arcs.

She heard him shout behind her, and knew that he had seen her.  At that

moment she found the gate, and with a sob of relief she tore it open and

began to run.

She must get out of the light of the arcs, she must find the darkness.

Light was mortal danger, darkness was sanctuary.

The track forked, left to the pools, right to the hutments.  She took

the right-hand path and ran along it.

Behind her she heard the gate clank shut.  He was after her.

She counted as she ran, five hundred paces to the rock on the left side

of the path that marked the next fork.

She tripped over it, falling heavily and barking her shins.

She rolled to her knees, and she had lost the walkingstick.  She could

not waste precious seconds in searching for it.  She groped for the path

and ran on.

Fifty paces and she knew she was on the wrong fork.

This path lead down to the pumphouse, and she was not familiar with it.

It was not one of her regular routes.

She missed a turn and ran into broken ground.  She stumbled on until

rank grass wrapped about her ankles and brought her down again, falling

heavily on her side so that she was winded.

She was completely lost, but she knew she was out of the arc lights now.

With luck she was shielded by complete darkness, but her heart was

racing and she felt nauseous with terror.

She tried to control her gulping, sobbing breath, and to listen.

She heard him coming then, pounding footsteps that rang clearly, even on

the rain-soaked earth.  He seemed to be coming directly to where she

lay, and she shrank down against the wet earth and she pressed her face

into her arms to hide her face and muffle her breathing.

At the last moment his blundering footsteps passed her closely, and ran

on.  She felt sick with relief, but it was premature for abruptly the

footsteps ceased and he was so close she could hear him panting.

He was listening for her, standing close beside where she lay in the

grass.  They stayed like that during the long slow passage of minutes.

For Debra it seemed an eternity of waiting, broken at last by his voice.

All!  There you are, he giggled, there you are.  I can see you.  Her

heart jumped with shock, He was closer than she had thought.  Almost she

jumped up and began to run again, but some deeper sense restrained her.

I can see you hiding there, he repeated, giggling and snickering.  I've

got a big knife here, I'm going to hold you down and cut She quailed in

the grass, listening to the awful obscenities that poured from his

mouth.  Then suddenly she realized that she was safe here.  She was

covered by the night and the thick grass, and he had lost her.  He was

trying to panic her, make her run again and betray her position.  She

concentrated all her attention on remaining absolutely still and silent.

Akker's threats and sadistic droolings ended in silence again.  He

listened for her with the patience of the hunter, and the long minutes

dragged by.

The ache in her bladder was like a red-hot iron, and she wanted to sob

out loud.  Something loathsome crawled out of the wet grass over her

arm.  Her skin prickled with fresh horror at the feel of multiple insect

feet on her skin, but she steeled herself not to move.

The thing, scorpion or spider, crawled across her neck and she knew her

nerves would crack within seconds.

Suddenly Akkers spoke again.  All right!  he said, I'm going back to

fetch a flashlight.  .  We'll see how far you get then.  I'll be back

soon, don't think you'll beat old Akkers.  He's forgotten more tricks

than you'll ever learn.

He moved away heavily, noisily, and she wanted to strike the insect from

her cheek and run again, but some instinct warned her.  She waited five

minutes, and then ten.  The insect moved up into her hair.

Akkers spoke again out of the darkness near her.  All right, you clever

bitch.  We'll get you yet, and she heard him move away.  This time she

knew he had gone.

She brushed the insect from her hair, shuddering with horror.  Then she

stood up and moved quietly into the forest.  Her fingers were stiff and

cold on the fastenings of her slacks, but she loosened them and squatted

to relieve the burning ache in her lower belly.

She stood up again and felt the child move within her body.  The feel of

it evoked all her maternal instincts of protection.  She must find a

safe place for her child.  She thought of the hide by the pools.

How to reach them?  For she was now completely lost.

Then she remembered David telling her about the wind, the rain wind out

of the west, now reduced to an occasional light air, and she waited for

the next breath of it on her cheek.  It gave her direction.  She turned

her back to the next gust and set off steadily through the forest with

hands held out ahead to prevent herself running into one of the trunks.

If only she could reach the pools, she could follow the bank to the

hide.

As the cyclonic winds at the centre of the storm turned upon their axis,

so they swung, changing direction constantly and Debra followed them

faithfully, beginning a wide aimless circle through the forest.

Akkers raged through the brightly lit homestead of Jabulani, jerking

open drawers and kicking in locked cupboard doors.

He found the gun cabinet in David's office, and ransacked the desk

drawers for keys.  He found none, and giggled and swore with

frustration.

He crossed the room to the built-in cupboard unit.

There was a sealed-cell electric lantern on the shelf with a dozen

packets of shotgun shells.  He took down the lantern eagerly and thumbed

the switch.  The beam was bright white, even in the overhead lights, and

he sucked his teeth and chuckled happily.

Once more he ran into the kitchen, pausing to select a long

stainless-steel carving knife from the cutlery drawer before hurrying

across the yard to the gate and along the path.

In the lantern beam, Debra's footprints showed clearly in the soft earth

with his own overlaying them.  He followed them to where she had

blundered off the path, and found the mark of her body where she had

lain.

Clever bitch, he chuckled again and followed her tracks through the

forest.  She had laid an easy trail to follow, dragging a passage

through the rain-heavy grass and wiping the droplets from the stems.  To

the hunter's eye it was a clearly blazed trail.

Every few minutes he paused to throw the beam of the lantern ahead of

him amongst the trees.  He was thrilling now to the hunter's lust, the

primeval force which was the mainspring of his existence.  His earlier

set-back made the chase sweeter for him.

He went on carefully, following the wandering trail, the aimless

footprints turning haphazardly in a wide circle.

He stopped again and panned the lantern beam across the rain-laden grass

tops, and he saw something move at the extreme range of the lamp,

something pale and round.

He held it in the lantern beam, and saw the woman's pale strained face

as she moved forward slowly and hesitantly.  She went like a

sleep-walker, with arms extended ahead of her, and with shuffling

uncertain gait.

She was coming directly towards him, oblivious of the light which held

her captive in its beam.  Once she paused to hug her swollen belly and

sob with weariness and fear.

The legs of her trousers were sodden with rain water and her flimsy

shoes were already torn, and as she hobbled closer he saw that her arms

and her lips were blue and shivering with the cold.

Akkers stood quietly watching her coming towards him, like a chicken

drawn to the swaying cobra, Her long dark hair hung in damp ropes down

her shoulders, and dangled in her face.  Her thin blouse was wet also

with drops fallen from the trees, and it was plastered over the

thrusting mound of her belly.

He let her come closer, enjoying the fierce thrill of having her in his

power.  Drawing out the final consummation of his vengeance, hoarding

each moment of it like a miser.

When she was five paces from him he played the beam full in her face,

and he giggled.

She screamed, her whole face convulsing, and she whirled like a wild

animal and ran blindly.  Twenty flying paces before she ran headlong

into the stem of a morula, tree.

She fell back, collapsing to her knees and sobbed aloud, clutching at

her bruised cheek.

Then she scrambled to her feet and stood shivering, turning her head and

cocking it for the next sound.

Silently he moved around her, drawing close and he giggled again, close

behind her.

She screamed again and ran blindly, panic-stricken, witless with terror

until an ant-bear hole caught her foot and flung her down heavily to the

ground, and she lay there sobbing.

Akkers moved leisurely and silently after her, he was enjoying himself

for the first time in two years.  Like a cat he did not want to end it,

he wanted it to last a long time.

He stooped over her and whispered a filthy word, and instantly she

rolled to her feet and was up and running again, wildly, sightlessly,

through the trees.  He followed her, and in his crazed mind she became a

symbol Of all the thousand animals he had hunted and killed.

David ran barefooted in the soft earth of the road.  He ran without

feeling his bruised and torn skin, without feeling the pounding of his

heart nor the protest of his lungs.

As the road rounded the shoulder of the hill and dipped towards the

homestead he stopped abruptly, and stared panting at the lurid glow of

the arc lights that flood lit the grounds and garden of Jabulani.  It

made no sense that the floodlights should be burnin& and David felt a

fresh flood of alarm.  He sprinted on down the hill.

He ran through the empty, ransacked rooms shouting her name, but the

echoes mocked him.

When he reached the front veranda he saw something moving in the

darkness, beyond the broken screen door.

Zulu!  He ran forward.  Here, boy!  Here, boy!  Where is she?  The dog

staggered up the steps towards him, his tail wagged a perfunctory

greeting, but he was obviously hurt.  A heavy blow along the side of his

head had broken the jaw, or dislocated it, so that it hung lopsided and

grotesque.  He was still stunned, and David knelt beside him.

Where is she, Zulu?  Where is she?  The dog seemed to make an effort to

gather its scattered wits.  Where is she, boy?  She's not in the house.

Where is she?  Find her, boy, find her.  He led the labrador out into

the yard, and he followed gamely as David circled the house.  At the

back door Zulu picked up the scent on the fresh damp earth.  He started

resolutely towards the gate, and David saw the footprints in the

floodlights, Debra's and the big masculine prints which ran after them.

As Zulu crossed the yard, David turned back into his office.  The

lantern was missing from its shelf, but there was a five-cell flashlight

near the back.  He shoved it into his pocket and grabbed a handful of

shotgun shells.

Then he went quickly to the gun cabinet and unlocked it.  He snatched

the Purdey shotgun from the rack and loaded it as he ran.

Zulu was staggering along the path beyond the gates, and David hurried

after him.

Johann Akkers was no longer a human being, he had become an animal.  The

spectacle of the running quarry had roused the predator's single-minded

passion to chase and drag down and kill, yet it was seasoned with a

feline delight in torment.  He was playing with his wounded dragging

prey, running it when he could have ended it, drawing it out, postponing

the climax, the final consuming thrill of the kill.

The moment came at last, some deep atavistic sense of the ritual of the

hunt, for all sport killing has its correct ceremony, and Akkers knew it

must end now.

He came up behind the running figure and reached out to take a twist of

the thick dark hair in the crippled claw of his hand, wrapping it with a

quick movement about his wrist and jerking back her head, laying open

the long pale throat for the knife.

She turned upon him with a strength and ferocity he had not anticipated.