He placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned and looked at him. There
was a gravity in his eyes, which startled her.
"Elsie," he said, "you believe in the efficacy of prayer, don't you?
Well, then, pray now a little. I shall be glad to think, when this
time of danger has passed, that we owed something to your invocation."
It was in his mind that he must shoot her within a few seconds, and the
immeasurable agony of the thought reflected itself in his face. He had
no notion that she would give his words a more direct significance than
he intended them to bear. But a strange, hoarse yell of triumph, the
war-cry of an Alaculof leader who had hauled himself to the bridge and
found it undefended, warned her in the same moment that all was not
well with the defense.
She sprang towards the saloon stairs.
"Do you hear that?" she cried in a ringing voice. "There are Indians
on board. Come! We must not stay here when our friends are fighting
for their lives."
Christobal knew that this active girl would readily outstrip him in a
race to the deck. She was already several feet distant, but he must
detain her, no matter what the cost; if she fell into the clutches of
the ghouls then over-running the _Kansas_, she might not be killed, but
only wounded, and her sufferings would be inconceivable ere the end
came.
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