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Updated: May 29, 2025
Thus Jim Kendric sat at the other end of the table in a chair like Zoraida's. At his right was Betty who, since she averted her face from both him and Zoraida, kept her eyes on her plate. At his left was Ruiz Rios. To right and left of Zoraida sat Bruce and Barlow.
It was barely two hours after night set in when we were all on board the vessel, where the cords were removed from the hands of Zoraida's father, and the napkin from his mouth; but the renegade once more told him not to utter a word, or they would take his life.
Another moment and Zoraida and Jim were in the room which appeared always to be pitch black. But from here on the way was no longer the same. He heard Zoraida's quiet breathing at his side. She stood a long time without moving, apparently waiting or listening, and he stood as still. Then she put out her hand and caught his sleeve and he followed her again.
Kendric knew something of Zoraida's bravado, no little of her supreme assurance, much of her methods. Plainly she had gone straight to Bruce after the raid. He could see the picture of her coming out of the lurid night and into the experience of a boy all unnerved by his anger and grief.
He realized soberly that Betty must not again fall into Zoraida's hands; that the result, inevitably, would be her death. Were Zoraida mad or sane, she was filled with a frenzy of blood lust. There was danger enough without his increasing it for the sake of coming an hour sooner with food. In one day Betty would not starve and fast she must.
You see, she must be thinking all those things." The sweat broke out on Kendric's forehead, he felt as though ice ran in his veins. If he only knew where all this was going on! Was it above him or below, to right or left? Ten steps or a hundred yards away? "By God " he shouted. But only Zoraida's merciless laughter answered him.
The mockery of her look disturbed him; she appeared fully confident of herself, her destiny and her place in Bruce's estimation. Bruce himself frowned and shook his head. "You've always been a fair man, Jim," he said. "Suspend judgment until we've talked." While Kendric held his tongue and pondered angrily, Zoraida's eyes flashed about the room.
And yet his reason told him that to a mind like Zoraida's as he began to believe it, a brain filled with ancient craft and perhaps a strain of madness, actuated by such dark impulses as certainly must abide there, the actual physical accomplishment of this sort of parlor magic was a thing in keeping.
From the nearest one came the voices of two men. Tied near this tower and outside the wall were two horses; he saw them vaguely and heard the clink of bridle chains. Saddled horses. There would be saddled horses at each of the four towers; night and day, if Zoraida's talk were not mere boasting.
The horses were at hand, saddled and bridled; Betty was with him; the night was too dark for eyes to watch from a distance; the two men within Zoraida's call were still up in the tower. He was taking his chance now and he knew it; Zoraida's period of obedience and inactivity was no doubt near at end. Well, his luck had befriended him thus far and for the rest it was up to Jim Kendric.
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