This was the bee-hive stirring of the startled village.
"What is it, Bootea?" Barlow asked.
The eyes raised to his face were full of fright, a pleading fright.
"Sahib," she answered, "do not ask--just go, because--"
"Yes, girl, why?"
"That this is dead (and her hand gestured toward the slain Bagree) and
that others are dead, is; but you,--will you mount the horse and go
back the way you came, Sahib?"
Her small fingers clutched the sleeve of the coat he wore--it was of
hunting cloth, red-and-green: "Others are dead yonder, and evil is in
the hearts of those that live. Go, Sahib--please go."
Barlow's mind was racing fast, in more materialistic grooves than the
Gulab's. There was something about it he didn't understand; something
the girl did not want to tell him; some horrible thing that she was
afraid of--her face was full of suppressed dread.
Suddenly, through no sequence of reasoning, in fact there was no data
to go upon, nothing except that a girl--the Gulab was just that--stood
there afraid--through him she had just escaped from a man who was
little more than an ape--stood quivering in the moonlight alone, except
for himself.
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