"Dade an' Malcolm can't get back for an hour yet," he gloated, "an' by
that time we'll be miles away." His voice changed from mockery to
savage determination. "I want that diagram, an' I want it right now,
or I'll tear you to pieces. Do you understand? I'll beat you up so's
your own mother wouldn't know you." His grip tightened on her arms,
they were twisted until she screamed with agony.
In this extremity her thoughts went to Calumet; she remembered vividly
what he had said about the idol when she had asked him why he did not
get it and convert it into cash. "I ain't so much stuck on monkeyin'
with them religious things," he had said. And she was certain that if
Calumet knew of her danger he would not have had her hesitate an
instant in relinquishing the diagram to Taggart.
The idol had brought him nothing but evil, anyway, and she was certain
that Calumet would not mourn its loss, even if Taggart were to be the
gainer by it, if its possession were to entail punishment, death,
perhaps, to her.
"Wait!" she cried as Taggart gave her arms an extra vicious twitch;
"you may have it!"
He released her with a greedy, satisfied grin and stood crouching and
alert while she turned her back to him and fumbled in her bodice, where
she had kept the diagram since the discovery of its former hiding place
by Telza.
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