t time did she fully know what
terror was. His strength was many times her strength, his brutality
was unbounded, she was alone with him. There was no one to call to,
not even Ruth, the mad woman.

She was shaking now, shaking so that she could barely stand. Quinnion
came on, his long arms out. . . .

She felt the strength die out of her body, grew for a moment blind and
dizzy and sick. She tried again to call out to him, to plead with him.
But her voice stuck in her throat.

He was gloating over her, a look strangely like Mad Ruth's in his eyes.
Good God! He was like Mad Ruth; the same eyes, the same long, powerful
arms, the same look of cunning! In a flash there came to her a
suspicion which was near certainty: this man was blood of Mad Ruth's
blood, bone of her bone; her son, and, like her, tainted with madness.

He shot out a long arm, his hand barely brushing her shoulder. She
shrank back. He stood, content to pause a moment, to gloat further
over her.

"You little beauty," he said, panting. "You little white and pink and
brown beauty!"

Judith had shuddered when he touched her. But a strange thing had
happened to her. His touch had angered her so that she almost forgot
to be afraid, angered her so that the loathing was gone in white hot
hatred, giving her back her old strength.

Now, though he had the brutal force of a strong man, Quinnion did not
have the swiftness of movement of an alert, desperate girl. Before he
could grasp her motive she leaped toward him and toward the bed of
boughs, found the ragged stone, and lifting it high above her head
flung it full into his face. The man staggered back, crying out in
throaty harshness, a cry of blind rage. But he did not fall, did not
pause more than a brief instant.

A little dazed, with blood in his eyes, he lunged toward her. She had
found the club now and struck with all her might, again beating into
his face and again and again. He sought to grapple with her and she
beat him back. She saw his hand go to his hip and heard him curse her,
and she leaped in on him and, panting with the blow, struck again. He
flung up his arm. She struck once more. Taking the blow full across
the face, Quinnion reeled back, stumbled at an uneven spot in the rock
floor, balanced, almost falling. . . .

Only a moment he held thus. But there was a chance to pass him in the
narrow way, and she took her chance, her heart beating wildly. And as
she shot by