ried angrily. "Here I dictate.
If you dared put a hand on me----"

He saw her own hand creeping out toward the table. What it sought he
did not know; a hidden bell, perhaps. Or a dagger. He remembered her
swift attack upon Ortega. He seized her wrist, his fingers locked hard
about it; she struggled and he held her back in her chair. Suddenly
she relaxed and shrugged and laughed at him.

"You add to the entertainment!" she mocked him. "For, mind you, while
you make large commands, the puma draws nearer and nearer. If you
will, between your great commands, but glance into the mirror----"

"I say you can put a stop to that infernal torture," he said fiercely.
"And you will!"

"Yes?" she sneered at him. "And you will make me, perhaps? You, a
common adventurer will dictate to Zoraida!"

For the moment he felt powerless in face of her cold taunting. But
there was too much at stake for him to yield now to a feeling of
powerlessness. One hand was on her wrist; the gripping fingers of the
other shut about the haft of the ancient obsidian knife. The old knife
of sacrifice. His face was white and stern, his eyes no whit less
deadly than Zoraida's.

"You threaten my life?" she gasped. "_You_?"

He made no answer. He was beyond speech. Slowly he lifted the great
knife, slowly as in a dream he set the thin point against the soft
flesh of Zoraida's throat. As a tremor shook his hand Zoraida whipped
back.

"You would not dare! You would not dare!"

His hand was steady again. He held her still, and the point of the
knife crept a hair's breadth closer to the life within her. A little
more and it would have slipped into the skin it was pricking.

"You could not do it," she whispered.

Then he spoke.

"I can do it." His lips were dry, his voice very harsh. "You have
said that you know me for a man of my word. Well, then, I swear to you
that little by little I'll drive that knife in unless you set that girl
free."

Still she sought to brave it out, sought to defy him; her eyes, on his,
told him that his will was less than hers, and that this could never
be. But Kendric knew otherwise. It was given him to know that if
Betty died, he did not care to live. Like men of his stamp it was
unthinkable to him that he should lift his hand against a woman. But
woman for the moment Zoraida was not. Fiend, rather; reincarnated
savage; a thing to stamp into the earth. What he had said he meant.
He was givin