His followers—­the gaunt female and two younger males, the structure about which the winter pack would form—­hesitated at first.  They had no commanding memories of the cavern on the far side of the lake.  Yet Fenris was their leader; by the deep-lying laws of the pack they must follow where he led.  They could not decoy him into the trails of game.  As ever they sped swiftly, silently after him.

In this forest of desires Ben knew but one,—­that he might yet be of aid to Beatrice.  But he knew in his heart that it was a vain hope.  He was within a hundred yards of Ray’s camp now, but the struggle to reach the lake and the poling across its waters had brought him seemingly to the absolute limit of his strength, clear to the brink of utter exhaustion.  Never in his life before had he known the full meaning of fatigue,—­fatigue that was like a paralysis, blunting the mechanism of the brain, burning like a slow fire in his muscles, poisoning the vital fluids of his nerves.  Stroke after stroke, never ceasing!—­The flame was high, crackling—­just before him.  Through a rift in the trees he could see the outline of two men and the slim form of the girl.  Just a few yards more.

But of all the desires that the moon invoked in the woods people there were none so unredeemed, so wicked and cruel as this that slowly wakened in the evil hearts of these two degenerate men, Beatrice’s captors.  She sensed it only vaguely at first.  All the disasters that had fallen upon her had not taught her to accept such a thing as this:  surely this would be spared her, at least.  There is a kindly blind spot in the brain that often will not let the ugly truth go home.

For a strange, still moment Ray’s face seemed devoid of all expression.  It was flat and lifeless as dark clay.  Then Beatrice felt the insult of his quickening gaze.

“Put a rope around her wrists, Chan,” he said.  “We don’t want to take chances on her getting away.”

He spoke slowly, rather flatly.  There was nothing that her senses could seize upon—­either in his face or voice to justify the swift, strangling, killing horror that came upon her.  He stood simply gazing, and as she met his gaze her lips parted and drew back in a grimace of terror; thus they stood until the blood began to leap fast in Chan’s veins.  She needed no further disillusionment.  Chan spoke behind her, a startled oath cut off short, and she felt him moving swiftly toward her.  It was her last instant of respite; and her muscle set and drew for a final, desperate attempt at self-defense.

She wore Ben’s knife at her belt, and her hand sped toward it.  But the motion, fast as it was, came too late.  Chan saw it; and leaping swiftly, his arms went about her and pinned her own arms to her sides.

She tried in vain to fight her way out of his grasp.  She writhed, screaming; and in the frenzy of her fear she all but succeeded in hurling him off.  She managed to draw the knife clear of the sheath, yet she couldn’t raise her arm to strike.  Ray was aiding his confederate now; and in an instant more she was helpless.