His face showed no horror at her words.  They were down to the most terrible realities; and as she had said, this was the way out!  The great kindness still dwelt in his eyes—­and she knew he would do as she asked.

One gleam of steal, one swift touch at the throat—­and they would never know the unspeakable fate that their depraved captors planned for them. It was no less than victory in the last instant of despair! It was freedom:  although they did not know into what Mystery and what Fear the act would dispatch them, it was freedom from Ray and Chan, none the less.  And Ben welcomed the plan as might a prisoner, waiting in the death-cell, welcome a reprieve.

He turned, groping with his hand.  There was no use of waiting longer.  The knife lay just beyond his reach; and softly he moved his body through the grass.

But this gate to mercy was closed before they reached it.  A sudden flaring of the fire revealed them—­the gleam of the blade and Ben’s stretching hand—­and Ray left his log in a swift, catlike leap.

If Ben had possessed full use of both hands there still might have been time to send home the two crucial blows, or at least to dispatch Beatrice out of Ray’s power to harm.  But his injured arm impeded him, and his hand fumbled as he tried to seize the hilt.  With a sharp oath Ray crushed the blade into the ground with his heel; then kicked viciously at the prone body of his enemy.

And at that first base blow his rage and blood-lust that had been gathering was swiftly freed.  It was all that was needed to set him at the work of torture.  For an instant he stood almost motionless except for the spasmodic twitching—­now almost continuous—­at his lips and for the slow turning of his head as he looked about for a weapon with which he could more quickly satiate the murder-madness in his veins.  The knife appealed to him not at all; but his eye fell on a long, heavy club of spruce that had been cut for fuel.  He bent and his strong hands seized it.

As he swung it high the girl leaped between—­with a last, frantic effort, wholly instinctive—­to shield Ben’s body with her own.  But it was only an instant’s reprieve.  Chan had followed Ben, and sharing Ray’s fiendish mood, jerked her aside.  Ben raised himself up as far as he could at a final impulse to thrust the girl out of harm’s way.

Yet it was to be that Ray’s murderous blow was never to go home.  A mighty and terrible ally had come to Ben’s aid.  He came pouncing from the darkness, a gaunt and dreadful avenger whose code of death was as remorseless as Ray’s own.