Sweeping his armed hand widely about him, the
savage broke through the receding circle, and, giving forth the appalling
whoop of his tribe, he bounded into the open door of the principal
dwelling, so swiftly as utterly to defeat any design of pursuit. The arms
of Ruth were frantically extended towards the place where he had
disappeared, and she was about to rush madly on his footsteps, when the
hand of her husband stopped the movement.
"Wouldst hazard life, to save some worthless trifle?"
"Husband, release me!" returned the woman, nearly choked with her
agony--"nature hath slept within me!"
"Fear blindeth thy reason!"
The form of Ruth ceased to struggle. All the madness, which had been
glaring wildly about her eyes, disappeared in the settled look of an
almost preternatural calm. Collecting the whole of her mental energy in
one desperate effort of self-command, she turned to her husband, and, as
her bosom swelled with the terror that seemed to stop her breath, she said
in a voice that was frightful by its composure--
"If thou hast a father's heart, release me!--Our babes have been
forgotten!"
The hand of Content relaxed its hold, and, in another instant, the form of
his wife was lost to view on the track that had just been taken by the
successful savage.
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