Silently, she sat down. On a small table not three feet from her elbow stood a telephone. From the appearance of the instrument she saw that it was a local telephone, on which service had probably not been discontinued. If she could reach it, snatch off the receiver, shriek for help... The giant took the telephone and put it down on the floor ten feet away, stretching the cord to its utmost. She wilted in the chair, finally beyond resistance.
“What are you going to... to do with me?” she asked in a dry, small voice.
“Ain’t goin’ to hurt ye. Don’t git scared, girlie. It’s jest this here Marco bird I want. Took ye along to keep ye from raisin’ an alarm. Ye would, too.” As he chuckled admiringly, he took a coil of heavy cord from one of his pockets and began to unwind it. “Sit still now, Miss Godfrey. Be good an’ ye’ll be all right.” And before she could move he had, with his incredible quickness, tied her hands behind her back and to the back of the chair. She tugged and pulled in sudden desperation; the knots only tightened. Then he stooped and bound her ankles to the legs of the chair. She could see the coarse grayish hair beneath his cap, and an ugly depression covered with old scar-tissue at the back of his ruddy neck.
“Why don’t you gag me, too?” she demanded bitterly.
“What for?” he chuckled, apparently in good humor. “Screech your head off if ye like, lady; won’t no one hear ye. Up we go I”
He lifted her, chair and all, and carried her to another door. Opening it with a kick of one huge foot, he carried her through into a stuffy little bedroom and deposited her and the chair near the bed.
“You’re not leaving me here?” she cried, appalled. “Why, I’ll... I’ll starve, I’ll suffocate!”
“Now, now, ye’ll be all right,” he said soothingly. “I’ll see to it ye’ll be found.”
“But David — my uncle — that man outside,” she panted. “What are you going to do with him?”
He strode to the door to the living-room, making thunder in the small chamber. “Hey?” he growled, without looking back. His back expressed sudden menace.
“What are you going to do with him?” shrieked Rosa, frantic with fear.
“Hey?” he said again, and went out. Rosa sank back in the chair to which she was tied, her heart pounding painfully in her throat. Oh, he was stupid, stupid — a hulking, murdering clown. If ever she got out of this — quickly enough — it would be easy to track him down. There could be only one like him in the world; such travesties on the human form, she thought bitterly, do not happen in pairs. And then — if only it wasn’t too late — revenge would be sweet...
She sat there, a helpless trussed fowl, listening with all the power of her small ears. She could hear the monster plainly enough as he tramped back and forth in the living-room. And then she heard something else: a minute tinkle, crystal-clear. She frowned and bit her lip. What was— The telephone! Yes, she could hear the metallic click of the instrument as he dialed some number. Oh, if only she could—
She tried desperately to rise and succeeded only in achieving a sort of squat, the chair lifting a bit from the floor. How she managed she did not know, but she found herself making painful progress toward the door, one foot after another in a waddle, the chair bumping along derisively behind her. She made a good deal of noise, but the giant in the next room apparently was too absorbed to hear.
When she reached the door and set her ear against it, trembling more from excitement than exertion, she heard nothing. He couldn’t be through already! But then she realized that he must be waiting for the connection. She concentrated all her energies in a single fierce application of will. She must hear what he said, if possible find out to whom he talked. She held her breath as the vibrating tones of his voice rumbled through the door.
But the first tones came through garbled, indistinguishable. He might have been asking for some one. If he was, she could not make out the name. If it was a name... Her head spun with vertigo and she shook it impatiently, biting her lower lip until the pain cleared her brain. Ah!
“...job’s done. Yeah... Got Marco outside row. Had to slug him, one... Naw! He’ll keep. When I slug ’em they stays slugged.” Silence. Rosa wished for wings, second sight, anything. Oh, if only she could hear the voice of the man or woman at the other end of the wire! But the giant’s bass reached her again. “Miss Godfrey’s all right. Got her tied up in the bedroom... Ain’t hurt. No, I tell ye! Only better see she don’t have to stay here too long. She ain’t done nothin’ to ye, has she?... Yeah, yeah!.. out to sea an’ then... You’re the doctor... All right, all right! I tell ye he’ll keep...” For a moment she could hear nothing more than a blurred vibrato of hoarse sound. Wouldn’t he ever mention that murderous creature’s name? Anything, anything. Some clue... “Okay. Okay! I’m goin’ now. Marco won’t bother you no more. But don’t forgit about the girl. She’s got guts, that one.” And Rosa, with a sickness in her stomach, heard the crash of the instrument and the giant’s slow, stupid, rather good-natured chuckle.
She sank back again, exhausted, closing her eyes. But she opened them again quickly; she had heard the slam of the living-room door. Had he gone out, or had some one come in? But there was only silence, and she knew that the giant had left the cottage. She must see... She squirmed back, opened the door, and in the same awkward duck-like fashion waddled across the floor of the living-room to the nearest front window. The giant’s flashlight was gone and the room was pitch-dark; she bumped into things and once bruised her strapped right arm painfully. At last she reached the window.
The moon was high now, and the white sand of the beach before the cottage and the calm surface of the sea acted like reflectors. The whole beach was smothered in a gentle glow of silver light; visibility was perfect.
She forgot the pain in her arm, the needles stinging in her cramped muscles, the dryness of her throat and lips. The scene outside the window was so perfect, so brilliant, so flat in its lights and shadows, that it might have come from a motion-picture reel. Even the figure of their gigantic captor looked small, as if some invisible director had ordered a long shot. At the moment Rosa reached the uncurtained window he was stooping over the figure of David Kummer, who lay in precisely the same tumbled, unconscious position as when she had last seen him. She watched the mountainous creature lift Kummer without effort, sling the limp body over his shoulder, and stalk to the beached cruiser. He dumped Kummer into the boat with little ceremony, dug his huge feet into the ramp, set his shoulders against the hull, and shoved...
The cruiser began to move, gathering speed as the giant pushed, and finally rode clear in the water, the giant up to his knees in the sea. He grasped the gunwale and clambered overside as nimbly as an ape. A moment later the cruiser’s riding lights winked calmly on. And she saw the giant stoop on deck, lift her uncle’s still form, and carry it into the cabin. A motor roared then, there was a thrashing of purple-white sea, and the slim craft scudded away from shore.
Rosa watched it until her eyes ached. She never took them off the riding lights. They bobbed and swam — toward the south, away from Spanish Cape. And finally they vanished as if a wave had extinguished them.
And it seemed to the dark girl suddenly in her crushed and dirtied gown, strapped to her chair like a felon, that she was going mad, and that the beach was rising with stealth to smother her, and that the sea formed animate waves with leering, changing faces.
And as she sank back into unconsciousness, through her spinning brain flashed the conviction that she should never see David Kummer again.