IN THE SHADOW
and then … into the sun-laden atmosphere of all these charming thoughts there rushed a great disturbing apparition; a sable génie summoned by a thoughtless act, and she shrank with a sigh from the presence of the African as he had first rushed into her life; his great somber image looming against the sky, his bestial features scowling with the effort of his struggle with the river as an animal would snarl and gnash at the bars of his cage; his ebony visage close beside her face, the sooty, kinky hair brushing her cheek. She saw the great hands and heard the ripping of the stake as he tore it from its place, and saw again the flash of the white teeth and the twitch of the flat nostrils as he drew taut the massive muscles to take the terrific strain. The sheer force, the appalling physical might of the action thrilled her, set her heart pounding, sent the blood through her veins, quickened her breathing, and then, as her mind reviewed the picture, the muscles of her own arm contracted in sympathy and with the action she cried out from a sharp stab of pain.
Her disquiet was not entirely psychic; her shoulder was extremely tender to the touch, and the slightest movement of the arm painful. Wishing to examine the cause of her distress she slipped out of bed and stepped into the corridor where there was a hall lamp burning before a mirror. In front of this Virginia drew back the sleeve of her nightgown and was not long in discovering the source of her suffering.
Just below the shoulder, against the creamy white of her arm, were four blue-black impressions; on the under surface there was another, where the powerful thumb had crushed into the flesh; the prints were
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