"That's exactly what I do mean," Morgan Pell stated, firmly. "And the sooner the better."

The situation, he felt, was entirely in his hands.

"Oh, very well!" Uncle Henry replied. He pushed his chair toward the door, murmuring as he went, "Thank G.o.d I ain't his wife! That's all I got to say!"

Hardy was still standing in the shadows. He looked at "Red." "What's he going to do?" meaning Pell.

"I don't know. I--" the foreman answered. Angela, frightened, followed the husky "Red" through the door; and the husband and wife were left entirely alone.

There was a pregnant silence. Terror came into Lucia's heart. Her brain reeled. She had seen Morgan in a temper before--many times; but never with quite this sinister light in his eyes, this tense, quiet force behind his slightest gesture. What was he going to say to her? She felt like an animal at bay. She determined that she would gain one advantage by making him be the first to speak. But as he approached her slowly, fear seized her. He seemed no longer a man, just a hulking giant--a brutal, frenzied creature; and something quite apart from herself caused her to cry out:

"What are you going to do?" Oddly there flashed into her mind that very line, and she wondered where she had heard it. Yes, even in her terror, her abject fear, she remembered. It was once when, as a child, she had seen a dramatization of "Oliver Twist." Bill Sykes came toward Nancy, just as Morgan was coming toward her now, with leering countenance, and the poor wretch had screamed out: "What are you going to do?" That scene was forever photographed on her brain, and now, from some strange recess, Nancy's pitiful words came back to her.

He did not answer. Another step, and he would be upon her.

"What is it, Morgan? Oh, what is it?" She shrunk back, slowly. If he touched her ...

But he did not lift his hand, as she fully expected him to do. Instead, he uttered only two words. They were a command.

"Kiss me!"

Almost she would rather have felt his blows raining on her head.

"What?" she cried, a new amazement within her.

He glared down at her. His breath was on her cheek.

"You heard," he stated. And he stood stock still.

Frightened beyond believing or seeing, she offered her cheek to him. "But I--" she managed to get out.

Pell saw that she was shrinking away again; she could not bring herself to do as he willed.

"So!" her husband cried, significantly. Now she realized, in a blinding flash, the cruel subtlety behind his test of her. Her head went back; she closed her eyes. And then--how she did it she never knew--she raised her mouth.

"I don't want to kiss you." It was the refinement of cruelty. "I want _you_ to kiss _me_. Do it!" His hands were behind his back. He stood straight and stiff as an Indian chief.

He watched her least movement. He put his lips very close to her mouth.

She struggled in that one mad second, and tried to kiss him. She could not--she could not bring herself to the act.

He laughed sardonically. The devil himself could not have laughed liked that.

"Some women could have done it," he told her, sternly. "But not you, my dear...." Fury and sarcasm were in his tone. "So! That's it, is it? And I stand blindly by while you and he ..."

Utter madness seemed to rush upon him.

Lucia had backed to the table. "No! I can't. You--you brute!"

Pell watched her, steadily. "Do you think I am a fool? Or that you are more than human?" he cried out.

"I swear to G.o.d!" she contradicted him.

"Ha! You've had your turn, my lady! Now, it's mine! And after all I've done for you, you ungrateful hussy!"

The clock struck three. It seemed an eternity until the little bell ceased.

Her life with him swam before her in that brief period. All she could utter was:

"What are you going to do?" And she clutched her hands in helplessness, for she read some sinister purpose in his voice.

"I'm going to do what I once saw another sensible husband do under these circ.u.mstances."

Lucia's face was ashen now. "What is that?"

A second's pause. She hung on his answer.

"Horses don't know who they really belong to. So they are branded. There is no reason why women equally ignorant shouldn't be similarly treated." Every word was measured, uttered with fearful distinctness. His hand shot behind him on the table, where "Red" had left his spurs. Lucia saw the swift movement.

"No!" she screamed, "Oh, no, Morgan, not that!" Her senses reeled. The earth crashed beneath her.

But he paid no heed. He seized her fiercely by one arm, reaching far out to do so, and, gorilla-like, he had her, this weak flower, in his clutches. He pinioned her deftly, and thrust her lovely body back, until her face looked upward from the table. With his right hand, he started to tear her beautiful face to shreds with the cruel spurs, forever to ruin her glorious features, when, as if through a miracle, the door was thrown wide open, and a strange figure stood on the sill--a Mexican in a great sombrero, a flaming red kerchief at his throat, and eyes that gleamed and glistened, teeth that were like the whitest ivory.

He stood, with arms crossed, surveying the scene. If lightning had struck the adobe, Pell could not have been more dazed.

He released his wife. "What the devil!" he cried. "Who are you?"

"Hold up your hands!" yelled the bandit, stepping over the threshold. And Pell's hands went up, like magic, the spurs jangling to the floor.

There was a noise without, and Uncle Henry was pushed in by a crude, foul-looking Mexican, then came "Red," Angela, and Hardy, followed by another Mexican bandit, and several Mexicans.

"Who is he? What does this mean?" Pell cried out.

"This is Pancho Lopez!" "Red" Giddings said. Everyone's hands were lifted, and pistols were held by the Mexicans, ready to go off at the slightest sign of rebellion.

"Pancho Lopez?" Pell repeated, frightened almost to the breaking point.

The bandit, a strange smile upon his lips, and hidden laughter in his eyes, knew his power. The situation was one in which he reveled. He gazed around him, triumphantly. His legs were spread apart, a cigarette drooped nonchalantly from his lips.

"Senors, senoras!" he announced, in fascinating broken English, "you are all my preesoner!"

CHAPTER VIII

WHEREIN THE BANDIT EXPOUNDS A NEW PHILOSOPHY, AND MAKES MARIONETTES OF THE AMERICANS

"Put all ze men outside," Lopez ordered. Venustiano and Pedro, his chief lieutenants, obeyed at once, forcing them to march ahead of them, and standing guard over them near a great cactus bush a few feet from the adobe. "Leave ze women with me," the bandit continued. "But first, Alvarada, you find ze cook. I am 'ongry."