The moon hung low.
A fire crackled in the center of a clearing. The horses were tethered
to a tree. Keela was off somewhere with bow and arrow to hunt their
breakfast.
Now suddenly as he lay there, tired and apathetic, Carl was conscious
of a face leering from among the trees close at hand, a dark,
thin-lipped foreign face with eyes black with hate and malicious
triumph. There was a horse hitched to a tree in the thicket beyond.
In that instant Carl knew that the Houdanian had furtively followed the
camp of the traders into the wilds of the Everglades, spurred on by the
fierce command of Ronador. But he did not move. A terrible apathy
made him indifferent to the knife of the assassin. He had had his day
of masterful torment back there in the attic of the farm, he told
himself. Now he must pay. The knife would quiet this unbearable agony
in his head.
Themar met his eyes, smiled evilly and raised his knife. But the
weapon fell suddenly from his hand. With an ominous hum an arrow
whizzed fiercely through the trees and anchored in the flesh above his
heart.
Themar stumbled and fell forward on his face. Like the stricken moose
who seeks to press his wound against the earth, he drove the arrow home
to his heart. He sobbed, and choked and lay very still, a scarlet
wound dying his flannel shirt.
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