The hands hooked into outstretched claws. His head sunk between his shoulders. Of the eyes, only red pin-points showed in the twitching face. I stood stone-still, struck into utter immobility. My brain was trying to urge me to fly, fly! This is the Black Death, Sophy! the Black Death! He, too, stood of a sudden stone-still, as if rooted to the ground. His eyes widened, and stared, as if he saw something over and beyond me. I didn't dare turn my head. It might be a trick, to divert attention for a fatal second. The claws clenched into balled fists, the lips drew back, showing blackened and decayed teeth. Bristling like an aroused beast, his forehead wrinkling, his nostrils twitching, he made an inarticulate, growling, brute-like noise in his throat. His head twisted sideways. Of a sudden the sweat burst out upon his face, and he began to back away, warily. And then something swift and dark sped by, bounding on light and flying feet; something that must have come from my forest. It was The Jinnee! God be praised, it was The Jinnee, his dark robe giving an odd effect of flying, his eyes living vengeance, his face like Fate carved in ebony. I saw him leap, and close in upon the horror; I heard a sort of wolfish yapping. The Black Death disappeared. And then I, too, was falling, falling into infinite blackness and blankness, with one red flash when I struck my head. Half-conscious, half-hearing, altogether unseeing, I thought there were two Voices near me. I couldn't understand what they said. One of the Voices was gently and persistently applying cold and soothing applications to my forehead. Another Voice chafed my hands. I thought one said, "Achmet," and the other replied, "Sahib." I knew I must be dreaming. But it was a pleasant dream enough. Quite suddenly somebody said in good, anxious English: "Thank God! you are better!" I had opened my eyes. There was the whish-whish-whishing little brook, the good brown pines, with their heavenly odor. And there was the face of Nicholas Jelnik, bent over me. And beside him, gravely concerned and troubled, Boris. I looked from one to the other, both so clear-eyed, so kind, so _safe_; and then I remembered. "Sophy! Sophy!" He had his arms around me, in a close, protecting clasp, while Boris pawed my skirts, and cried over me in loving, honest dog fashion, and licked my wet cheek with his affectionate tongue. I slipped my arm around the big dog's neck, and clung to the two of them. And it seemed to me that while I clung thus, with my head bent and my face hidden, one of them kissed my hair. "It never occurred to me--that there might be danger for you," he was whispering. "To have that horror come near you--oh, my God! Oh, my God!" I was terrified at sight of his face, dead-white, with eyes of steel, and straight lips, and pinched nostrils; the terrible face of the avenging white man, a face as inexorable as judgment. I hid my own before it, and trembled; and yet was glad that I had seen it.