Page:James Hopper--Caybigan.djvu/337

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CAYBIGAN
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ging into her own heart. After a while she felt a hard, rough-edged object. She gasped in a strange mingling of physical horror and spiritual ecstasy. The bullet had sunk a bare inch.

She looked through the chest, but there was nothing for the necessary extraction. She tried the scissors; they slipped and revolved about the leaden slug without seizing it. She wrapped twine thick about the blades. This time they caught. There was a momentary resistance; she tugged firmly, it seemed at the very core of her being. Slowly at first, then faster, the distorted bit of lead slid through the flesh, then popped out and rolled upon the floor. A little ruby foam came to the surface of the wound.

The whole world floated away gently, except a Voice, a thundering, all-filling Voice; "Señora, Señora," it crashed and reverberated through the infinity of Time and Space. It fell gradually into a call, gentle but insistent, that she must obey; and she opened her eyes upon the face of Vincente, yellow with fear; and it was he that was calling "Señora, Señora."

She sprang to her feet at the command of her purpose. From the torn wound, little red drops were arising like bubbles one by one—the drops of his life. She dressed the wound carefully. A great weariness fell about her like a pall; she sat down at