IN THE SHADOW
would read fear in the calm face of the tamer, and all the brute in him was suddenly cognizant of its power; and all the brute in him seemed to contract its great powerful flank muscles and shoot straight out, clawing at the sunshine, exulting in its untrammeled strength. There crept into his resonant voice a timbre against which Virginia's tone struck flat and drab.
All of this before a word had been spoken; Virginia, feeling her resistance infinitesimal, yet came of a fighting stock; slowly her spirit rallied in revolt against the insidious usurpation of her individuality. Words are less dangerous than the silence of insecurity, also, most animals fear the human voice. She began to talk, with no effort to convey thought or assert herself, but merely to talk … to be an active power.
"You are accustomed to this, Count Dessalines? You seem quite at home in a canoe, and when one considers your weight and that of the vessel, it is extraordinary that you should handle it so easily."
Dessalines smiled one of the swift, flashing smiles which had more than once startled Virginia.
"I have never been in a canoe until coming here. Perhaps it is heredity; perhaps because my ancestors were Kongos … paddled for generations in canoes scooped out from logs!" He dipped the broad blade of the paddle and, with a heave so strong yet so even and coordinate that the trim of the canoe was not altered, sent the light craft flying through the water.
Virginia did not answer at once; instead, she leaned back and watched him through several repeated strokes and noted how at each output of massive force the wide nostrils dilated, the black brows came down in corruga-
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