CHAPTER XXXI.
THE BLACK MAN CHECKED.
The two looked at each other. The look was not a very gentle one on the part of either of them. Shiana felt the same terror coming upon him as he had felt the first day. He took a hard grip of the jewel that he had in his bosom, and the terror left him. He looked steadily at his foe. He saw the horns and the malignant forehead, and the baleful, raging eyes, and the goat-beard, and the tail, and the hoof. But he saw something that he did not see the first day. He saw on the fingers of the hands great long curved claws, such as there would be on the talons of an eagle. And there was a point on each of those claws as fine and as sharp as there was upon the awl he had in his hand. Again his courage was on the point of giving way when he thought of the state he would be in if those claws should get at his skin! He pressed his hand again upon the gem which he had in his bosom, and that terror left him also. The Black Man noticed how the terror would forsake Shiana, but he did not understand it. He was wondering what it was that was banishing Shiana's fear, or what was giving him so much courage, or why he himself was not able to lay hold of him at once.
"Why are you not coming away with me?" he said at last. "Don't you remember the bargain?"
"I remember the bargain right well," said Shiana, "but I don't think you remember it." And it
