The mechanical effort of rocking her body from side to side brought no rest; the blow she struck upon her breast in her frenzy she felt no more than the oaken door had felt those she had dealt it with the club. She could not find even the soothing antidote of bodily pain for her intense moral suffering. Again the time passed without her knowing or guessing of its passage.
Driven to desperation she sprang at last from her seat and cried aloud.
“I would give my soul to know that he is safe!”
The words had not died away when a low groan passed, as it were, round the room. The sound was distinctly that of a human voice, but it seemed to come from all sides at once. Unorna stood still and listened.
“Who is in this room?” she asked in loud clear tones.
Not a breath stirred. She glanced from one specimen to another, as though suspecting that among the dead some living being had taken a disguise. But she knew them all. There was nothing new to her there. She was not afraid. Her passion returned.
“My soul!--yes!” she cried again, leaning heavily on the table, “I would give it if I could know, and it would be little enough!”
Again that awful sound filled the room, and rose now almost to a wail and died away.
Unorna’s brow flushed angrily. In the direct line of her vision stood the head of the Malayan woman, its soft, embalmed eyes fixed on hers.
“If there are people hidden here,” cried Unorna fiercely, “let them show themselves! let them face me! I say it again--I would give my immortal soul!”
This time Unorna saw as well as heard. The groan came, and the wail followed it and rose to a shriek that deafened her. And she saw how the face of the Malayan woman changed; she saw it move in the bright lamp-light, she saw the mouth open. Horrified, she looked away. Her eyes fell upon the squatting savages--their heads were all turned towards her, she was sure that she could see their shrunken chests heave as they took breath to utter that terrible cry again and again; even the fallen body of the African stirred on the floor, not five paces from her. Would their shrieking never stop? All of them--every one--even to the white skulls high up in the case; not one skeleton, not one dead body that did not mouth at her and scream and moan and scream again.