Chapter 47

She came forward, bent so that her small, shapely head almost rested on my shoulder, and cut the lashings which confined my wrists. Her left hand grasped my arm as she stooped. Dropping to her knees, with two strokes of the keen blade she cut away the ropes binding my ankles. Then she stood upright, very near to me, and met my stare challengingly. “Well?” she said in mockery. My first impulse—for I had been thinking about Nayland Smith almost continuously—was to be read in my glance. “It can never happen twice to m…