The doctor called to him softly under his breath--
"Sangree! Sangree, you poor afflicted creature! Do you know me? Can you
understand what it is you're doing in your 'Body of Desire'?"
For the first time since its appearance the creature moved. Its ears
twitched and it shifted the weight of its body on to the hind legs.
Then, lifting its head and muzzle to the sky, it opened its long jaws
and gave vent to a dismal and prolonged howling.
But, when I heard that howling rise to heaven, the breath caught and
strangled in my throat and it seemed that my heart missed a beat; for,
though the sound was entirely animal, it was at the same time entirely
human. But, more than that, it was the cry I had so often heard in the
Western States of America where the Indians still fight and hunt and
struggle--it was the cry of the Redskin!
"The Indian blood!" whispered John Silence, when I caught his arm for
support; "the ancestral cry."
And that poignant, beseeching cry, that broken human voice, mingling
with the savage howl of the brute beast, pierced straight to my very
heart and touched there something that no music, no voice, passionate or
tender, of man, woman or child has ever stirred before or since for one
second into life.
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