CHAPTER XXIII
FOR THE ALTARS OF HIS TRIBE
The first sound that Betty heard when consciousness began to return to her was a loud pounding at the kitchen door.
She had fallen to the floor just beneath the shelf on which the lamp sat, and she raised herself on an elbow and looked around. At first she did not remember what had happened, and then she saw Taggart, lying face upward on the floor near her, the frightful hole in his forehead, and she shuddered as recollection in a sickening flood came to her. Bob, dear Bob, had not failed her.
She got up, trembling a little, breathing a prayer of thankfulness, shrinking from the Thing that lay on the floor at her feet with its horror-stricken eyes staring straight up at the ceiling, making her way to the kitchen door, for the pounding had gr
