"You have robbed me of the child. I cannot make him the son of
a cannibal chief, but"--and he paused as though to let the full
meaning of his threat sink deep--"I can make the mother the wife
of a cannibal, and that I shall do--after I have finished with her
myself."
If he had thought to wring from Jane Clayton any sign of terror he
failed miserably. She was beyond that. Her brain and nerves were
numb to suffering and shock.
To his surprise a faint, almost happy smile touched her lips. She
was thinking with thankful heart that this poor little corpse was
not that of her own wee Jack, and that--best of all--Rokoff evidently
did not know the truth.
She would have liked to have flaunted the fact in his face, but
she dared not. If he continued to believe that the child had been
hers, so much safer would be the real Jack wherever he might be.
She had, of course, no knowledge of the whereabouts of her little
son--she did not know, even, that he still lived, and yet there
was the chance that he might.
It was more than possible that without Rokoff's knowledge this child
had been substituted for hers by one of the Russian's confederates,
and that even now her son might be safe with friends in London,
where there were many, both able and willing, to have paid any
ransom which the traitorous conspirator might have asked for the
safe release of Lord Greystoke's son.
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