Robert Ervin Howard

“ Tina lifted her tear-stained face as if listening to the prompting of some inner voice. The child's understanding of Francoise's inmost thoughts was almost uncanny, as was her recognition of the inexorable drive of Fate and the only alternative left them.
"We must go, my Lady!" she whispered. "Villiers shall not have you. Let us go far away into the forest. We shall go until we can go no further, and then we shall lie down and die together."
The tragic strength that is the last refuge of the weak entered Francoise's soul. ”

“ Francoise crouched at her window, awed and deafened. The wind drowned all other sound-all except that maddening droning which rose now like a chant of triumph. It roared inshore, driving before it a foaming league long crest of white--and then all hell was loosed on that coast. Rain swept the beaches in driving torrents. The wind hit like a thunder-clap, making the timbers of the fort quiver. The surf roared over the sands, drowning the coals of the seamen's fires. ”

“ How the stranger had got into the fort she could not guess. It smacked of the diabolical. But she began to have a strong intuition that the creature was no longer within the fortress; that he had departed as mysteriously as he had come.
"We dare not go into the forest!" shuddered Tina. "He will be lurking there..."
Francoise did not ask the girl how she knew the black man would be in the forest; it was the logical hiding place for any evil thing, man or devil. And she knew Tina was right. They dared not leave the fort now. ”