In such a case a man's wrath explodes
readily, combustion breaking forth spontaneously like an oily rag in
the sun. At any rate, his fat face grown hectic, he lifted hand and
voice, shouting:
"I will have no women gambling here. This is my place, a place for
men. You," and he leveled his forefinger at the slim figure, "go!"
She ignored him. Stepping forward quickly, she whipped off her left
glove and in the bare white fingers, blazing with red and green stones
set in golden circlets, she caught up the dice cup. Even now little
was seen of her face for the other hand had drawn lower the wide hat,
higher the scarf about the throat.
"One die, one throw for it all, Senor Kendric?" she asked.
"I tell you, No!" shouted Ortega. "And No again!"
Then, when she stood unmoved, her air of insolence like Ruiz Rios's,
but even more marked, Ortega burst forward between the men standing in
his way, shoving them to right and left with the powerful sweep of his
thick arms. His uplifted hand came down on her shoulder, thrusting her
backward. Her ungloved hand, the left as Kendric marked while he
watched interestedly, flashed to her bosom, and leaped out again, a
thin-bladed knife in the grip of the bejewelled fingers. Ortega saw
and feared and, grown nimble, sprang back from her. Quickly enough to
save the life in him, not so quickly as entirely to avoid the sweep of
the knife.
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