It vibrated to invisibility for an instant, then parted with a sound as loud as the fall of the whip.

The straining body of Alcatraz, so released, toppled sidewise.
He rolled like a dog in the dust, and when, with the agility of a dog, he gained his feet, Cordova was fleeing towards the hotel with a horror-stricken face.
Even then she could not understand his terror--not until she saw that Alcatraz had wheeled and was bolting in hot pursuit.

He came like the "devil-horse" that the Mexican called him, with his ears flattened and his mouth gaping; he came with such velocity that Cordova, running as only consummate terror can make a man run, seemed to be racing on a treadmill--literally standing still.
The picket fence which set off the back yard of the hotel gave the man an instant of delay--a terribly vital instant, indeed, that seemed to Marianne to contain long, long minutes.

But here he was over and running again.

In her dread she wondered why he was not shrieking for aid, but the face of Cordova was rigid--a nightmare mask! Twenty steps, now, to the hotel, and surely there was still hope.