_I_ know you never could take a human life, Grant.

It's foolish even to speak of such a thing.

It's just her nasty, lying tongue saying what her black old heart wishes could be true." She was speaking in a torrent of trepidation lest he break from her and do some violence which they would all regret.

She did not know what he could do, or would do, but the look of his face frightened her.
Old Hagar spat viciously at them both, and shrilled vituperative sentences--in her own tongue fortunately; else the things she said must have brought swift retribution.

And as if she did not care for consequences and wanted to make her words carry a definite sting, she stopped, grinned maliciously, and spoke the choppy dialect of her tribe.
"Yo' tellum me shont-isham.