Part 40 (2/2)

And he was alone.

Suddenly a yellow light glowed in the dark recesses of the high ceiling, and Peter sprang back with his hand on the instant inside his coat, where depended in its leather shoulder-sling the automatic.

Across the great room the girl raised a steady hand, indicating a desk of gigantic size, of ironwood or lignum-vitae.

He found himself occupying the center of an enormous mandarin rug, with letterings and grotesque designs in rich blood-reds, and blues and yellows and browns. He gave the room a moment's survey before falling to the task.

The walls of this cavern were of satin, priceless rugs, which hung without a quiver in the breathless gloom. Ma.s.sive furniture, chairs, tables, settees, of teak, of ebony and dark mahogany, with deep carvings, glaring gargoyles and hideous masks, were arranged with an apparent lack of plan.

And against the far wall, with a face like the gibbous moon, stood a ma.s.sive clock of carved rosewood, clacking ponderously, almost painfully, as if each tick were to be its last.

Peter crouched before the desk, examining the heavy lock on the drawer, and accepted from the girl's hand a tool, a thick, short, blunt chisel.

He inserted the blunt edge of this instrument in the narrow crack, and----

A m.u.f.fled sob, a moan, a stifled cry!

He sprang to his feet, with his hand diving into his coat, and the fingers he wrapped about the b.u.t.t of the automatic were as cold as ice.

Romola Borria was cringing, shrinking as if to efface herself from a terrible scene, against the French window, and staring at him with a look of wild imploration, of horror, of--death!

From three unwavering spots along the wall to his left glittered the blue muzzles of revolvers!

Peter dropped to his knees, leaped backward, pointed by instinct, and fired at the lone yellow light in the ceiling.

Darkness. An unseen body moved. Metal rattled distantly upon wood.

And metal clanked upon metal. Darkness, black as the grave, and as ominous.

A white, round spot remained fixed upon his retina, slowly fading. The face of the clock. The hands, like black daggers, had pointed to ten minutes of one. Ten minutes of life! Ten minutes to live! Or--less?

Silence, broken only by the reluctant _click-clack, click-clack_ of the rosewood clock.

If he could reach the window! Then a low, convulsed sobbing occurred close to his ear. The girl groped for his arm. She was shaking, shaking so that his arm trembled under it.

”Your final card!” he whispered. ”The final trick! G.o.d! Now, d.a.m.n you, get me out of this!”

”I can't. I--I---- Oh, G.o.d! Kill me! I gave you every chance. They forced me--forced me to bring you here. They would have strangled me, just as they strangled the other!” She seemed to steady herself while he listened in growing horror.

”Safe!” he groaned. ”Safety for you. Death--for me! You--you led me into their hands, and I--I trusted you. I trusted you!”

She laid a cold, moist hand over his lips, this devil-woman.

”Hus.h.!.+ If they, if he, so much as guessed that I cared for you, that I loved you, it would mean my death. I was forced--forced to bring you here. Don't you understand? And if he even guessed. But you had your chance. You had your chance!”

Almost hysterically she was endeavoring to extenuate her crime, her treason.

”Stand up and face them. Meet your death! Escape is--impossible!

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