In darkness the blacker for the sudden disappearance of the light, somebody stumbled over Amber—stumbled and swore in good English. The Virginian sat up, crying out as weakly as a child: "Labertouche!" A voice said: "Thank God!" He felt strong hands lift him to his feet. He clung to him who had helped him, swaying like a drunkard, wits a-swirl in the brain thus roughly awakened from semi-hypnosis.

"Here," said Labertouche's voice, "take my hand and follow. We're in for it now!"

He caught Amber's hand and dragged him, yielding and unquestioning, rapidly through a chaotic rush of unseen bodies.

The firing had electrified the tense-strung audience. With a pandemonium of shrieks, oaths, shouts, orders unheard and commands unheeded, a concerted rush was made from every quarter to the spot where the doomed man had been kneeling. Men running blundered into running men and cannoned off at direct angles to their original courses, without realising it. Disorder reigned rampant, and the cavern rang with a thousand echoes, while the Bell awoke and roared a raging tocsin, redoubling the din. No man could have said where he stood or whither he ran—save one, perhaps. That one was at Amber's side and had laid his course beforehand and knew that both their lives depended upon his sticking to it without deviation. To him a rush of a hundred feet in a direct line meant salvation, the least deviation from it, death. He plunged through the scurrying masses without regard for any hurt that might come either to him or to his charge.

A red glare of torches was breaking out over the heads of the mob before they gained their destination. Amber saw that they were making for a corner formed by the junction of one of the pedestals with a rocky wall. He was now recovering rapidly and able to appreciate that they stood a good chance of winning away; for the natives were all converging toward the centre of the cavern, and apparently none heeded them. Nevertheless Labertouche, releasing him, put a revolver in his hand.

"Don't hesitate to shoot if any one comes this way!" he said. "I've got to get this door open and…"

He broke off with an ejaculation of gratitude; for while he had been speaking, his fingers busily groping in the convolutions of the sculptured pedestal had encountered what he sought, and now he pulled out an iron bar two feet or so in length and as thick as a woman's wrist. Inserting this in a socket, as one familiar with the trick, he put his weight upon it; a carved sandstone slab slid back silently, disclosing a black cavernous opening.

"In with you," panted Labertouche, removing the lever. "Don't delay…."

Amber did not. He took with him a hazy impression of a vast, vaulted hall filled with a ruddy glare of torchlight, a raving rabble of gorgeously attired natives in its centre. Then the opening received him and he found himself in a black hole of an underground gallery—a place that reeked with the dank odours of the tomb.

Labertouche followed and with the aid of a small electric pocket-lamp discovered another socket for the lever. A moment later the slab moved back into place, and the Englishman dropped the metal bar. "If there were only some way of locking that opening," he gasped, "we'd be fairly safe. As it is, we'll have to look nippy. That was a near call—as near a one as ever you'll know, my boy; and we're not out yet. What are you doing?" he added, as Amber stopped to pick up the lever.

"It isn't a bad weapon," said the Virginian, "at a pinch. You'll want your gun, and that she-devil, Naraini, got mine."

"Keep the one I gave you and don't be afraid to use it. I've another and a couple of knives for good measure. That Mohammedan prince whom I persuaded to change places with me was a walking arsenal." Labertouche chuckled. "Come along," he said, and drew ahead at a dog-trot.

They sped down a passage which delved at a sharp grade through solid rock. Now and again it turned and struck away in another direction. Once they descended—or rather fell down—a short, steep flight of steps. At the bottom Amber stopped.

"Hold on!" he cried.

Labertouche pulled up impatiently. "What's the matter?"

"Sophia—!"

"Trust me, dear boy, and come along."

Persuaded, Amber gave in, blundering on after Labertouche, who loped along easily, with the confidence of one who threads known ways, the spot-light from his lamp dancing along the floor several feet before him. Otherwise they moved between walls of Stygian darkness.

It was some time later that Labertouche extinguished his lamp and threw a low word of warning over his shoulder. Synchronously Amber discerned, far ahead, a faint glow of yellow light. As they bore down upon it with unmoderated speed, he could see that it emanated from a rough-hewn doorway, opening off the passage. Before it a man stood guard with a naked sword.

"Johar!" he greeted them in the Mahar form: "O, warrior!"

"Johar!" returned Labertouche, panting heavily. He closed upon the native confidently, but was brought up short by a peremptory sweep of the sword, coupled with an equally imperative demand for an explanation of their haste. The Englishman replied with apparent difficulty, as if half-winded. "It is an order, Johar. The woman is to be brought to the Hall of the Bell."

"You have the word?" The Mahar lowered his sword. "It hath been said to me that—"

Labertouche stumbled over his feet, and caught the speaker for support. The native gurgled in a sodden fashion, dropped his sword, stared stupidly at Labertouche, and put an uncertain hand to his throat. Then he lurched heavily and collapsed upon himself.

The secret-agent stepped back, dropping the knife he had used. "Poor devil!" he said in a compassionate undertone. "That was cold-blooded murder, Mr. Amber."

"Necessary?" gasped Amber, regarding with horror the bloodstained heap of rags and flesh at his feet.

"Judge for yourself," said Labertouche coolly, stepping over the body. "Here," he added, pausing by the doorway, "you go first; she knows you."

He pushed Amber on ahead. Stooping, the Virginian entered a small, rude chamber hollowed out of the rock of Kathiapur. A crude lamp in a bracket furnished all its illumination, filling it with a reek of hot oil. Amber was vaguely aware of the figures of two women—one standing in a corner, the other seated dejectedly upon a charpoy, her head against the wall. As he lifted his head after passing under the low lintel, the woman in the corner fired at him point-blank.

The Virginian saw the jet of flame spurt from her hand and felt the bullet's impact upon the wall behind his head. He flung himself upon her instantly. There was a moment of furious struggle, while the cell echoed with the reverberations of the shot and the screaming of the woman on the charpoy. The pistol exploded again as he grappled with the would-be murderess; the bullet, passing up his sleeve, creased his left arm as with a white-hot iron, and tore out through the cloth on his shoulder. He twisted brutally the wrist that held the weapon, and the woman dropped it with a cry of pain.

"You would!" he cried, and threw her from him, putting a foot upon the pistol.

She reeled back against the wall and crouched there, trembling, her cheeks on fire, her eyes aflame with rage. "You dog!" she shrilled in Hindi—and spat at him like a maddened cat. Then he recognised her.

"Naraini!" He stepped back in his surprise, his right hand seeking instinctively the wrist of his left, which was numb with pain.

His change of position left the pistol unguarded, and the woman swooped down upon it like a bird of prey; but before she could get her fingers on its grip, Labertouche stepped between them, fended her off, and quietly possessed himself of the weapon.

"Your pardon, madam," he said gravely.

Naraini retreated, shaking with fury, and Amber employed the respite to recognise Sophia Farrell in the woman on the charpoy. She was still seated, prevented from rising by bonds about her wrists and ankles, and though unnaturally pale, her anguish of fear and despair had set its marks upon her face without one whit detracting from the appeal of her beauty. He went to her immediately, and as their eyes met, hers flamed with joy, relief and—he dared believe—a stronger emotion.

"You—you're not hurt, Mr. Amber?"

"Not at all. The bullet went out through my sleeve. And you?" He dropped on his knees, with his pocket-knife severing the ends of rope that bound her.

"I'm all right." She took his hands, helping herself to rise. "Thank you," she said, her eyes shining, a flush of colour suffusing her face with glory.

"Did you cut those ropes, Amber?" Labertouche interposed curtly.

"Yes. Why?"

The Englishman explained without turning from his sombre and morose regard of Naraini. "Too bad—we'll have to tie this woman up, somehow. She's a complication I hadn't foreseen…. Here; you'd better leave me to attend to her—you and Miss Farrell. Go on down the gallery—to the left, I'll catch up with you."

The pistol which he still held lent to his demand a sinister significance of which he was, perhaps, thoughtless. But Sophia Farrell heard, saw, and surmised.

"No!" she cried, going swiftly to the secret-agent. "No!" She put a hand upon his arm, but he shook it off.

"Did you hear me, Amber?" said Labertouche, still watching the queen.

"What do you mean to do?" insisted Sophia. "You can't—you mustn't—"

"This is no time for half-measures, Miss Farrell," Labertouche told her brusquely. "Our lives hang in the balance—Mr. Amber's, yours, mine. Please go."

"You promise not to harm her?"

"Amber!" cried the Englishman impatiently. "Will you—"

"Please, Miss Farrell!" begged Amber, trying to take the girl's hand and draw her away.

"I won't!" she declared. "I'll not move a step until he promises. You don't understand. No matter what the danger she's—"

"She's a fiend incarnate," Labertouche broke in. "Amber, get that girl—"

"She's my sister!" cried Sophia. "Now will you understand?"

"What!" The two men exclaimed as one.

"She's my sister," the girl repeated, holding up her head defiantly, her cheeks burning—"my sister by adoption. We were brought up together. She was the daughter of an old friend of my father's—an Indian prince. A few years ago she ran away—"

"Thank God!" said Amber from the bottom of his soul; and, "Ah, you would!" cried Labertouche tensely, as Naraini seized the opportunity, when his attention was momentarily diverted, to break for freedom.

Amber saw the flash of a steel blade in the woman's hand as she struck at the secret-agent, and the latter, stepping back, deflected the blow with a guarding forearm. Then, with the quickness of a snake, Naraini stooped, glided beneath his arms, and slipped from the cell.

With a smothered oath Labertouche leaped to the doorway, lifting his pistol; but he was no quicker than Sophia, who caught his arm and held him back. "No," she panted; "not even for our lives—not at that price!"

He yielded unexpectedly. "Of course you are perfectly right, Miss
Farrell," said he, with a little bow. "I'm sorry that circumstances …
But come! She'll have this hornet's nest about our ears in a brace of
seconds. Hark to that!"

A long, shrill shriek echoed down the gallery. Labertouche shrugged and turned to the left. "Come along," he said. "Amber, take Miss Farrel's hand and keep close to me." He led the way from the cell at a brisk pace—one, indeed, that taxed Sophia's powers of endurance to maintain. Amber aided her as much as he might, but that was little; the walls of the passageway were too close together to permit him to be by her side much of the time. For the most part he had to lead the way, himself guided by the swiftly moving patch of light cast by Labertouche's bull's-eye. But through it all he was buoyed up and exhilarated out of all reason by the consciousness of the hand that lay trustfully in his own; a hand soft and small and warm and (though he could not see it) white, all white! More, it was the hand of his wife to be; he felt this now with an unquestioning assurance. He wondered if she shared the subject of his thoughts …

The gallery sloped at varying grades, more or less steep—mostly more—and minute by minute the air became more dank and cold. At an unseen turning, where another passage branched away, a biting wind swept out of the black nowhere, chilling them to the marrow. Deeper and still deeper, into the very bowels of the earth, it seemed, the secret-agent led them, finding his way with an unfaltering confidence that exalted Amber's admiration of him to the pitch of hero-worship.

At length the gallery dipped and ran level, and now, while still cold, the wind that blew in their faces was cleaner, burdened with less of the clammy effluvium of death and decay; and then, abruptly, the walls narrowed suddenly, so that Amber was forced to surrender possession of the girl's hand and to fall behind her. She went forward without question, following the dancing spotlight.

Amber paused to listen for sounds of pursuit, but hearing nothing save the subdued sigh of the draught between the straitened walls of rock, followed until the walls fell away and his hands, outstretched, failed to touch them, and he was aware that the stone beneath his feet had given way to gravel. He halted, calling guardedly to Labertouche.

The secret-agent's voice came from some distance. "It's all right, my boy. Miss Farrell is with me. Come along."

There was an Élan in his tone that bespoke a spirit of gratulation and relief and led Amber to suspect that they were very close upon the end of their flight, near to escape from the subterranean ways of Kathiapur the dead. He proceeded at discretion in the direction of Labertouche's voice—the light being invisible—and brought up flat against a dead wall. Coincidently he heard Sophia exclaim with surprise and delight, somewhere off on his left, and, turning, he saw her head and shoulders move across a patch of starlit sky. In half a dozen strides he overtook her.

They stood on a low, pebbly ledge, just outside the black maw of the passage—an entrance hidden in a curtain-like fold in the face of the cliff that towered above them, casting an ink-black shadow. But beyond it the emblazoned firmament glowed irradiant, and at their feet the encircling waters ran, a broad ribbon of black silk purling between the cliff and the opposing shores, where a thicket of tamarisks rose, a black and ragged wall.

Labertouche strode off into the water. "Straight ahead," he announced; "don't worry—'tisn't more than knee-deep at the worst. I've horses waiting on the other side—"

"Horses!" Amber interrupted. "Great heavens, man, you're—you're omniscient!"

"No—lucky," Labertouche retorted briskly. "Where'd I've been without Ram Nath? He's taking care of the animals…. Come along. What're you waiting for? Don't you know—" He turned to see the girl hesitant, though with lifted skirts. "Oh," he said in an accent of understanding, and came back. "If you'll help me, Amber, I daresay we can get Miss Farrell across without a wetting."

He offered to clasp hands with the Virginian and so make a seat; but
Amber had a happier thought.

"I think I can manage by myself, thank you—if Miss Farrell will trust me."

His eyes met the girl's, and in hers he read trust and faith unending: he was conscious of a curious fluttering in his bosom.

"Trust you!" she said, with a little, broken laugh, and gave herself freely to his arms.

Labertouche grunted and turned his back, wading out into the stream with a great splashing.

Amber straightened up, holding her very close to him, and that with ease. Had she been thrice as heavy he could have borne her with as little care as he did his own immeasurably lightened heart in that hour of fulfilment. And she lay snug and confident, her arms round his neck, the shadowed loveliness of her face very near to him. The faint and elusive fragrance of her hair was sweet and heady in the air he breathed; he could read her eyes, and their allure and surrender was like a draught of wine to him. He felt the strength of ten men invigorate him, and his soul was sober with a great happiness. But a little while and she would be in safety; already her salvation seemed assured…. The further bank neared all too quickly. He would willingly have lingered to prolong the stolen sweetness of that moment, forgetful altogether of the danger that lay behind them.

Ahead, he saw Labertouche step out upon a shelving shore and, shaking his legs with an effect irresistibly suggestive of a dog leaving the water, peer inland through the tamarisks. His low, whistled signal sounded as Amber joined him and put down the girl—reluctantly. Her whispered thanks were interrupted by an exclamation from Labertouche.

"Hang it all! he can't've mistaken the spot. I told him to wait right here, and now … We daren't delay." He cast an apprehensive glance across the stream. "Look lively, please."

He shouldered away through the thicket, and for several moments they struggled on through the hindering undergrowth, their passage betrayed by much noisy rustling. Then, as they won through to open ground, Labertouche paused and whistled a second time, staring eagerly from right to left.

"I'm blessed!" he declared, with a vehemence that argued his desire for stronger language. "This is bad—bad—bad! He never failed me before! I—"

A mocking chuckle seemed to break from the ground at their feet, and in the flicker of an eyelash a shadow lifted up out of the scrub-encumbered level. Sophia cried aloud with alarm; Labertouche swore outright, heedless; and Amber put himself before her, drawing his revolver, heartsick with the conviction that they were trapped, that their labour had gone all for naught, that all futilely had they schemed and dared….

But while his finger was yet seeking the trigger the first shadow was joined by a score of fellows—shades that materialised with like swiftness and silence from the surface of the earth—and before he could level the weapon Labertouche seized his wrist. For an instant he resisted, raging with disappointment; but the Englishman was cool, strong, determined; inevitably in the outcome the weapon was pointed to the sky.

"Steady, you ass!" breathed the secret-agent in his ear. "Can't you see—"

And Amber gave over, in amazement unbounded, seeing the starlight glinting down a dozen levelled rifle-barrels, glowing pale on the spiked, rounded crowns of pith helmets, and striking soft fire from burnished accoutrements; while a voice, thick with a brogue that was never bred out of hearing of Bow Bells, was hectoring them to surrender.

"'Ands up, ye bloomin' black beggars! 'Ands up, I s'y!"

"Tommies!" cried Amber; and incontinently he dropped the revolver as though it had turned hot in his hand.

"Steady, my man!" Labertouche interrupted what threatened to develop into a string of intolerable abuse. "Hold your tongue! Can't you see we've a lady with us?"

"Ul-lo!" The soldier lowered his rifle and stepped closer, his voice vibrating with astonishment. "Blimme, 'ere's a go!… beggar of a nigger givin' me wot-for 's if 'e was a gent! 'Oo in 'ell d'ye think y'are, yer 'ighness?'

"That'll do. Put down those guns, and call your commanding officer. I'll explain to him. Where is he? What troops are you? When did you arrive?"

Such queries and commands discharged quickly in crisp English from the mouth of one who wore the color and costume of a Mohammedan of high degree, temporarily dazed his captors. In a body they pressed round the three, peering curiously into their faces—the two white and the one dark; and their murmurings rose and swelled discordant. "Blimme if 'e ain't a gent!" "T'other un is!" "An this un a leddy!"…But to his interrogations Labertouche got no direct reply. While as for Amber, he could have laughed aloud from a heart that brimmed with thanksgiving for the honest sound of their rich rough voices; besides which, Sophia stood very close to him, and her fingers were tight about his….

"What's this?" A sharp voice cut the comments of the Tommies, and they were smitten silent by it. An officer, with jingling spurs and sword in hand, elbowed through the heart of the press. "Stop that row instantly. What's this? Who are you, sir?"

"I sent the message from Kathiapur, and I'm uncommonly happy to meet you, whoever you may be, sir. Tell your men to fall back, please, and I'll introduce myself properly."

Two words secured the secret-agent the privacy he desired; the officer offered him an ungloved hand as the troopers withdrew out of hearing.

"Happy, indeed!" he said cheerfully. "I'm Rowan, Captain, Fourteenth
Pioneers."

"I'm Labertouche, I.S.S. This is Miss Farrell, daughter of Colonel Farrell, and this Mr. Amber, of New York. We're just escaped from that rock over there and—if you'll pardon—I'd suggest you set a strong guard over the ford behind those tamarisks."

"One moment, please." The officer strode off to issue instructions in accordance with Labertouche's advice. "We got here only a quarter of an hour ago," he apologised, swinging back as the men deployed into the thicket, "and haven't had time to nose out the lay of the land thoroughly."

"I infer you got my man with the horses—native calling himself Ram
Nath?"

"He's with the Colonel-commanding now, Mr. Labertouche. As I was saying, we've hardly had time to do more than throw a line of pickets round the rock. It's been quick work for us—marching orders at midnight yesterday, down by train to Sar, and forced march across the desert ever since daybreak."

"I'd hardly hoped the thing could be done so quickly. If I had been able to get the information an instant earlier, my mind would've been easier, captain, but—Hello!"

From the ford an abrupt clamour of voices interrupted. The officer hooked up his scabbard. "Sounds as if my men had gathered in somebody else," he said hastily. "If you'll excuse me, I'll have a look." He trotted off into the shade of the tamarisks.

As he disappeared the disturbance abated somewhat. "False alarm," Amber guessed.

"I fancy not," said Labertouche. "If I'm not mistaken our friend Naraini left for the special purpose of raising the hue and cry. This should be the vanguard of the pursuit."

Amber looked upward. Overhead the soulless city slumbered in a stillness apparently unbroken, yet he who saw its profile rugged against the stars, could fancy what consternation was then, or presently would be, running riot through its haunted ways.

"How many of 'em are there, do you reckon?" he asked.

"Three or four hundred," replied the secret-agent absently; "the pick and flower of Indian unrest. My word, but this will kick up a row! Think of it, man! three hundred and fifty-odd lords and princes bagged all at once in the act of plotting the Second Mutiny! What a change it will work on the political face of the land! … And the best of it is, they simply can't get away."

"Is this the only exit, then—the way we escaped?"

"Not by three—all on the other side of the rocky where they rode up and left their horses. And that's where the most of 'em will come out, by twos and threes, like the animals out of the Ark, you know. What a catch!"

"And we've you to thank!"

"I? Oh, dear boy, thank the Tommies!"

"But what would we have done, or the Tommies either, without you?"

"What indeed!" Sophia echoed warmly. "I've had no chance, as yet—"

"Not another word, my dear Miss Farrell!" Labertouche protested, acutely uncomfortable. "To've been able to help you out of the scrape is enough."

"But I must—" she began, and stopped with a little cry as a shot rang out from the heart of the thicket, to be followed by another and then by a shriek of agony and a great confusion of sounds—shouts and oaths and noisy crashings in the tamarisks as of many men blundering hither and yon.

Silenced, with a slight shudder of apprehension, the girl drew to Amber's side, as if instinctively. He took her hand and drew it through his arm.

"Run to earth at last!" cried Labertouche. "I wonder—"

"If my hope's good for anything," Amber laughed, less because he felt like laughing than for the purpose of reassuring Sophia, "this will be the gentleman who trained the Hooded Death to dance, or else he who—"

He was thinking with vindictive relish of what fate he would mete out to the manipulator of the Bell, were it left to him to pass sentence. But he broke off as a body of soldiery burst from the tamarisks, and, headed by young Rowan, hurried toward the three, bringing with them a silent and unresisting prisoner.

"I say," the officer called excitedly in advance, "here's something uncommon' rum. It's a woman, you know."

"Aha!" said Labertouche, and "Ah!" said Amber, "with a click of his teeth, while the woman on his arm clung to him the closer.

"I thought we'd better bring her to you, for she said …" Rowan paused, embarrassed, and took a fresh start. "My men got to the ford just as she was coming ashore with three other men, and the whole pack took to cover on this side. Two of the men are still missing, but we routed out the other just now with this—ah—lady. He showed fight and got bayonetted. But the woman—excuse me, Mr. Amber—she protests—by George, it's too ridiculous!—"

"I have claimed naught that is not true!" an unforgettably sweet voice interrupted from the centre of the group. It opened out, disclosing Naraini between two guards, in that moment of passion and fear perhaps more incomparably beautiful than any woman they had ever looked upon, save her who held to Amber's arm, a-quiver with womanly sympathy and compassion.

During her flight and her resistance Naraini's veil had been rent away; in the clear starlight her countenance, framed in hair of lustrous jet and working with uncontrollable rage and despair, shone like that of some strange tempestuous Aphrodite fashioned of palest gold. Beneath its folds of tightly drawn, bespangled gauze her bosom swelled and fell convulsively, and on her perfect arms, more softly beautiful than any Phidias ever dreamed to chisel, the golden bracelets and bangles clashed and tinkled as she writhed and fought to free herself of the defiling hands. Half-mad with disappointment, she raged amid the scattered shreds of her dream of power like a woman hopelessly deranged.

"Aye, I have claimed!" she stormed. "I have claimed justice and the rights of wifehood, the protection of him whose wife I am; or, if he deny me, I claim that he must suffer with me—he who hath played the traitor's part to-night, betraying his Cause and his wife alike to their downfall!… I claim," she insisted, lifting, in spite of the soldiers' restraining hands, one small quivering arm to single Amber out and point him to scorn, "that this is the man who, wedded to me by solemn right and the custom of the land, hath deserted and abandoned me, hath denied me even as he denies his birthright, when it doth please him, and forswears the faith of his fathers! I claim to be Naraini, Queen, wife to Har Dyal Rutton, rightful ruler of Khandawar—coward, traitor, renegade—who stands there!"

"For the love of Heaven, Rowan, shut her up!" cried Labertouche. "It's all a pack of lies; the woman's raving. Rutton's dead, in the first place; in the second, he's her father. She can't be his wife very well, whether he's alive or dead. It's simply a dodge of hers to gain time. Shut her up and take her away—she's as dangerous as a wildcat!"

"Nay, I will not be gagged nor taken hence till I have said my say!" With a sudden furious wrench Naraini wrested her arms from the grasp of the guards and sprang away, eluding with lithe and snake-like movements their attempts to recapture her. "Not," she cried, "until I have wrought my will upon the two of them. Thou hast stood in my light too long, O my sister!"

A hand blazing with jewels tore at the covering of her bosom and suddenly came away clutching a dagger, thin, long, and keen; and snarling she sprang toward the girl, to whose influence, however unwitting, she rightly ascribed the downfall of her scheme of empire. Rowan and Labertouche leaped forward and fell short, so lightning swift she moved; only Amber stood between her and her vengeance. Choking with horror, he put the girl behind him with a resistless hand, and took Naraini to his arms.

"Ah, hast thou changed thy mind, Beloved?" The woman caught him fiercely to her with an arm about his waist, and her voice rose shrill with mocking triumph, "Are my lips become so sweet to thee again? Then see how I kiss, thou fool!"

She thrust with wicked cunning, twice and again, before the men tore her away and disarmed her. For an instant wrestling like a demon with them, still animated by her murderous frenzy, still wishful to fill her cup of vengeance to the brim with the blood of the girl, she of a sudden ceased to resist and fell passive in their hands, a dying flicker of satisfaction in the eyes that watched the culmination of her crime….

To Amber it was as if his body had been penetrated thrice by a needle of fire. The anguish of it was exquisite, stupefying. He was aware of a darkening, reeling world, wherein men's faces swam like moons, pallid, staring, and of a mighty and invincible lethargy that pounced upon him, body, brain and soul, like a black panther springing from the ambush of the night. Yet there were still words that must be spoken, lest they live in his subconsciousness to torment him through all the long, black night that was to receive him. He tried to steady himself, and lifted an arm that vibrated like the sprung limb of a sapling, signing to the secret-agent.

"Labertouche," he said thickly … "Sophia … out of India … at once … life …"

The girl's arms received him as he fell.