Rutley had depended partly on her fear of him to remain passive, for the shawl was not long enough to permit her limbs being bound together and securely tied with a knot. Having freed her hands, it was the work of a moment to remove the gag from her mouth.
She stood motionless and silent save for the palpitation of her heart, which seemed thunderous in its beat. Rutley had not heard her, his attention being wholly absorbed by the sounds in the hall, and being back of him, she had time to quiet her agitation and analyze the situation.
Again low raps sounded on the door.
“What shall I do?” she inaudibly muttered, “for to aid me Sam will walk in to his death. Oh, heaven inspire me!”
As the hall door slowly opened, she tried in her agony to shriek a warning, but not a sound escaped her lips. Terror and apprehension had for the moment bereft her of voice.
Suddenly, like a divine flash, she remembered Jack Shore’s blanket device in the cabin at Ross Island. She turned half around, silently stooped and picked up the shawl from the closet floor. She was very nervous and her agitation caused a trifling delay, which to her appeared hours, in untwisting the wrap and spreading it out, suspended on her two hands before her.
Sam cautiously appeared around the door. He was keenly alert, for he fully expected an encounter with Rutley, being quite satisfied that no other person would dare to gag Virginia, but when in that swift glance he saw her only in the room, and she with the gag removed and fingering a shawl, his surprise was so great that he forgot his caution. He pushed the door open wider and entered the room. His lips parted to speak.
That instant Rutley said sharply, “Hands up!”
Sam’s hands went up, and he looked into the muzzle of a revolver, pointed at him from behind the chair.
Rutley stood up. At almost the same moment Virginia swiftly approached from behind and threw the net over his head, and shrieked, “Help! Help!”