Suddenly above the noise Rupert heard two long, low whistles. He turned over on his hands and knees. But, as he did so, he heard a wild yell.
The hag-like woman had seen him. Patterson was discovered, too.
A score of writhing, steel-coloured, blood-stained bodies reeled towards them, closed round them, cutting off all chance of escape.
Rupert saw Patterson rise to his feet. He followed his example, giving himself up for lost. The flames from the bough-fed fire leaped up brightly for a moment, then died down again, making the night inky-black.
CHAPTER XXVI.
AN ARGUMENT.
Despard sat in the den, as he called it, of his new chambers in Duke Street, London. A shaded electric light shone on his desk. A mass of papers and a private account-book lay before him, a half-smoked Havana cigar was in his mouth, a whisky and soda by his side.
The gold travelling clock on the mantelshelf struck the hour. Nine o'clock. Despard pushed back his chair, took a pull at his cigar, sighed, and then, looking at the clock, frowned. Evidently the visitor he expected was not coming.
Nearly two years had passed since he successfully floated the radium mine at Blackthorn Farm. For several months his little venture had threatened to sink. It had been more difficult than he supposed to get people to believe in radium. The public wanted something they could see and handle for their money. Radium was a little too elusive.
But Despard, for all his faults, was a fighter, especially when he had something for which to fight. He had got two or three people with a small amount of money to believe in him—and in radium. Some of those people had influence. So, after many weary months of working up a slow but steady boom, and by a brilliant system of advertisement, the company had been successfully floated and launched, and the public had come in at first slowly and hesitatingly, but eventually with a rush which was accelerated by an unexpected boom on the Stock Exchange.