A man stepped to the switch.
CHAPTER XV
There was a moan from the front room. Eva was recovering from her faint. The Automaton indicated to the emissary at the switch to do nothing until he had found out what was going on.
Locke had, meanwhile, recovered consciousness and realized his awful position. Here was a situation which, on its face, seemed unescapable. Yet Locke would not give in.
Straining every effort, he tried to extricate himself before the deadly current could sever the thread of life. Seconds seemed ages. Still he tried.
With a mighty effort he strained every muscle of his gigantic chest and the very straps that held him groaned from the force of his muscular exertion. Even now the death-man was at the switch and it was barely a question of seconds or heart-beats between him and death.
With a quick twist of his giant shoulder he threw his whole weight against the chest strap and it parted. Lurching forward, he freed his head and neck from the cruel straps, which snapped and parted.
The death-man paused for a fraction of a second to see what caused the commotion in the chair. To that pause Locke owed his life. With a final supreme effort he threw himself on the floor just as the knife-switch swung into position and the wicked blue flame of death leaped across the head electrodes.
Once freed, he catapulted himself across the room and with a vicious upper-cut sent the emissary sprawling unconscious to the floor. Without a thought of himself he rushed into the next room where Eva now stood in panic, glued to the spot, in fear of the Frankenstein monster that would crush her in its grasp.
With murderous mien the thing crossed the room slowly, until only the table stood between her and destruction.