She dared not open her eyes. The last thing that she had seen was Locke struggling frantically to escape from under the elevator that was only a few inches above him and seemed destined to crush out his life.
Slowly, fearfully, she opened her eyes. Locke's body lay motionless at her feet, separated almost literally by only the breadth of a hair from the shaft.
The relief, the reaction from her terrible emotions, made Zita half hysterical. Trembling in every limb, she made her way to Locke and fell on her knees by him. She wrapped her arms about him and held his head up.
It was thus that she was holding him when his eyes slowly opened and gazed questioningly into her own, his brow knitted in perplexity.
Then, with a rush, it all came back to him—the descending elevator, Zita standing at the switch, while his life hung in the balance, his last frantic effort to escape just before the descending elevator had grazed his head, rendering him unconscious. That Zita, at the last moment, had attempted to save his life he did not know, nor why she now gazed at him frankly with eyes of love.
It was all inexplicable to him.
Another instant and he had wrenched himself loose from Zita's arms and was struggling with the ropes that still bound him even after he had managed to roll out from under the elevator in the last nick of time.
He had suddenly realized that the sight of Eva being carried off by the emissaries had not been a hideous dream, but a terrible actuality, and that at this very moment she was probably in the most imminent danger.
Zita realized that he wanted freedom to rush to Eva's assistance. Had she dared, she would have refused to release him from her arms, would at least have hindered his untying his bonds. But there was a masterful something about his silent demand to be released that would admit of no refusal.
In a few seconds Locke completed the freeing of himself and was dashing madly toward the door through which the gang, carrying Eva, had passed.