CHAPTER XXII
The sharp crack of an automatic echoed through the shack. The detective known as Jim had come back to consciousness, and now, from behind an overturned table where he had fallen, he started to fire shot after shot into the mob of emissaries.
He had fallen in a far corner and could be reached only after an attack of some paces, and even the emissaries, numerous as they were, hesitated to advance on a determined man placed in such an advantageous position. Furthermore, the diversion caused by the shots had other effects. The sound of the shots brought Locke fully out of his stunned condition and he started to struggle frantically in the meshes of the net that held him prisoner.
The Automaton, for the moment, ceased to follow Eva, and moved over to its men in order to take command and to direct their movements, while yet another detective came to his senses and began to threaten the mob.
Locke was threshing about and was slowly but surely freeing himself. An emissary threw a chair, and for a moment Locke lay still in pain. But in another moment he was working even more frantically at the ropes and the net that held him.
Eva started over to help him, but he shouted to her to stand back, since that would bring her in line with the detectives' fire. The shots were flying over Locke's body as he struggled. Some of the emissaries went down; others found places of refuge behind which they hid.
Finally Locke managed to kick his feet free of the net and, rolling and tossing, managed to work the meshes up about his shoulders and neck, thus releasing his hands. It was the work of an instant only, now, to slip the enveloping net over his head and he was free.
Locke rolled out of the direction of the revolver-shots and toward Eva, who was now standing before a huge open fireplace.
He was none too soon, for the moment that the Automaton saw that Locke had escaped the iron terror left the men and stalked ponderously over to crush out Locke's life.
The two detectives fired point-blank at the monster and both shots took effect with a ringing, metallic sound. But they did not halt the Automaton an instant. Locke, reaching the fireplace, seized a pair of old tongs and threw firebrand after firebrand in the path of the advancing terror.