Back and forth over the rocky floor they struggled. As they fought,—she with frantic strength, he craftily,—he backed her slowly up against the prop that upheld the roof.
He raised his keen knife.
She recoiled. The prop, none too strong, suddenly gave way under her weight.
The whole roof of the chamber fell with a crash, earth and stone overwhelming Elaine and her assailant.
. . . . . . .
By this time Joshua had left the house and had gone out into the garden to get something to pry open the fireplace door.
Of a sudden, to his utter amazement, a few feet from him, it seemed as if the very earth sank in his garden, leaving a yawning chasm.
He looked, unable to make it out.
Before his very eyes a strange figure, the figure of Long Sin in his oxygen helmet, appeared, struggling up, as if by magic from the very earth, shaking the debris off himself, as a dog would shake off the water after a plunge in a pond.
Long Sin was gone in a moment.