The Destroyer: A Tale of International Intrigue

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

"Dan—Dan—Dan!"

And Dan, flaming with such rage as he had never known before, sprang upright, sprang forward, and rising on tiptoe to get the whole weight of his body into it, brought his club whirring down upon that shaggy head.

Like a log the man fell, with a crash that echoed through the house, and instantly from the hallway came a hoarse shout, the rush of heavy feet....

In that instant, Dan was possessed by a curious clairvoyance; he could see Kasia, he could see his victim, he could see the room behind him, he could see the hall with the other guard running along it; he knew somehow that there was a pistol in the belt of the man who lay at his feet, and, without conscious will of his own, his hand found it and jerked it out.

That other figure had reached the threshold, and Dan was conscious of his red face and staring eyes and open mouth. He was conscious of a hairy hand closing on a pistol-butt, and, again without willing it, he jerked his own hand up and fired....

And the next moment, with one arm about Kasia, he threw back the bolts of the front door, flung it open, and fled down the steps into the street.

That was all Dan ever remembered of those fierce instants. They appeared to him afterwards as a series of tableaux, each standing distinctly by itself, unconnected with the past or with the future, and he felt himself to be, not an actor in them, but a puppet moved by wires. It was as though his brain had leaped from one mountain-top to another, across intervening valleys buried in fog.

But the instant his feet touched the pavement, the instant the fight was won, his will asserted itself and his brain began again to work connectedly. And the first thing he remembered doing was holding up his hand and staring at it, astonished that it did not hold a pistol. He had no recollection of having dropped it.

"We must get help!" Kasia panted. "My father is there!"

"The Prince and Pachmann are there, too," said Dan; "perhaps others." He looked up and down the street. "I wonder where we are? There's the elevated. Come along!"