"Don't let's waste no time, then. Ye've done splashed coal-oil on ther corner of ther warehouse, hain't ye?"
"Yes."
"Wa'al, come on. Ye've got yore torch ready. Let's tech her off. He thinks he's safe enough inside thar, but right shortly he'll sing another tune."
Alexander fell, for a moment, into a tremor and chill of wild panic. Suddenly as a revelation, yet beyond all shadow of doubt, she knew that the man who was doomed to a certain and most horrible death was, to her, the person of supreme consequence in all the world. The dynamic qualities of Halloway were nothing and less than nothing, now. She wanted for always that gentle strength and whimsical smile that were soon to be licked up in flame and torture. If this man were not saved she could, herself, no longer endure to live—and there was no way of saving him!
While Alexander crouched there with her blood congealed she saw the torch applied, saw its flame leap ravenously to the welcome of the kerosene and secure a hold upon the building itself as sure and tenacious as the grip of a bulldog's clamped jaws.
The plotters who fired the elevator showed her only their backs.
How long would it be before the man inside recognized the acrid odor and realized his fate? What would he do then? Presumably he would dash for the door, and there both flame and rifle fire would be awaiting him.
The incendiaries had now passed around the corner of the house and the moonlight fell upon the long chute which ran almost vertically down to the railway tracks below. Into Alexander's mind shot a desperate resolution. It offered a slender chance at best—yet the only one.
Still for a moment, she questioned it. There were so many ways that it might turn out—and of them all, one only could possibly end in success.
Then she slipped over to the great handle that controlled the flow of grain, locked into place with its chain and padlock. If she were seen she would, of course, be killed, but the murder crew seemed to have massed at the front of the place now, watching the door, until the fire should take that task off their hands. The flames were crackling loud enough now to cover the noise which must attend her next move—and to afford her a light for her work.