"You asked for it," said the other in a horrible whisper and slashed at the rope from which the Saint hung.
And at the same moment the Saint made his own gamble. The fingers of his right hand strained up, closed on the iron ring from which he was suspended, tightened their grip and held it. The strain on his sinews shot red-hot needles through him; and yet he had a sense of serene confidence, a feeling of seraphic inevitability, that no pain could suppress. He had goaded the Z-Man as he had anticipated; and he had been waiting with every nerve and muscle for the one solitary chance that the fall of the cards offered — a game fighting chance to win through. And the chance had come off.
The rope no longer held him from plunging down to almost certain death, but the steel strength of his own fingers did. And as the rope parted the slipknot had loosened so that he could wrench his left hand free.
"Thanks a lot, sweetheart," said the Saint.
A hawk would have had difficulty in following the movements that came immediately afterwards. As the Z-Man gasped with sudden fear a circle of wrought steel whipped across his shoulder, swung him completely round and placed him so that his back was towards the Saint. Then the Saint's left hand snaked under his opponent's left arm, flashed up to his neck and secured a half nelson that was as solid as if it had been carved out of stone.
"We can now indulge in skylarking and song," said the Saint. "I'll do the skylarking, and you can provide the song."
To some extent he was right; but the Z-Man's song was not so much musical as reminiscent of the shriek of a lost locomotive. Some men might have got out of that half nelson, particularly as the Saint was still crucified between his precarious grip on the ring and the weight that was trying to drag him down into the black void; but the Z-Man knew nothing about wrestling, and all the strength seemed to have gone out of him. Moreover, the Saint's thumb on one side of his captive's neck and his lean brown fingers on the other were crushing with deadly effect into his victim's carotid arteries. Scientifically applied, this treatment can produce unconsciousness in a few seconds; but Simon was at a disadvantage, for half his strength was devoted to fighting the relentless drag on his ankles.
Raddon and Welmont started forward too late. The Saint's wintry laugh met them at their first step.
"If anything happens," he said with pitiless clarity, "your pal goes over first."
They checked as if they had run into an invisible wall; and Raddon's Gumpish face showed white as his torch jumped in his hand.