He advanced to the door, and putting the muzzle of his automatic almost on the lock, shattered it with six heavy bullets.
Again he dashed the boulder against the door. It groaned and gave.
Reloading ere he ventured in, he now set his shoulder to the door and forced it slowly open, with the pistol always ready in his right hand.
Keenly his eyes sought out the darkened corners of the room. Here, there they pierced, striving to determine whether any ambushed foe were lying there in wait for him.
“Surrender!” he cried loudly in the Merucaan tongue. “If there be any here who war with me, surrender! At the first sign of fight, you die!”
No answer.
Still leaving the girl beside the broken door till he should feel positive there was no peril--and always filled with a vast wonder how the door could have been locked from within--Allan advanced slowly, cautiously, into their home.
He was cool now--cool and strong again. The frightful perils and exposures of the week past seemed to have fallen from him like an outworn mantle.
He ignored his pain and weakness as though such things were not. And, with index on trigger, eyes watchful and keen, he scouted down the cave-dwelling.
Suddenly he stopped.