Peter pushed her away from him in loathing, and she lay still, only whimpering.
Yet the devils of darkness—where were they? And slowly, yet more slowly, the rosewood clock ticked off its seconds. It should be nearly one. At one——
A fighting chance?
CHAPTER XV
On his hands and knees he crouched, and began crawling, an inch at a time, toward the French window, dragging the automatic over the thick satin carpet. He reached the window. It was still ajar. Far, far below twinkled the lights of Hong Kong, of ships anchored in the bay, and the glitter of Kowloon across the bay. Out there was life!
A board creaked near him, toward the heart of that darkened vault. He spun about, aimed blindly, fired!
The floor shook as an unseen shape collapsed and writhed within reach of his hand. In his grasp, was the oily, thick queue of a coolie.
And suddenly, as he groped, the wall spat out angry tongues of corrosive red flame.
A white-hot iron seemed to shoot through the flesh of his left arm. The pain reached his shoulder. His left arm was useless—the bone cracked!