Swaying evasively, The Shadow made a strange target. His tall form, moving with a mystic rhythm, seemed to elude the fire of his foeman. A bullet clipped the top of the slouch hat. Another zimmed through the flowing border of the black cloak.
From hidden lips came a mocking laugh — a merciless mirth that boded no good for the relentless enemy. A living target, The Shadow had played the Chinamen’s own game. He had caused their eagerness to prevail over their caution.
Unscathed by the shots that had greeted his appearance, he had surveyed the scene with piercing eyes. He had marked the spots from which betraying spurts of flame had told the presence of the snipers.
Now his automatics came into sudden action. They burst forth with roars that sounded like cannon in that low-ceilinged room. They formed a swift barrage — a deadly hail of uncanny fire that rained destruction on those who had unwisely found The Shadow’s wrath!
One bullet caught a yellow-visaged sniper as he dodged behind a door. The man toppled sidewise and sprawled into the room, his revolver striking the floor four feet beyond his body. A sneaking form, slipping down behind a corner table, plumped suddenly and did not rise again.
The Shadow’s left hand, with quickly moving forefinger, turned the path of an automatic across a blackened opening at the far side of the room.
Somewhere in that darkness lay a man whose revolver was pointed, ready to deliver a fatal bullet. The shot never came. The Shadow’s remedy had worked. Another Chinaman became motionless.
THOSE deadly automatics brought another silence to the den of death. Down to a single shot that remained in his right-hand gun, The Shadow had dealt destruction to the hidden murderers. Not one Chinaman remained capable of action — either in that room or in the hidden passageways beyond.
A prone man in a corner was trying to rise and deliver a last shot; but his effort failed. He sank back helpless, and his revolver dropped from his grip.
There was an open window across the room. It opened on a narrow crevice between this building and the next. Through it, a yellow face was peering. This single assassin had crawled to his perch from the floor below.