The Bolshevist agent reached the top step unsuspecting. It was then that Froman acted. With a swift swing, he seized his hated enemy and flung him back down the steps.
“Die!” he cried. “Die as all your kind should die!”
Catching himself, Motkin scrambled upward just as Froman started through the door. The barrier was falling, but Froman was not in time. With a fiendish snarl, Motkin gripped his enemy and pulled him back into the dungeon.
A short, tense struggle followed. Both men were governed by intense fury. Motkin, the Red, and Froman, the Czarist, were battling to the death.
The odds were first with Motkin; then, with a mighty effort, Froman flung the man aside. Motkin fell and lay still. Froman sneered. He walked deliberately to the closed door and once more inserted the tiny pick that opened the hidden catch.
He did not see Motkin, cautiously rising. His eyes glittering with vengeance, The Red agent crept up the steps. With a quick motion, he seized Froman’s throat.
Clinging to the knob of the door, Froman gasped and his eyes bulged helplessly. Motkin was choking him to death. There was no escape from that terrible clutch.
No escape? A hideous smile appeared upon Froman’s distorted features. Motkin was dragging him toward the bottom of the steps. Froman’s slipping fingers were sliding from the knob of the door. Yet his last, despairing action succeeded.
As Motkin gloated with triumph, Froman’s fingers twisted the knob of the door!
A terrific explosion rang out through the dungeon. A mighty charge broke loose and both strugglers vanished in the burst of flame that swept through the buried vault.