With muttered curses he choked Virginia still, carried her in his arms into his library, tore the knife from her bodice and flung her across the room.
“Move a muscle now—damn you! and I’ll blow your brains out.” He had found a pair of automatics in his table drawer.
He called from the doorway and two guards who had rushed in from the lawn answered.
“If she moves, shoot her dead in her tracks. Stay until I return.”
He sprang up the narrow steps to the wireless tower. His operator sat lifeless in his chair.
He seized the keys and called central in the Woolworth tower.
“The Garrison to arms! At once—every man to his place and every ship’s deck cleared!”
The tower answered O. K.
Vassar sprang to his feet trembling with alarm.