"She's a fiend incarnate," Labertouche broke in. "Amber, get that girl—"
"She's my sister!" cried Sophia. "Now will you understand?"
"What!" The two men exclaimed as one.
"She's my sister," the girl repeated, holding up her head defiantly, her cheeks burning—"my sister by adoption. We were brought up together. She was the daughter of an old friend of my father's—an Indian prince. A few years ago she ran away—"
"Thank God!" said Amber from the bottom of his soul; and, "Ah, you would!" cried Labertouche tensely, as Naraini seized the opportunity, when his attention was momentarily diverted, to break for freedom.
Amber saw the flash of a steel blade in the woman's hand as she struck at the secret-agent, and the latter, stepping back, deflected the blow with a guarding forearm. Then, with the quickness of a snake, Naraini stooped, glided beneath his arms, and slipped from the cell.
With a smothered oath Labertouche leaped to the doorway, lifting his pistol; but he was no quicker than Sophia, who caught his arm and held him back. "No," she panted; "not even for our lives—not at that price!"
He yielded unexpectedly. "Of course you are perfectly right, Miss
Farrell," said he, with a little bow. "I'm sorry that circumstances …
But come! She'll have this hornet's nest about our ears in a brace of
seconds. Hark to that!"
A long, shrill shriek echoed down the gallery. Labertouche shrugged and turned to the left. "Come along," he said. "Amber, take Miss Farrel's hand and keep close to me." He led the way from the cell at a brisk pace—one, indeed, that taxed Sophia's powers of endurance to maintain. Amber aided her as much as he might, but that was little; the walls of the passageway were too close together to permit him to be by her side much of the time. For the most part he had to lead the way, himself guided by the swiftly moving patch of light cast by Labertouche's bull's-eye. But through it all he was buoyed up and exhilarated out of all reason by the consciousness of the hand that lay trustfully in his own; a hand soft and small and warm and (though he could not see it) white, all white! More, it was the hand of his wife to be; he felt this now with an unquestioning assurance. He wondered if she shared the subject of his thoughts …
The gallery sloped at varying grades, more or less steep—mostly more—and minute by minute the air became more dank and cold. At an unseen turning, where another passage branched away, a biting wind swept out of the black nowhere, chilling them to the marrow. Deeper and still deeper, into the very bowels of the earth, it seemed, the secret-agent led them, finding his way with an unfaltering confidence that exalted Amber's admiration of him to the pitch of hero-worship.