With the hand left free—for they would not loose hold of Fantômas—Juve and Fandor strove instinctively to parry the attack, to sweep away the clustering swarms. But this made things worse; the number of the aggressors was only multiplied. Now about their faces whirled a buzzing, eddying cloud of infuriated creatures!
Fantômas, on the contrary, who had had a second or two’s time to think what course was best to adopt after upsetting the hives, forced himself to stand absolutely still, refraining from making the slightest movement, barely stirring lips and eyelids. And the bees, in their blindness, never attacking the villain who was their real enemy, directed all their efforts to the two who, from the weird gesticulations they indulged in, seemed the most redoubtable foes.
Stung in a thousand places, Juve and Fandor shrieked in agony and, overmastered by the pain, let go their prisoner.
The latter, following the same tactics, dropped to the ground, burying his face in the grass by the side of the pathway. There Fantômas lay as still as death, while Juve and Fandor fell victims to the angry bees, all the more because they waved their arms wildly about and tried to defend themselves.
Beaten at last, the two martyrs abandoned all efforts to resist and rolled on the ground in transports of insufferable pain!
Two hours after, Juve and Fandor were discovered lying under the trees in the garden of the grand duchess’s house; they were unconscious, half dead, their faces so disfigured by the bees’ merciless stings as to be unrecognizable.
As for Tom Bob-Fantômas, he had disappeared. Once again that monster of iniquity was at large....
Would he add yet more atrocities to the long list of his crimes???
THE END