He nodded to one of his men standing near. Cleves gave him the hand luggage and checks.
“All right,” he said in a low voice to Recklow; and passed one arm through Tressa’s.
The coupé was waiting on Forty-second Street, guarded by a policeman. When they had entered and were seated, two mounted policemen rode ahead of the lurching vehicle, picking a way amid the monstrous snow-drifts, and headed for the East River.
“We’ve got him somewhere in a wretched row of empty houses not far from East River Park. I’m taking you there. I’ve drawn a cordon of my men around the entire block. He can’t get away. But I dared take no chances with this Yezidee sorcerer—dared not let one of my men go in to look for him—go anywhere near him,—until I could lay the situation before you, Mrs. Cleves.”
“Yes,” she said calmly, “it was the only way, Mr. Recklow. There would have been no use shooting him—no use taking him prisoner. A prisoner, he remains as deadly as ever; dead, his mind still lives and breeds evil. You are quite right; it is for me to deal with Sanang.”
Recklow shuddered in spite of himself. “Can you tear his claws from the vitals of the world, and free the sick brains of a million people from the slavery of this monster’s mind?”
The girl said seriously:
“Even Satan was stoned. It is so written. And was cast out. And dwells forever and ever in Abaddon. No star lights that Pit. None lights the Black Planet, Yrimid. It is where evil dwells. And there Sanang Noïane belongs.”
And now, beyond the dirty edges of the snow-smothered city, under an icy mist they caught sight of the river where ships lay blockaded by frozen floes.