“Bullets then. Them bullets?”
“I have no bullets. I use no gun. I shoot only with bow and arrow.”
“Ah, yes! With those you are skillful!” Volpi’s words carried infinite hate. He knew what had happened to Jimmie McGowan. Jimmie had been useful to him in many ways. And now, who knows? Ah yes, he must have those bullets at any cost.
“Look here, you!” He advanced upon Johnny in a threatening manner. “You know what slugs I mean. Them slugs that this New York bull’s been makin’ evidence with. You’re goin’ to give ’em up!”
He did not wait for Johnny to give them up. He stepped up and thrust his hand into the boy’s inner coat pocket.
A look of blank astonishment overspread his face. When he had gone hurriedly through all the boy’s pockets, he stood back to stare into Johnny’s face. His fingers worked convulsively. His small eyes became buttons of staring blue. It seemed that he would spring at the boy and tear him to pieces.
At that instant a curious thing happened. The room, lighted as it was only by a small flashlight, was more than half in darkness. Into that darkness there stole a strange red light. On the floor, at the gangster’s feet, there appeared the flaming arrow of fire.
“O-oof!” The man sprang back as if from a ghost. “The arrow!” he mumbled. “The arrow of fire!”
As on those other occasions, even as he spoke, the apparition vanished.
Whatever may have been the gangster’s intentions in the beginning, they had been changed by the arrow of fire. Leading his men into a corner, he began to talk to them in whispers. Was he recounting to them in detail the history of that mysterious arrow? No one but they will ever know.