“Oh, please!” she said tremulously. “Not without a pistol. Oh, Dick!”
“I will be careful,” he said gently, and leaning toward her for the briefest moment: “My darling, oh, my darling!”
Then he was gone. With a business-like air Professor Ravenden examined the weapon Dick had given him, and placed himself in front of the girls. To the east they could see Johnston’s sturdy form, and westward Helga’s brooding eyes now and again glimpsed the buoyant figure of her lover.
“Don’t be afraid, dearest,” he had called back to her. “When it comes to running I can do just as well as the next fellow, and generally better.”
Shadows and patches of oak covered Dick’s course. Five minutes passed, and then came a shout from Johnston. Professor Ravenden walked coolly forward a few paces, raising and lowering his pistol arm as if to make sure that it was well oiled at the joints. At rest it pointed in the direction of Whalley. The juggler was running toward them from the side of the ravine down which Dick had moved. Taking advantage of the land’s broken contour, he had eluded and passed Dick; now he was making straight for them.
“Stand!” called the professor.
It was as if he had not spoken. The juggler approached with no lessening of pace, no swerve from his course.
“Don’t come any farther. Do you want to be shot?”
This time it was Helga’s voice. Whalley checked his rush. His hands clutched at his breast; he strove for utterance against an agonised exhaustion. His arms beating out into the air expressed with shocking vividness a warning of extremest terror. Obviously there was nothing to fear from the man in this mood. Nevertheless, Professor Ravenden held his pistol ready as he went forward.
“Take—her—away!” he hacked out like a man fighting for utterance in the last stage of strangulation. “Eet—comes. I—haf—seen—eet!”