"Oh, God!" moaned Stuart—"the fiend! the merciless, cunning fiend!
Is there nothing …"
"Yes, yes!" said Miska, looking up. "If I can get enough of the green fluid and escape. But he tell me once—it was in America—that he only prepares one tiny draught at a time! Listen! I must stay, and if he can be captured he must be forced to make this antidote … Ah! go! go!"
Her words ended in a sob, and Stuart held her to him convulsively, his heart filled with such helpless, fierce misery and bitterness as he had never known.
"Go, please go!" she whispered. "It is my only chance—there is no other. There is not a moment to wait. Listen to me! You will go by that door by which I come in. There is a better way, through a tunnel he has made to the river bank; but I cannot open the door. Only he has the key. At the end of the passage some one is waiting——"
"Chunda Lal!" Miska glanced up rapidly and then dropped her eyes again.
"Yes—poor Chunda Lal. He is my only friend. Give him this."
She removed an amulet upon a gold chain from about her neck and thrust it into Stuart's hand.
"It seems to you silly, but Chunda Lal is of the East; and he has promised. Oh! be quick! I am afraid. I tell you something. Fo-Hi does not know, but the police Inspector and many men search the river bank for the house! I see them from a window——"
"What!" cried Stuart—"Dunbar is here!"
"Ssh! ssh!" Miska clutched him wildly. "He is not far away. You will go and bring him here. No! for me do not fear. I put the keys back and he will think you have opened the lock by some trick——"