"You fiend!" I shrieked at the mocking Eurasian, "you yellow fiend of hell!"
I was beside myself, insane. Zarmi fell back a step, flashing a glance from my own contorted face to that, now pale even beneath its artificial tan, of Fletcher.
I snatched the pistol from my pocket, and for one fateful moment the lust of slaying claimed my mind…. Then I turned towards the river, and, raising the Browning, fired shot after shot in the air.
"Weymouth!" I cried. "Weymouth!"
A sharp hissing sound came from behind me; a short, muffled cry … and something descended, crushing, upon my skull. Like a wild cat Zarmi hurled herself past me and leapt into the boat. One glimpse I had of her pallidly dusky face, of her blazing black eyes, and the boat was thrust off into the waterway … was swallowed up in the mist.
I turned, dizzily, to see Fletcher sinking to his knees, one hand clutching his breast.
"She got me … with the knife," he whispered. "But … don't worry … look to yourself, and …him…."
He pointed, weakly—then collapsed at my feet. I threw myself upon the wooden chest with a fierce, sobbing cry.
"Smith, Smith!" I babbled, and knew myself no better, in my sorrow, than an hysterical woman. "Smith, dear old man! speak to me! speak to me!…"
Outraged emotion overcame me utterly, and with my arms thrown across the box, I slipped into unconsciousness.