With all my strength I hurled the empty revolver at the yellow devil. It struck him squarely between the eyes. The knife dropped and he clutched at his face, at the same time struggling to his feet to meet the new attack.
Freed from the struggle, Dr. Gresham’s figure relaxed as in a swoon.
Instantly I was after the Chinaman—without a thought of his bull-like strength. I was seeing red. The furious joy of the primeval man hunter—the lust for blood—turned my head. My one idea was to kill.
Leaping over the prostrate scientist, I flung myself at the last of the sorcerers. He had retreated three or four feet, and now stood at bay upon the iron bridge that ran along the top of the water mains, overhanging the precipice. As I dashed at him he stepped quickly aside. I missed him—and my heart leaped into my throat as I stumbled across the perilous eyrie and brought up against the outer rail, which seemed to sway.
I staggered, seized the rod, and saved myself. Far, far below, jagged rocks and the roof of the Seuen-H’sin’s powerhouse greeted my gaze.
And at the same time—although I was not conscious of paying attention to it—I became sensible of the fact that the monstrous cloud above the horizon was soaring swiftly, beating its black wings close to the sun—and that a weird twilight, a ghostly gloom, was settling over everything. From the distance, too, still came that appalling uproar.
As I recovered my balance the Chinaman bounded at me. But his foot caught in the grating and he stumbled to his knees. Instantly I threw myself upon him. My knee bored into the small of his back; my fingers sank into his throat. I had him! If I could keep my hold a little while the life would be strangled from his body.
In spite of his disadvantage, the fellow staggered to his feet. And there above the void—upon that narrow steel framework, protected only by its leg-high rail—we began a life-and-death struggle.
I hung on, like a mountain lion upon the back of its prey, while the Chinaman lurched and twisted this way and that.
Once he staggered against the railing, lost his footing, swung around—and I hung out over empty space, a drop of fully 300 feet. I thought the end had come—that we would topple off into the void. But his mighty strength pulled us back upon the grating—the whole slight structure seeming to sway and creak as he did so.