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Page 75
Like a flash Billy drew out his knife and cut the rope. There was a
wild yell from below and a screech of curses and imprecations
following a rather sickening sounding thud, which persuaded Billy,
peering down from above, that the victim's lungs at least were
unimpaired, and then to his great amazement a shot went winging up
past his ear.
"Had a gun all the time--too fighting mad to think of it--knife more
natural!" he thought amazedly, sliding down the other side in a
jiffy and then jerking his ladder down flat on the ground.
Out in the shadows the one-eyed man was paddling earnestly to
safety. The shot so close at hand had been his sign for departure;
he did not look back at Billy's shrill whistling nor his wilder
shouts, and as the yells on the other side of the wall were bringing
the inmates of the palace upon him, Billy had no more time for
persuasion.
Off went his shoes and out into the canal he flung them, then
headlong he plunged into the dark and uninviting water and struck
out to the right, in the same direction in which the canoe was
going, keeping carefully in the shadow of the bank, on the other
side.
In a few moments the canoe was lost from sight and Billy was left
alone, swimming between two steep walls of old palaces, weighed down
by his tweeds, and maddened through and through with his inability
to wring the neck of the one-eyed canoeist. The distance seemed
unending to his slow progress but at last the palms of the cemetery
appeared upon the right hand bank, and he struck across the widening
waters and climbed out on the first foot of the graveyard that
presented itself.
A dozen rods farther on the Arab was awaiting him in the canoe.
Billy's mood did not invite conversation and he did not linger now
for the other's explanations, but calling to him to wait he made in
through the cemetery, dodging warily from tomb to tomb, till he
reached the entrance of the main road.
The motor was gone. He satisfied himself of that, and a wave of
rejoicing surged through him. That motor was to wait till one or the
other arrived with the girl and then leave with all speed, while the
other was to be left to the slower canoe. He was sure, now, that
Falconer had succeeded in carrying the thing through and Billy's
heart warmed to him. Then, for the first time, he felt something
numb and queer about his left arm and putting his hand on it he
found the sopping sleeve was torn and a warm ooze of blood welling
through the cold water from the canal.
"Gosh, the chap winged me!" was his startled exclamation. "Feels as
if it's going to sleep--glad it didn't go back on me in the ditch,
there." Then he pressed back into the shadows for he saw a figure
edging forward beyond the corner of a tomb. After a moment's
hesitation it came directly toward him. He saw it was Robert
Falconer.
Foreboding gripped him and he could scarcely keep himself from
shouting his eager question, but he hurried forward till the two
stood face to face and then, "Where is she? Did you get her?" burst
from him, and "Have you got her? Is she all right?" came at the same
instant from Falconer.
Blankly they stared at each other and a cold sense of failure went
over and over Billy like a sea. His voice shook with this new,
sickening fear. "Didn't you see her at all?"
"Did you?" counter-demanded Falconer, and Billy stammered, "Why no
I--I found the room empty. And I thought you were safely off with
her."
"Safely off!" said Falconer grimly. "I got in all right, though
there must be a new lock on the door of that room up top, but I made
some noise about it and ran plump into a fellow half way down the
stairs. I threw him the rest of the way down, and he fired and
brought a couple of others swarming up at me but I got out on the
roofs again and gave them the slip. They went tearing back along the
wing toward the garden the way I'd come and I went toward the street
and got down."
"Got down! _How_ did you get down?"
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