|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 67
There were French windows upon the ground floor, all of them
closely shuttered. Although he recognized that he was taking
desperate chances, he inspected each one of them closely.
Passing gently from window to window, his quest ultimately earned
its reward. Through a crack in one of the shutters a dim light
shone out. His heart was beating uncomfortably, although he had
himself well in hand; and, crawling into the recess formed by the
window, he pressed his ear against a pane and listened intently.
At first he could hear nothing, but, his investigation being
aided by the stillness of the night, he presently became aware
that a voice was speaking within the room--deliberately,
musically. The beating of his heart seemed to make his body throb
to the very finger tips. He had recognized the voice to be the
voice of Ormuz Khan!
Now, his sense of hearing becoming attuned to the muffled tones,
he began to make out syllables, words, and, finally, sentences.
Darkness wrapped him about, so that no one watching could have
seen his face. But he himself knew that under the bronze which he
never lost he had grown pale. His heartbeats grew suddenly
fainter, an eerie chill more intense than any which the note of
danger had ever occasioned caused him to draw sharply back.
"My God!" he whispered. He drew his automatic swiftly from his
pocket, and, pressed against the wall beside the window, looked
about him as a man looks who finds himself surrounded by enemies.
Not a sound disturbed the stillness of the garden except for
sibilant rustlings of the leaves, occasioned by a slight breeze.
Paul Harley retreated step by step to the bushes. He held the
pistol tightly clenched in his right hand.
He had heard his own death sentence pronounced and he knew that
it was likely to be executed.
CHAPTER XIX. WHAT HAPPENED TO HARLEY--CONCLUDED
He regained the curve of the drive without meeting any
opposition. There, slipping the pistol into his pocket, he
climbed rapidly up the tree from which he had watched the arrival
of the three cars, climbed over the wall, and dropped into the
weed jungle beyond. He crept stealthily forward to the gap where
he had concealed the racer, drawing nearer and nearer to the
bushes lining the lane. Only by a patch of greater darkness
before him did he realize that he had reached it. But when the
realization came one word only he uttered: "Gone!"
His car had disappeared!
Despair was alien to his character: A true Englishman, he never
knew when he was beaten. Beyond doubt, now, he must accept the
presence of hidden enemies surrounding him, of enemies whose
presence even his trained powers of perception had been unable to
detect. The intensity of the note of danger which he had
recognized now was fully explained. He grew icily cool, master of
his every faculty. "We shall see!" he muttered, grimly.
Feeling his way into the lane, he set out running for the
highroad, his footsteps ringing out sharply upon the dusty way.
The highroad gained, he turned, not to the left, but to the
right, ran up the bank and threw himself flatly down upon it,
lying close to the hedge and watching the entrance to the lane.
Nothing appeared; nothing stirred. He knew the silence to be
illusive; he blamed himself for having ventured upon such a quest
without acquainting himself with the geography of the
neighbourhood.
Great issues often rest upon a needle point. He had no idea of
the direction or extent of the park land adjoining the highroad.
Nevertheless, further inaction being out of the question,
creeping along the grassy bank, he began to retreat from the
entrance to the lane. Some ten yards he had progressed in this
fashion when his hidden watchers made their first mistake.
A faint sound, so faint that only a man in deadly peril could
have detected it, brought him up sharply. He crouched back
against the hedge, looking behind him. For a long time he failed
to observe anything. Then, against the comparatively high tone of
the dusty road, he saw a silhouette--the head and shoulders of
someone who peered out cautiously.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|