seemed an inexplicable breakdown
in one who had shown such nerve and courage hitherto, and so hearty a
loathing for that damnable Santos. So completely had her presence of
mind forsaken her that she looked no longer where she had been gazing
hitherto. And thus it was that neither of us saw Jose until we heard
him calling, "Senhora Evah! Senhora Evah!" with some rapid sentences in
Portuguese.

"Now is our time," I whispered, crouching lower and clasping a small
hand gone suddenly cold. "Think of nothing now but getting out of this.
I'll keep my word once we are out; and here's the toy that's going to
get us out." And I produced my Deane and Adams with no small relish.

A little trustful pressure was my answer and my reward; meanwhile the
black was singing out lustily in evident suspicion and alarm.

"He says they are coming back," whispered Eva; "but that's impossible."

"Why?"

"Because if they were he couldn't see them, and if he heard them he
would be frightened of their hearing him. But here he comes!"

A shuffling quick step on the path; a running grumble of unmistakable
threats; a shambling moonlit figure seen in glimpses through the leaves,
very near us for an instant, then hidden by the shrubbery as he passed
within a few yards of our hiding-place. A diminuendo of the
shuffling steps; then a cursing, frightened savage at one end of the
rhododendrons, and we two stealing out at the other, hand in hand, and
bent quite double, into the long neglected grass.

"Can you run for it?" I whispered.

"Yes, but not too fast, for fear we trip.'

"Come on, then!"

The lighted open doorway grew greater at every stride.

"He hasn't seen us yet--"

"No, I hear him threatening me still."

"Now he has, though!"

A wild whoop proclaimed the fact, and upright we tore at top speed
through the last ten yards of grass, while the black rushed down one of
the side paths, gaining audibly on us over the better ground. But our
start had saved us, and we flew up the steps as his feet ceased to
clatter on the path; he had plunged into the grass to cut off the
corner.

"Thank God!" cried Eva. "Now shut it quick."

The great door swung home with a mighty clatter, and Eva seized the key
in both hands.

"I can't turn it!"

To lose a second was to take a life, and unconsciously I was sticking
at that, perhaps from no higher instinct than distrust of my aim. Our
pursuer, however, was on the steps when I clapped my free hand