pleading.

Strangely, as she fled through the narrow corridor, the low, flaring
gas jets were extinguished one by one.

She groped in darkness.

Baskinelli's pleading voice became almost a consolation, a protection.

Her elbow struck something in the passageway. The something shrank at
the touch. She heard a quick drawn breath that was not Baskinelli's.
She tried to run. The tiny passageway chocked her flight. She plunged
helplessly between invisible, but gripping walls. She reeled and
screamed.

There was the sound of a struggle behind her. She heard Baskinelli
crying for help--but, oh, so quietly! She reached the stairs. The
stairs were blocked by a closed door. The door was barred. But there
was a light left burning by the door.

Her weak hands beat upon the panels, helplessly, hopelessly. How
should she know that there were two doors, locked and sealed beyond?

Her wild screams rang through the long passage, through the dark, above
the shuffle and beat and cursing of the staged fight.

In the dim light she could see the three Italians grappling with the
other men. Baskinelli's voice called to her reassuringly. It might
well. Baskinelli was in no danger.

She placed her softly clothed shoulder to the door and strove to break
it. She screamed again.

"Harry! Harry!"

Dull crashes answered. There was the crack and cleaving of splintered
wood.

"Hold on! I'm here!" she heard.

She fell beside the door. Strong arms seized her. For an instant she
felt that she was saved. But she looked up into the lowering face of a
man with tilted mustachios. From the wide thick lips came threats and
curses.

From the outer passageway sounded the crashing of the doors.

She let herself be lifted, then, with sudden exertion of her trained
strength, she broke the grasp of the man.

The door fell open.

Harry, bloody and tattered, stood there--alone.

"Polly?"

"Oh--yes--where are the others? They'll kill you--run!" she
cried.

He ran forward into the black corridor. A knife thrust, sheathed in
silence, ripped his shoulder gave him his cue. He had one man down and
trampled. But another was upon him and yet a third.

A sharp pain dulled the pulsing of his throat. He felt a tickle down
his bared and swinging arm.

He fought blindly in the dark.

"Polly!" he panted.

There was no answer.

* * * * *

In the Joss House of the Golden Screens the two Chinamen, daze