iscovered a profile,
ragged, black against a sky whose purple dimness held the first dull
presage of dawn.

In the wild rush of a marauding tomcat the car crossed a broad public
square and sped up the graded approach to a bridge. The smell of the Thames
was unmistakable, the far-flung lamps of the Embankment were pearls aglow
upon violet velvet.

Leaving the bridge, the limousine took a turn on two wheels, and
immediately something happened, seemingly some attempt to stop it was made.
Vociferous voices hailed it, only to induce an augmented bellow of the
exhaust with an instantaneous acceleration of impetus. Then something was
struck and tossed aside as a bull might toss a dog--a dark shape whirling
and flopping hideously; and an agonized screaming made the girl cower, sick
with horror, and cover her ears with her hands.

Before she was able to forget those qualms many more minutes of frantic
driving had flung to the rear many a mile of silent streets.

Of a sudden she heard an inhuman cry and, looking up, saw Victor dash the
butt of his pistol through the glass, then reversing the weapon pour
through the opening a fusillade whose effect was presumably gratifying, for
he laughed to himself when the pistol was empty, laughed briefly but with
vicious glee.

That laugh levelled the last barrier of doubt and fear and nerved Sofia
finally to test the forlorn hope she had been nursing ever since Victor had
let her see a little way into his mind as to her fate.

Until he could reload, only the tradition of the sexes lent him theoretical
superiority; whereas he was in fact a man well on the thither side of
middle-age, his virility sapped by long indulgence of unbridled appetites;
while Sofia was a woman in the fullest flush of her first mature powers.

Gathering herself together, she inched forward and made ready to spring,
bear him down, overpower him--by some or any means put him hors de combat
long enough for her to fling a door open and herself out into the
street....

With squealing brakes the car shaved an acute corner and slid on locked
wheels to a dead halt so unexpected that it was Sofia who plunged
floundering to the floor, while Victor only by a minor miracle escaped
catapulting through the front windows.

The next instant, as Sofia struggled to her knees, the door behind her was
wrenched open from without and, at a sign from Victor, rough hands laid
hold of the girl and dragged her out bodily.

In a pass