-Jamba and Jung Sin
glanced over his shoulder into a shadowed corner.
"Have patience, my lotus flower," he purred. "Only one is left. Soon
the goddess of fortune and love will clear him from my path. By the
nine-headed Dragon, I have never seen a game of Li-Fan last so long.
But it draws to an end. Then we shall have our joy together, you and
I."
In that instant the fire flared. Allan saw an open window in the
background, and beneath it a slim white form lying, bound and
helpless. Fierce joy leaped in him, and fiercer hate, Naomi was as yet
untouched, the game was being played for her as stake. He had come in
time to save her!
But how? There were eight of the Easterners in the room. He had his
ray-gun, and might cow them with it and free the girl. But as soon as
he had gotten her out of the room, they would surge out after the
whites. He could fight for a while, but the end was inevitable. And
even if by some miracle he and Naomi escaped, they would be tracked to
Sugar Loaf.
The sticks were clicking in a continuous rattle as the final bout of
the game waxed fast and furious. And as fast and furious was the whirl
of Allan's thoughts. He strove to remember the layout of this
building. The helicopter hangar was next above this level. Outside the
windows of this floor a narrow ledge ran. The nebulous scheme that had
entered his dazed brain as he read the bronze plate below took clearer
form, shaped itself to meet this new need.
* * * * *
Allan crept away to safe distance, leaped to his feet and flitted
upward. He was in the empty, echoing space of the hangar level. The
fuel tanks bulged huge in the dimness. Here were reels of the feed
hose he needed--flexible metal that had withstood the years; here a
faucet nozzle, and a long coil of fine wire. Haste driving him, he
made the connections. Then he was descending again, dragging behind
him a long black snake of hose whose other end was clamped to a vat of
oxygen impregnated gasoline.
The rustle of the hose along the hall floor was muffled by the greasy
slime. Dane got the nozzle to just outside the door of the room where
Naomi lay captive. The rattle of the playing sticks still continued.
Jung Sin's voice sounded, in a language that Allan did not understand.
But there was no mistaking the triumphant note in the silky, jeering
tones. The yellow man was winning, and winning fast.
Dane twisted one end of the wire around the fauce
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