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To continue the race means positive overhauling and doubtless death, while by accepting the chance that fortune has thrown in their way they may keep their enemies at bay until aid comes, for John has not forgotten the mission of Monsieur Constans. He calls a halt, and briefly explains his plans.
A slim, white figure, with that red stain upon her breast spreading, spreading. Constans gathered himself with a mighty effort. "Let me help you," he said, and between them they carried her over to the couch and laid her down. On a near-by table stood a ewer of water; Constans fetched it and began moistening the bloodless lips.
It opened on to the Palace Road, one of the principal avenues of the ancient city, and was in the form of a vaulted passageway defended by flanking towers and superimposed battlements. A notable stronghold was this citadel of the Doomsmen, wisely planned and well built, and Constans could hardly fall into the error of under-estimating its resources.
They were brave men who manned the fighting platforms of the Greenwood Keep, and they could not bring themselves to set upon naked courage. Constans fancied that the man spoke to some one who stood hidden in the deep embrasure of a window, but it was too far to either see or hear. Then it seemed that a small object fell lightly from the window-sill.
"No," answered Constans, simply. "But then it would not have made any difference." "You mean that you are not afraid?" He had to be honest. "I'm not sure about that, but still I should have come." The girl's eyes swept him approvingly. "Of course," she said, well pleased, for a woman delights in placing her own valuation upon the courage of which a man speaks diffidently.
"Oh, it does not matter," she said, and so indifferently that Constans was deceived. "But you cannot stay here," he insisted "here among the Doomsmen." "They are my father's people, and you have just told me that my uncle Hugolin does not want me." "And what does Quinton Edge desire of you?" he asked.
The ancient car-shed, so Constans conjectured; then he paused excitedly before a long platform, at which stood a complete train, made up and ready to start. Constans examined this new find with critical attention.
"No!" thundered Ulick, roundly, for he was angered at the implied threat, and would have held his ground now out of pure stubbornness. Whereupon Quinton Edge smiled and sauntered out, adjusting the ruffles at his wrist and carrying himself as gallantly as though he had been the victor, not the vanquished, in this little contest of wills. Constans went up to Ulick and held out his hand.
He might be now in the house yonder, and Constans looked at it eagerly. A master passion, primitive and crude, possessed him. The girl divined the hostile nature of the power which held him, and instinctively she put forth her own strength against it. "Listen!" she said, and plucked him by the sleeve. Constans looked at her. "I am going to trust you," she went on, quickly.
It was only necessary to dampen these sponges to ensure a perfect discharge of the electrical current passing through the head-rest and the metal wrist-clips. Constans shuddered, and this time with reason; he knew enough of the science to realize that the slightest contact with those enormously charged electrodes must be fatal.
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