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He felt something warm on his face, put up his hand and inspected red fingers. "Hm! A sliver from that broken shield must have cut me," said he, and dismissed it wholly from his mind. Major Bohannan, with chromatic profanity, ran from the gallery. "Captain Alden" drew herself up the top rounds of the ladder, emerged wholly from the companion and likewise started for the wounded interloper.
Realizing that they were now lying at the exact distance of 440 yards from the stockade that protected the thing they had come to steal if you can call "stealing" the forced sale the Master now planned consummating, by having his bankers put into unwilling hands every ultimate penny of the more than $3,500,000 involved, once the coup should be put through realizing this fact, Bohannan felt the tug of a profound excitement.
"If necessary, we will open on them with machine-guns, from the ship, but I'd like to avoid bloodshed if possible. Do the best you can!" Bohannan had no breath for answering. Every ounce of energy of all seven men was being flung into that mad labor. Sweat streamed into their eyes, half blinding them; they dashed it off, and struck again and again.
Even Bohannan, chronic complainer, forgot to cavil and began to bask in contentment. "Faith, but this is a good imitation of Lotus-land, after all," he murmured to Janina, at his side. "I wouldn't mind boarding at this hotel for an indefinite period. Meals excellent; waitresses beat anything on Broadway; atmosphere very restful to wandering gentlemen.
The Master remained utterly impassive, eyes keen on the in-rushing track, now close to its abrupt ending over the vacancy of space. Captain Alden's pupils narrowed, through the mask-holes, but he said nothing. Bohannan gripped the captain's shoulder painfully, then reached for the pistol in his own holster. "They're on to us!" he vociferated. "Somebody's got wise they're "
I've been boring myself and everybody else to death, the past three months. What's up? Duel, maybe?" "Yes. That's just it, Bohannan. A duel." And the Master fixed strange eyes on his companion. His muscular fingers fell to tapping the prayer-rug on the table, drumming out an impatient little tattoo. "Duel? Lord's sake, man! With whom?" "With Fate. Now, listen!"
"The gates of Hell?" demanded Bohannan, his brow wrinkling with glad astonishment. "What d'you mean by that, now?" "Just what I say! It's possible to gather together a kind of unofficial, sub rosa, private little Foreign Legion of our own, Bohannan all battle-scarred men, all men with at least one decoration and some with half a dozen. With that Legion, nothing would be impossible!"
The Master did not intend to have even their slight distraction coming between the minds of his men and the careful, intricate plan before them. As the racer veered north, up the broad darkness of the Hudson the Hudson sparkling with city illumination on either hand, with still or moving ships' lights on the breast of the waters Bohannan murmured: "Even now, as your partner in this enterprise "
The door clanged shut; down dropped another bar. Bohannan laughed madly. The fighting-blood was leaping in his veins. "Oh, the grand fight!" he shouted. "God, the grand old fight!" Confused voices, crying out in Arabic, wheeled the Master from the door. This inner chamber, very much smaller than the outer, was well lighted by still more lamps, though here all were of chased silver.
"Everybody's weapons fully loaded?" the Master demanded. "Be sure they are! And don't forget the mercy-bullets, men. These Arabs are rather ingenious in their tortures. They make a specialty of crucifying unbelievers upside down. That sort of thing won't do, for us not for fighting-men of the Legion!" Bohannan, laughing, stood up. Every pocket was a-bulge with incalculable wealth.
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