Followed a swift patter of fugitive feet.
Tempered by veils of mist, the lamplight fell upon a face upturned from a
murmurous gutter, a yellow face, wide and flat, with lips grinning back
from locked teeth and eyes frozen in a staring question to which no living
man has ever known the answer.
The pattering footsteps grew faint in distance and died away, the street
was still once more, as still as Death....
In the study of Prince Victor Vassilyevski the man Sturm put an impatient
question:
"Well? What you make of it--hein?"
Shaik Tsin looked up from a paper which he had been silently examining by
the light of the brazen lamp.
"Number One says," he reported, smiling sweetly, while his yellow
forefinger moved from symbol to symbol of the picturesque writing: _'"The
blow falls to-night. Proceed at once to the gas works and do that which you
know is to be done.'"_
"At last!" The voice of the Prussian was full and vibrant with exultancy.
He threw back his head with a loud laugh, and his arm described a wild,
dramatic gesture.
"At last--der Tag! To-night the Fatherland shall be avenged!"
Shaik Tsin beamed with friendliest sympathy Sturm turned to go, took three
hurried steps toward the door, and felt himself jerked back by a silken
cord which, descending from nowhere, looped his lean neck between chin and
Adam's apple. His cry of protest was the last articulate sound he uttered.
And the last sounds he heard, as he lay with face hideously congested and
empurpled, eyeballs starting from their deep sockets, and swollen tongue
protruding, were words spoken by Shaik Tsin as that one knelt over him, one
hand holding fast the ends of the bowstring that had cut off forever the
blessed breath of life, the other flourishing a half-sheet of notepaper.
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