Presently, however, Karslake remembered, and anxiously endeavoured to
disengage from these tenacious arms.
"Let me go, dearest," he muttered. "I must go back--I left your father to
take care of Victor, and--"
As if evoked by his very solicitude Lanyard emerged from the skylight
hatch, waved a hand in gay salute, then turned to stare down into the
flaming pit from which he had climbed.
After a little he fell back a pace. Then slowly, with the laboured
movements of exhaustion, Victor worked head and shoulders through the
opening and dragged himself out upon the roof.
On all fours he held in doubt, his head moving from side to side like the
head of a stricken beast, seeking his enemy with dazzled eyes. Then he made
Lanyard out and, pulling himself together for the supreme effort, launched
at his throat with the pounce of a great cat.
Lanyard met him halfway, caught him in the middle of his bound, wound wiry
arms round the man and held him helpless.
His voice rang clear above the crackle of flames:
"Victor! have you forgotten how you threatened one night, twenty years ago,
to follow me to the very gates of Hell, and what I promised you--that, if
you did, I'd push you inside? Or did you think I would forget?"
He cast the man from him, backward, down into the hungry maw of that
inferno....
***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED MASQUERADE***
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