She sighed at the second puff. It almost made her forget her thirst again. She was in the act of exhaling the third luxurious puff when she suddenly leaned forward, rising from her chair as she did so.
It was at the same moment that the sudden crash came that she leveled her pistol and pulled the trigger. For she knew that the door had been suddenly broken in, that her enemies were already through that door and advancing on her. It came home to her consciousness, at the same instant, that there had been no detonations from her fire-arm. There had been the snap of metal against metal, and that was all. She had scarcely time to realize that her automatic was empty, that she had neglected to slip in a clip, before she heard a voice calling out, a little thick with excitement: "I've got 'em! They're here!"
She groped frenziedly about for the clips of cartridges. As she did so the level ray of a flash-light exploded across the darkness of the room, and the voice cried out for the second time.
"Stick up your hands there! Stick 'em up quick!"
It was not the savagery with which these words were uttered that appalled her. It was the fact that they were spoken by Wilsnach hirnself.
