It was the voice of his arch-enemy, Professor Lucien Felger!
18
Ten seconds!
Twenty fleeting ticks of a watch—a dozen or so normal pulse-beats—the space during which two ordinary breaths might be drawn and exhaled. It was a short enough time in which to decide even the most trivial and unimportant matter, to say nothing of one which concerned his own existence—maybe the existence of countless thousands of others.
Yet Hugh Trenchard knew that he must act, and act at once. The tone of implacable menace in which Professor Felger had uttered his threat was in itself a proof that this was no empty bluff. Hugh felt quite certain that unless he agreed within the allotted ten seconds, the eleventh would see him lying with his spine shattered by the weapon whose muzzle he could feel pressing into his flesh.
Almost before the professor had ceased speaking, Hugh had taken his desperate resolve, and in his heart he thanked God for the impulse which had led him to open the windows to their fullest extent. Without daring to flex his muscles lest the movement should betray his intention, he nerved himself for what was coming.
Meanwhile Professor Felger's watchful eyes were wavering between Hugh's head and his hands, which still gripped the window-sill. The only forms of resistance he anticipated were a sudden attempt to draw a weapon, or a lightning-like swing round in an effort to grab his own. For both of these he was fully prepared, but what actually happened in the next few seconds was the very reverse to his expectations.
Without shifting his grip on the window-sill, or his eyes from their contemplation of the distant landscape, Hugh hurled himself sideways and downward through the open window.
Felger fired—the fraction of a second too late. The flash of the discharge scorched Hugh's left ear, and the crash almost deafened him, but the bullet itself whined harmlessly away in the darkness. Breathless, but unhurt, he alighted on the great heap of peat-fuel that was stacked beneath the window, and even as he rolled into the shelter of a projecting angle of brickwork, his hand groped and gripped the butt of his revolver. He felt the satisfied thrill of an armed man as he disengaged the safety catch and crooked his finger over the trigger. If Felger was alone, the odds were something like even now.
But was he alone? Hugh doubted that he would have undertaken his task single-handed—and did not his boast of having overpowered Ronnie imply the presence of one or more of his satellites? The thought that his friend was lying helpless in the power of these ruffians almost goaded Hugh to madness. But he knew it would be worse than madness to attempt to force his way back into the house in the face of the hail of bullets which would greet his reappearance at the window. He must get help quickly. But how?
A sound in the bushes behind him made him whirl with cat-like agility. As he raised his revolver in the direction of the faint rustling, the branches parted and Joan Endean stepped forth.
There was a bitter smile on Hugh Trenchard's lips as he thrust his weapon back into his pocket.
"So you're in this game, too?"
If the girl perceived the implied accusation in his words she made no sign. Walking proudly and erect, she advanced
