Darkness swooped down upon her senses. She did not even feel the judge slip his arm about her waist and draw her nodding head to rest against his shoulder.
Later, she was dimly aware of a shout and a grinding crash. She tried to stir. Something stung her arm. Again she lost consciousness.
Her next impression was very shadowy. She thought some one was carrying her — an interminable distance—
She felt herself laid on a resilient surface and drowsily opened her eyes.
Close above her floated a black and dreadful face. She tried to scream, but could manage no more than a pitiful murmur of fright. A third time came the pain in her arm and again she fell asleep.
She was still unconscious, though on the edge of waking, when Hal first saw her on the cot in the next cell. His pleading and threats came to her as a blur of sound.
She lay still, too listless to raise her eyelids.
Then she saw Hal’s face against the bars, his bound wrists, Wallace’s hand at his throat and Wallace’s face at his shoulder.
“What’s the matter?” she gasped. “What are you doing there, Hal? Is that you, Judge Moreland? What’s happened—”
Suddenly she remembered Morgan’s warning. Her hand flew to her mouth and she stared at them with scared eyes.
Wallace’s voice rasped in Hal’s ear.
“Nimbo! Get in there. The lash!”
Hal turned a desperate face in time to see the black grin vacantly and shuffle out of the room. Yet this might be their chance, if only he could free himself. He jerked and strained at his bonds. They would not give way. But he hoped the creaking bed would cover the noise Dan might make as he crawled from beneath it.
Far from guessing his object, Wallace dropped the knife he had snatched up from the table and gripped Hal’s shoulders with both hands, swaying with his struggles as he looked past him into the next cell.
Hal saw Nimbo roll into sight, lash in hand, and approach Dorothy. Her sharp scream of alarm set him beside himself. But the ropes held.
Suddenly there was a double weight on his shoulders and a shout in his ear. Wallace let go of him, stumbled back and toppled to the stone floor.
From the next room came a frightened scream of pain.
“Dorothy!” Hal veiled insanely.
Behind him as he fought his bonds he could hear a thrashing struggle in progress. A second cry reached his ears and he grew desperately sane. There was one loose loop in the rope. He caught it with his teeth and ground at it like a savage animal.
A knife glittered past his eyes and sliced the taut rope near one wrist. Dan hacked at the other. He was free.
He turned swiftly. Wallace was just lifting his head from the floor, struggling to draw his revolver, his face dark with the choking Dan had given him.
Spurred by a shriek from the next room, Hal sprang off the bed and landed on Wallace with both feet, knocking him flat again.
“Get his gun, Dan!” he yelled. “Hold him here—”
Regaining his balance, he flung himself into the hall. Wallace found his voice at the same instant.
“Nimbo!” he shouted. “Here to me!”
The cry saved Dorothy from further harm.
As Hal tore into the next room, Nimbo was turning toward the door. Wild with rage though he was, Hal realized that he was no match for the black if they came to grips. Nimbo crouched and sprang at him. Hal put everything he had into one hasty swing. It missed Nimbo’s jaw but landed in his great, thick neck.
Having made no attempt to guard himself, the black took the full weight of the blow and went over backward with a jar and a grunt. He lay still for a second in sheer surprise.
Desperately cool, Hal remembered the sailor who had brought his food. He turned like a flash, bolted the door on the inside and whirled again. Nimbo had scrambled to his feet. Hal met his savage charge with a straight-arm blow on the nose and leaped aside to escape his clutching hands.
Ignorant of such fighting, the black did nothing but try to rush him. Again and again Hal struck and escaped, swinging and jumping clear with a savage and primitive lust.
Dorothy watched the fight without a sound. Instinct warned her not to cry out lest she distract Hal’s attention for one fatal instant.
Still Nimbo came on, his great, battered face snarling and smeared with blood, his huge hands reaching, reaching.
Once he maneuvered Hal against the bed, forcing him to leap clear over it behind Dorothy’s shrinking back.
Hal heard a shot in the next room and a yell of pain from Dan. His heart sank. He struck and struck again in savage anxiety.
Suddenly Nimbo turned from him, ran clumsily to the door and switched off the light. Swerving in the sudden darkness, Hal brought up against the bed. Nimbo sprang for the sound. Justin time Hal distinguished the luminous face as it bobbed close. He struck with all his force. The black grunted with pain, but one of his clutching hands touched Hal’s arm, turned, and gripped it.
With a furious, twisting wrench Hal managed to free himself. It was a close call. He dared not risk such another. Darting sideways he felt for the bed and scrambled across Dorothy, knocking her flat. Luckily for Hal, though unhappily for the breathless girl, Nimbo clambered after him instead of turning aside to cut him off.
It gave Hal time to blunder to the door, find the switch and snap it on again before the Nubian bore too close. Nimbo followed all his movements by ear, with an uncanny accuracy.
Again Hal escaped the black’s rush.
Suddenly the latch of the door rattled. A great voice boomed at Nimbo to open the door. A furious pounding began on its panels.
Dan must be out of the fight. Every instant Hal expected the inside bolt to give, or a shot from the barred opening to bring him down.
But he dared not even glance aside.
He had landed half a dozen blows on Nimbo’s throat and chin that would have knocked any other man unconscious. The black only growled in response, mouthing at him like an animal, the ferocity of his rushing attack increasing as Hal’s hard, bare fists crashed against his face and body.
The most nimble of footwork was vital against such a giant. Hal was tiring fast. But the Nubian seemed made of steel springs.
Hal fought on without hope, getting what satisfaction he could out of his punishing blows.
At last, as he slipped between his opponent and the foot of the bed, his foot struck a caster, spinning him half about. In a flash the Nubian gripped his shoulders and yanked him over backward. His head struck the stone floor with a crash.
Before he could stir the man was on top of him, snarling with hate, those terrible hands clutching his throat despite his sudden, thrashing efforts to avoid them.
Dorothy screamed at the top of her voice, flung herself over the foot of the bed and buried both her small hands in the murderer’s hair.
Fighting in vain to draw one breath of air, Hal heard her screams more faintly as the roaring in his ears increased. The room grew dim. Nimbo’s bleeding, snarling face seemed to recede to a vast distance.
With a last shudder he lost consciousness.
Chapter XXVI
A Crumpled Fender
The news that Dorothy had been abducted and that McCoy’s men had failed to trace her, left a vibrant silence in Morgan’s office. The columnist was angry — and anxious.
He stared at his companion with eyes that glinted under bushy brows. The police had accomplished nothing in the case. Now they had blundered badly.
But not all the responsibility was theirs.
McCoy and he had blundered at every turn.
Morgan surged to his feet to stride back and forth. A glimmer of white caught his eye. Some one had slipped an envelope under the door. He swooped for it.
The captain needed only the slight stiffening of Morgan’s big body to jump up and look over his shoulder.