The cops tightened their grim lines, holding nightsticks and tear gas bombs ready. They had guns, too, but had been instructed not to use them except as a last resort. They were willing to obey. Many had friends among the mob.
But the enraged, milling mass was like a blind beast now, surging forward with but one desire — the desire to destroy — to express its fear by rending, tearing, and burning. They were aflame with resentment against the institute.
Agent “X” watched with taut alertness, eyes brilliant. If the building were fired, the staff might be killed, murdered if they tried to escape. He had seen mobs before.
Now it was surging forward in a yelling, jostling mass. Those with torches were pushed to the front. Cries of “Burn the institute” rose into a mighty dirge.
Chief Baxter barked an order. The foremost police lines hurled their tear gas bombs. They fell among the leaders of the mob, exploded and let loose their stinging vapor.
Coughing, choking, shrieking curses, those at the front of the on-rushing tide of crazed humanity clutched at their eyes. The more timid tried blindly to turn back. But they were pushed forward by their comrades from behind. All the tear gas in the possession of the police could not stem this human flood.
The police began swinging night-sticks. The lead-packed wood cracked on heads and arms. But the police wielding them were manhandled, the sticks wrenched from their hands.
Chief Baxter shouted to the second line of police entrenched behind the barricade of cars. The cops leveled their revolvers, menacing the mob.
But even the threat of lead had no effect. Shots fired above the heads of the crowd were answered by armed members of the mob. A policeman went down, a bullet in his shoulder. The acrid stench of powder in the nostrils of the besiegers was like a red flag waved before an angry bull. They went berserk.
The barrier of police cars was being pulled aside and rolled away. The top was torn off a car. Men swarmed over it, shouting wildly. In another moment there would be bloody war added to the horror of the plague-ridden city.
Agent “X” sprang into action. Mounting the steps of the institute he faced the crowd, took a deep breath and made his voice as powerful as he could. He flung up an arm and pointed dramatically off across the institute grounds to where dense evergreens made a dark line.
“The apes!” he howled. “The apes are coming! They have been scared out!”
For seconds his words made no impression. He repeated his shouted warning. A few in the crowd heard and realized what he was saying. They stopped in their tracks, yelled to their comrades. Tear gas and the threat of bullets had not stopped the charge. But the menace of the horror-inspiring apes chilled their blood. The foremost men of the crowd echoed “X’s” cry.
“The apes!” they shouted in horror. “The apes!”
Instantly the tide was turned. Frenzied cries of fury changed to roars of fear. Dread of the germ-laden anthropoids amounted to superstitious horror.
People at the rear of the crowd began to slink away. They suddenly wanted to get back to their safe homes, out of the darkness and terror of the night. But fear is as catching as anger.
THE front ranks of the mob not only stopped their charge but began violently pushing back. The angry charge toward the white-pillared facade of the institute turned into a mad stampede away from it. Men pushed, swore, jostled one another in their terrified flight. Vronsky roared that this was only a ruse to disperse them. But they had no ears for Vronsky now. He was thrust off his soap box and tumbled to the street. He had to fight desperately to keep from being trampled on.
Even the police had now taken up the cry, and with fear-blanched faces were following the crowd. Baxter, who had mounted the steps at “X’s” first words, stared at him uncertainly. “X” spoke hoarsely.
“It was the only way, chief — but I’m afraid some of them are going to be trampled.”
The fear-ridden mass of humanity was like a flood now — a roaring, undulating rapids. The square began to empty as quickly as it had filled. It had taken only a sudden change of mood to break the spell of Vronsky’s words.
Agent “X’s” blazing eyes surveyed the scene. He had saved the institute and possibly the lives of those within it. But his fears were grounded. Dozens of people were being trampled by fear-crazed men and women who had no thought of anything except to escape from the claws and teeth of the apes they imagined at their heels.
“Call ambulances!” said “X.” “Quickly, chief!”
The Agent himself rushed down off the steps of the institute and made his way through the barrier of parked and partly wrecked police cruisers. There were people limping painfully after the retreating throng. Others lay writhing, unable to rise from the pavement.
On the edges of the almost deserted square a few cops lingered. They were some of the younger men of the force and seemed to have had the courage to resist the impulse to flee. But their eyes still held fear as they turned toward the institute grounds.
With a sharp command, Agent “X” motioned them to him, and enlisted their aid in moving the injured to safety. The bells of ambulances were clanging in the streets now.
“X” went on toward the outer edges of the square, stepping over debris left by the brief battle — night-sticks, discarded torches and clubs, and a litter of broken glass and stones.
Then suddenly he gave a hoarse exclamation and leaped forward toward a dark heap on the pavement. A ray of light had caught the glint of bright blonde hair, and a terrible realization seared the Agent’s mind. He stooped and lifted the slight figure of a girl in his arms — and looked down into the white, unconscious face of Betty Dale.
Chapter IX
FOR an instant fear laid its cold hands on Secret Agent “X.” The weight of the girl in his arms was no more leaden than the weight in his own heart. He spoke hoarsely.
“Betty! Betty!”
But she didn’t answer. Her golden head drooped pathetically, her body remained limp. With expert deftness the Agent’s tense fingers searched to see whether any bones had been broken; whether the mad, fear-crazed mob had trampled her underfoot. But Betty seemed unharmed. He decided that she had only fainted in the smothering crush of the stampeding crowd.
Then he remembered that she was staying with an aunt in Branford. He quickly summoned a taxi and gave the address. Holding Betty on his lap, her blonde head resting against his shoulder, he urged the taxi to speed. With his free hand he took something from his pocket — a small vial with a screw cap. He opened it, put the bottle to Betty’s lips, and forced her to swallow a few drops of a special concentrated restorative that he always carried with him.
A minute passed as the cab raced through dark streets. Then Betty Dale’s eyes opened. Color began to flood back into her pale cheeks. She moved her arms, cried out, still mentally fighting the mob, mistaking the jouncing taxi for the surge of frenzied people about her.
Agent “X” spoke soothingly, gripping her shoulder tightly.
“It’s all right, Betty!”
The sound of her own name brought her back to full consciousness. Her blue eyes lifted to the face of Secret Agent “X.” She became aware suddenly that a man held her in his arms. The glow in her cheeks deepened.
“Who are you?” she gasped. “Where am I?”
The Agent’s present disguise was as strange to her as the other he had worn. But the look of deep understanding and intensity in his gaze, the fact that he had called her by name, made her gasp again.
“You’re not — you can’t be—”
“Yes, Betty — Agent ‘X’ speaking.”