Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/101

 Then he worked his left arm up so that it was held crook-like close in under her chin and in a position for promptly garroting her, once the pressure of that constricting arm was brought to bear on her neck. And this would undoubtedly have been effected, had not Sadie Wimpel suddenly twisted her head about and at the same time bent her knees, so that she dropped and hung suspended from the arm that imprisoned her. This brought her mouth close to the bare flesh of the hairy wrist. Without a moment's hesitation she caught that wrist in her singularly strong young teeth. She snapped at it like an animal, sinking her teeth in the yielding flesh with all the strength of her jaw-muscles. She bit deeper, until the taste of blood all but sickened her and the man himself, with an angry gasp, released his right hand and struck blindly at her face. It was an instinctive and unreasoning reaction against pain too acute to be endured. And while it was not what the struggling girl had looked for, she was still alert-minded enough, for all her lack of breath, to realize her chance when it was presented to her. Clamped as she still was close against that gross body behind her, she found her right arm suddenly released.

She had neither the time nor the strength to