Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/290

 along the hip-bone. He could feel it. His trouser-leg was wet and warm. It might be more serious than he imagined. And he had to be sure of his case. Whatever happened, Lambert was not to get away. So quietly and deliberately Kestner reached down for his revolver.

He began to fire, falling back and dodging from quarter to quarter as he shot. That feverish movement exhilarated him. He found a vast relief in action merely as action. To be able to do something was now a deliverance. And he knew that the end of the drama could not be far away.

Yet he shot deliberately, always aiming low, with nothing to guide him but that ever-shifting ruby flame-jet arrowing for the moment out of the blackness. Then, as he strained forward, he heard the sound he had been hoping for, the telltale snap of a trigger on an empty cartridge-chamber.

He ran forward at the sound, knowing what that implied. It meant that his enemy's ammunition was exhausted. It meant that his moment for closing in on that enemy had arrived.

He heard the click of metal against metal, close before him in the darkness, but he did not take time to reason out its meaning. He raised his automatic and fired again, still aiming low, calculating the source and central point of that one guiding sound.

Then he stopped short, dropping his hand to his side, for a quick gasp of pain had come to his ears, followed by a low and half-moaning cry of "Oh, my God!" Then came the sound of a body falling and threshing for a moment against the flooring.

Then the silence was unbroken.