Page:Biggers and Ritchie - Inside the Lines.djvu/331

 was referring to Captain Woodhouse thus glibly. Anger blazed in her.

"It isn't true!"

"Sahibah, I am sorry to con-tradict." Jaimihr Khan had begun slowly to creep toward her, his body crouching slightly as a stalking cat's.

"I'll prove it isn't true!" she cried, and brought the poker down on the bell with a sharp blow. Like a tocsin came its answering alarm.

"A thousand devils!" The Indian leaped for the girl, but she evaded him and ran to put the desk between herself and him. He had snapped off the torch at the clang of the bell, and now he was a pale ghost in the gloom—fearsome. Hissing Indian curses, he started to circle the desk to seize her.

"Open this door! Open it, I say!" It was the general's voice, sounding muffled through the panels of his door; he rattled the knob viciously. Jane tried to run to the door, but the Indian seized her from behind, threw her aside, and made for the double doors. There his hand went to a panel in the wall, turned a light switch, and the library was on the