Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 05.djvu/20

530 that of a pain in my head which obliterated all else, but presently I was aware of standing figures around me, and the sound of several voices in my ears.

"But it's true, Spider—he hit too hard. I tell you the boss has killed him," someone was saying.

"Be yourself!" snapped another. "His head could stand a dozen cracks like that one."

"Don't be too sure. Look how quiet he is."

"He'll snap out of it."

I felt a hand go to my chest. "Spider's right," said a third. "His heart beats like a sledge. Just let him lay here a bit and he'll be all right."

For a moment there was silence, and I felt their eyes upon me.

"I'll go down and tell the others," came from the first. "Besides, I want to find out just what we're gettin' for this little job. Joe, you better stay here and watch with Spider—he's too fond of gunplay."

There came a sound of the speaker's retreating footsteps.

I had heard enough to realize that while I had evidently been carried into some house or apartment, I was still a prisoner. Caution, then, was all-important. I lay quietly a few minutes before I ventured a peep between my lashes, to find myself on a small cot in the center of a dimly-lit and grimy-looking room, evidently some squalid old tenement. The air was heavy with the smell of decay.

But before me was the sight that commanded my attention. Tilted backward on a chair was the powerful man who had been my driver. His undercoat had been discarded, and the shoulder holster strapped to his shirt revealed the black outlines of an automatic. His strong hands toyed with the scattered cards on a table before him. Standing in the doorway, another husky-looking fellow was thumbing the pages of a magazine.

Despite the odds, escape was not impossible. Neither of the men was turned toward me, and were I to rush them I would have the decided advantage of a surprise attack. I sensed that the driver was Spider, and remembered the words that told his love of gunplay.

To disarm him, then, was first in order, though I was somewhat dubious as to just how this could best be done. The man in the doorway seemed without weapons, but of that I was not certain. I ventured to look around for something that might aid me, but in doing so gave an almost imperceptible movement of my body. Slight as it was, it did not escape my guards.

"Come on, get up—get up!" growled Spider.

Never in all the world was a command obeyed as promptly as that one. In a flash I had sprung to my feet and was rushing at the startled gunman. The latter gave a gasp of surprise as he sought to gain his feet, while his hand flew to his holster. But my own right fist had shot forward, and behind it was two hundred pounds of bone and muscle.

The gun-toting Spider shot headlong to the floor!

In an instant I had bounded at the other before he could escape, but to do him justice, there was no fear on that score. As the man saw his comrade go down, he sprang forward, hitting with both hands, and an instant later we were in a furious exchange of hooks and uppercuts, our whirling bodies and aimless course upsetting chairs and tables with wild din.

Even from the first it was apparent that the fight would be one of short duration. A sizzling left hook had