[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.He made the man drop the rifle; but he had no chance to pick it upfor himself, for the man was on him again in a moment.Simon could only kickthe gun away into the ditch, where it was lost.An even break, then.They fought hand to hand, two men on that dark road, lion and leopard.This man had the advantage of strength and weight, but the Saint had the speedand fighting savagery.No man who was not a Colossus, or mad, would haveattempted to stand in the Saint's way that night: but this man, who may havePage 56 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlbeen something of both, attempted it.He fought like a beast.But SimonTemplar was berserk.The man was not only standing in the way: he was theservant and the symbol of all the pow-ers that the Saint hated.He stood forMarius, and the men behind Marius, and all the conspiracy that the Saint hadsworn to break, and that had caused it to come to pass that at that moment theSaint should have been riding recklessly to the rescue of his lady.Thereforethe man had to go, as his three companions had already gone.And perhaps theman recog-nised his doom, for he let out one sobbing cry before the Saint'sfingers found an unshakable grip on his throat.It was to the death.Simon had no choice, even if he would have taken it, forthe man fought to the end; and even when unconsciousness stilled his strugglesSimon dared not let him go, for he might be only playing 'possum, and theSaint could not afford to take any chances.There was only one way to makesure.So presently the Saint rose slowly to his feet, breathing deeply like a manwho has been under water for a long time, and went to find Anna.And no oneelse moved on the road.As an afterthought, he commandeered a loaded automatic from one of the men whohad no further use for it.Then he went to change the wheel.It should only have taken him five minutes; but he could not have foreseenthat the spare tyre would settle down to a futile flatness as he slipped thejack from under the dumb-iron and lowered the wheel to the road.There was only the one spare.It was a very slight consolation to remember that Norman Kent, theever-thoughtful, always carried an outfit of tools about twice as efficient asanything the ordinary motorist thinks necessary.And the wherewithal to mendpunctures was in-cluded.Even so, with only the spotlight to work by, and no bucket of water with whichto find the site of the puncture, it would not be any easy job.Simon stripped off his coat with a groan.It was more than half an hour before the Hirondel was ready to take the roadagain.Nearly three-quarters of an hour wasted altogether.Precious minutessquandered, that he had gambled life and limb to win.But it seemed like forty-five years, instead of forty-five minutes, before hewas able to light a cigarette and climb back into the driver's seat.He started the engine and moved his hand to switch on the headlights; but evenas his hand touched the switch the road about him was flooded by lights thatwere not his.As he engaged the gears, he looked back over his shoulder, and saw that thecar behind was not overtaking.It had stopped.Breathless with the reaction from the first foretaste of bat-tle, he was notexpecting another attack so soon.As he moved off, he was for an instant moresurprised than hurt by the feel of something stabbing through his leftshoulder like a hot spear-point.Then he understood, and turned in his seat with the bor-rowed automatic in hishand.He was not, as he had admitted, the greatest pistol shot in the world; but onthat night some divine genius guided his hand.Coolly he sighted, as if he hadbeen practising on a range, and shot out both the headlights of the carbehind.Then, undazzled, he could see to puncture one of its front wheelsbefore he swept round the next corner with a veritable storm of pursuingbullets humming about his ears and multi-plying the stars in the windscreen.He was not hit again.The same power must have guarded him as with a shield.As he straightened the car up he felt his injured shoulder tenderly.As far ashe.could discover, no bone had been touched: it was simply a flesh woundthrough the trapezius muscle, not in itself fatally disabling, but liable tonumb the arm and weaken him from loss of blood.He folded his hand-kerchiefinto a pad, and thrust it under his shirt to cover the wound.It was all he could do whilst driving along; and he could not stop to examinePage 57 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlthe wound more carefully or improvise a better dressing.In ten minutes, atmost, the chase would be resumed.Unless the pursuers were as unlucky withtheir spare as he had been.And that was tod much to bank on.But how had that car come upon the scene? Had it been waiting up a sideturning in support of the four men, and had it started on the warning of thefirst man's scream or the fourth man's cry? Impossible.He had been delayedtoo long with the mending of the puncture.The car would have ar-rived longbefore he had finished.Or had it been on its way to lay another ambushfurther along the road, in case the first one failed?Simon turned the questions in his mind as a man might flick over the pages ofa book he already knew by heart, and passed over them all, seeking anotherpage more easily read.None was right.He recognised each of them, grimly, as a subconscious attemptto evade the facing of the unpleasant truth; and grimly he choked them down.The solution he had found when that first shot pinged through thewindow-screen still fitted in.If Marius had somehow escaped, or been rescued,or contrived somehow to convey a warning to his gang, the obvious thing to dowould be to get in touch with agents along the road [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.He made the man drop the rifle; but he had no chance to pick it upfor himself, for the man was on him again in a moment.Simon could only kickthe gun away into the ditch, where it was lost.An even break, then.They fought hand to hand, two men on that dark road, lion and leopard.This man had the advantage of strength and weight, but the Saint had the speedand fighting savagery.No man who was not a Colossus, or mad, would haveattempted to stand in the Saint's way that night: but this man, who may havePage 56 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlbeen something of both, attempted it.He fought like a beast.But SimonTemplar was berserk.The man was not only standing in the way: he was theservant and the symbol of all the pow-ers that the Saint hated.He stood forMarius, and the men behind Marius, and all the conspiracy that the Saint hadsworn to break, and that had caused it to come to pass that at that moment theSaint should have been riding recklessly to the rescue of his lady.Thereforethe man had to go, as his three companions had already gone.And perhaps theman recog-nised his doom, for he let out one sobbing cry before the Saint'sfingers found an unshakable grip on his throat.It was to the death.Simon had no choice, even if he would have taken it, forthe man fought to the end; and even when unconsciousness stilled his strugglesSimon dared not let him go, for he might be only playing 'possum, and theSaint could not afford to take any chances.There was only one way to makesure.So presently the Saint rose slowly to his feet, breathing deeply like a manwho has been under water for a long time, and went to find Anna.And no oneelse moved on the road.As an afterthought, he commandeered a loaded automatic from one of the men whohad no further use for it.Then he went to change the wheel.It should only have taken him five minutes; but he could not have foreseenthat the spare tyre would settle down to a futile flatness as he slipped thejack from under the dumb-iron and lowered the wheel to the road.There was only the one spare.It was a very slight consolation to remember that Norman Kent, theever-thoughtful, always carried an outfit of tools about twice as efficient asanything the ordinary motorist thinks necessary.And the wherewithal to mendpunctures was in-cluded.Even so, with only the spotlight to work by, and no bucket of water with whichto find the site of the puncture, it would not be any easy job.Simon stripped off his coat with a groan.It was more than half an hour before the Hirondel was ready to take the roadagain.Nearly three-quarters of an hour wasted altogether.Precious minutessquandered, that he had gambled life and limb to win.But it seemed like forty-five years, instead of forty-five minutes, before hewas able to light a cigarette and climb back into the driver's seat.He started the engine and moved his hand to switch on the headlights; but evenas his hand touched the switch the road about him was flooded by lights thatwere not his.As he engaged the gears, he looked back over his shoulder, and saw that thecar behind was not overtaking.It had stopped.Breathless with the reaction from the first foretaste of bat-tle, he was notexpecting another attack so soon.As he moved off, he was for an instant moresurprised than hurt by the feel of something stabbing through his leftshoulder like a hot spear-point.Then he understood, and turned in his seat with the bor-rowed automatic in hishand.He was not, as he had admitted, the greatest pistol shot in the world; but onthat night some divine genius guided his hand.Coolly he sighted, as if he hadbeen practising on a range, and shot out both the headlights of the carbehind.Then, undazzled, he could see to puncture one of its front wheelsbefore he swept round the next corner with a veritable storm of pursuingbullets humming about his ears and multi-plying the stars in the windscreen.He was not hit again.The same power must have guarded him as with a shield.As he straightened the car up he felt his injured shoulder tenderly.As far ashe.could discover, no bone had been touched: it was simply a flesh woundthrough the trapezius muscle, not in itself fatally disabling, but liable tonumb the arm and weaken him from loss of blood.He folded his hand-kerchiefinto a pad, and thrust it under his shirt to cover the wound.It was all he could do whilst driving along; and he could not stop to examinePage 57 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlthe wound more carefully or improvise a better dressing.In ten minutes, atmost, the chase would be resumed.Unless the pursuers were as unlucky withtheir spare as he had been.And that was tod much to bank on.But how had that car come upon the scene? Had it been waiting up a sideturning in support of the four men, and had it started on the warning of thefirst man's scream or the fourth man's cry? Impossible.He had been delayedtoo long with the mending of the puncture.The car would have ar-rived longbefore he had finished.Or had it been on its way to lay another ambushfurther along the road, in case the first one failed?Simon turned the questions in his mind as a man might flick over the pages ofa book he already knew by heart, and passed over them all, seeking anotherpage more easily read.None was right.He recognised each of them, grimly, as a subconscious attemptto evade the facing of the unpleasant truth; and grimly he choked them down.The solution he had found when that first shot pinged through thewindow-screen still fitted in.If Marius had somehow escaped, or been rescued,or contrived somehow to convey a warning to his gang, the obvious thing to dowould be to get in touch with agents along the road [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]