Victor now knelt constantly on the back seat, his face in the fitful play of light and shadow uncannily resembling that of a hunted jungle cat.  On the polished steel of his pistol sinister gleams winked and faded.  From his snarling lips foul oaths fell, a steady stream, black blasphemies spewed up from the darkest dives of the Orient—­most of them happily couched in the tongues of their origin and so unintelligible to his one auditor.  As it was, she heard and understood enough, too much.

Nevertheless, the man was not too completely absorbed in watching the shifting fortunes of the race to be unmindful of the girl.  And when once she sat up to ease cramped limbs, he misread her intention and, catching her viciously by an arm, threw her back into her corner and advised her not to play the giddy little fool.

After that Sofia was at pains to stir as seldom as possible, and bided her time quietly enough, but never for an instant relaxed her watchfulness or lost heart.

The shouldering houses that hedged their course discovered a profile, ragged, black against a sky whose purple dimness held the first dull presage of dawn.

In the wild rush of a marauding tomcat the car crossed a broad public square and sped up the graded approach to a bridge.  The smell of the Thames was unmistakable, the far-flung lamps of the Embankment were pearls aglow upon violet velvet.

Leaving the bridge, the limousine took a turn on two wheels, and immediately something happened, seemingly some attempt to stop it was made.  Vociferous voices hailed it, only to induce an augmented bellow of the exhaust with an instantaneous acceleration of impetus.  Then something was struck and tossed aside as a bull might toss a dog—­a dark shape whirling and flopping hideously; and an agonized screaming made the girl cower, sick with horror, and cover her ears with her hands.

Before she was able to forget those qualms many more minutes of frantic driving had flung to the rear many a mile of silent streets.

Of a sudden she heard an inhuman cry and, looking up, saw Victor dash the butt of his pistol through the glass, then reversing the weapon pour through the opening a fusillade whose effect was presumably gratifying, for he laughed to himself when the pistol was empty, laughed briefly but with vicious glee.

That laugh levelled the last barrier of doubt and fear and nerved Sofia finally to test the forlorn hope she had been nursing ever since Victor had let her see a little way into his mind as to her fate.

Until he could reload, only the tradition of the sexes lent him theoretical superiority; whereas he was in fact a man well on the thither side of middle-age, his virility sapped by long indulgence of unbridled appetites; while Sofia was a woman in the fullest flush of her first mature powers.

Gathering herself together, she inched forward and made ready to spring, bear him down, overpower him—­by some or any means put him hors de combat long enough for her to fling a door open and herself out into the street....