Quickly the man’s attitude changed to wild rage.

“So!” he roared.  “You will not write?  You will not?  We shall see!”

He seized her arm and gripped it until the blood rushed from her face, and she was obliged to bite her lips to suppress a scream.

“So!” he raged.  “We shall see what happens to young women like you.  First, we will kill your young friend, Johnny Thompson; then what good will your refusal have done?  After that, we shall see what will happen to you.  We Radicals will win by fair means or foul.  What does it matter what means we take, so long as the point has been won?”

Roughly he pulled her from the chair and flung her from him.

Then the little Japanese girl was dragged to the chair.  A Japanese man, whom Mazie had not before noticed, came forward.  From his words and gestures Mazie concluded that he was going through, in the Japanese language, the same program which the Russian had just finished.

The results were apparently the same, for at the close the girl threw the paper cm the floor and stamped upon it.  At that the Russian’s rage knew no bounds.  With an imprecation, he sprang at the Japanese girl.  As Mazie looked on in speechless horror, she fancied she caught the gleam of a knife in the girl’s hand.

But at that instant the attention of all was drawn to a man, who, after peering through some form of a periscope for a moment, had uttered a surprised exclamation.  Instantly the Japanese man sprang to a strangely built rifle which lay against the wall.  This he fitted into a frame beside the periscope and thrust its long barrel apparently through the ceiling of the compartment and into the water above.  Adjusting a lever here, and another there, he appeared to sight through a hollow tube that ran along the barrel.

“Now,” said the Russian, a cruel gleam in his eye, “we shall kill your two friends whom you so blindly refused to protect.  Providence has thrown them within our power.  They are on the bridge at this moment.  The rifle, you see, protrudes quite through the water.  Our friend’s aim is true.”

The Japanese girl, seeming to grasp the import of this, sprang at her fellow countryman.  But she was too late.  There came the report of two explosions in quick succession.  Through the periscope, Mazie caught a glimpse of two bodies falling on the bridge.  Then she closed her eyes.  Her senses reeled.

This lasted but a moment.  Then her eyes were on the little Jap girl.  She had dropped to the floor, as if crushed; but there was a dark gleam of unutterable hate in her eyes.  She was looking at the Japanese man, who, after firing the rifle, had turned and was going through a door into a rear compartment.

Like a flash, the Jap girl sprang after him.  With a cry that died on her lips, Mazie followed, and as she entered the compartment slamming the heavy metal door, she threw down the iron clamps which held it.