Almost before I knew what she was doing, she made a dash for something in the corner of the room.  It was time for open action, and I seized her quickly.

My detective was on his feet in an instant.

“I’ll take care of her,” he ground out, seizing her wrists in his vice-like grasp.  “You give the signal.”

I rushed to the window, threw up the shade and opened the sash, waving our preconcerted sign, turning again toward the room.

With a sudden accession of desperate strength, Savetsky broke away from the plainclothesman and again attempted to get at something concealed on the wall.  I had turned just in time to fling myself between her and whatever object she had in mind.

As the detective took her again and twisted her arm until she cried out in pain, I hastily investigated the wall.  She had evidently been attempting to press a button that rang a concealed bell.

What did it all mean?

. . . . . . . .

Elaine, now completely unconscious, was being held by the Chinamen, while her arm was smeared with sticky black material from the cauldron by Long Sin.  As the high priest of Satan worked, the devil worshippers kowtowed obediently.

Suddenly the aged Chinaman with the prayer wheel stopped his incessant, impious turning, and rising, held up his hand as if to command attention.

Amid a general exclamation of wonder, he walked to the dais and mounted it, turning and facing the worshippers.

“This is nonsense,” he cried in a loud tone.  “Why should our great Ksing Chau desire a white devil?  I, a great grandfather, demand to know.”

The effect on the worshippers was electric.  They paused in their obeisance and stared at the speaker, then at their high priest.

Shaking with rage, Long Sin ordered the intruder off the dais.  But the aged devotee refused to go.

“Throw him out,” he ordered his attendants.

For answer, as the two young Chinamen approached, the old Chinaman threw them down to the floor with a quick jiu-jitsu movement.  His strength seemed miraculous for so aged a man.

Furious now beyond expression, Long Sin stepped forward himself.  He seized the beard and queue of the intruder.  To his utter amazement, they came off!

It was Kennedy!

With his automatic drawn, before the astounded devil dancers could recover themselves, Craig stood at bay.

Long Sin leaped behind the big gong.  As the Chinamen rushed forward to seize him, Kennedy shot the leader of Long Sin’s attendants and struck down the other with a blow.  The rush was checked for the moment.  But the odds were fearful.

Kennedy seized Elaine’s yielding body and, pushing back the curtains to the anteroom, succeeded in gaining it, and locking the door into the main temple.

Bennett was still lying on the floor tightly bound.  With a few deft cuts by a Chinese knife which he had picked up, Kennedy released him.