Fasten the
rope on it. Then his own sweetheart will drop him into the acid!"
It was only a matter of seconds, as the screams of Eva came closer and
closer, for the emissaries to carry the rope and jam it into the door
through which pretty soon Eva would run to take refuge from the pursuing
Automaton. Then they slunk back through a rear door, with muttered
taunts to Locke, who struggled in the tangle of rope as he felt the
stinging fumes of the acid below.
Outside, Eva, who had realized at last that it was a trap and had no
thought that Locke might be anywhere about, fled toward the acid-room,
while the emissaries hid, ready to seize her as she opened the door
which was to plunge her lover into a horrible death in the acid seething
below him.
CHAPTER XII
Locke's case seemed at last hopeless. The cruel ropes bit into his flesh
and increased his agony, while the acrid fumes from the seething acid
were slowly stupefying that keen brain of his.
Backward and forward like a huge pendulum his body swayed, and in an
agony of suspense he watched the fatal rope. With writhing body he
swayed far out, and then he saw just one chance.
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