...
In the instant of its fall, he became as Lot's wife. The pistol dropped
from his nerveless grasp, thudding gently on the carpet, and, with his
fingers crooked paralytically, he stood swaying... and looking into the
face of MR. KING!
Soames' body already was as rigid as it would be in death; his mind was
numbed--useless. But his outraged soul forced utterance from the lips of
the man.
A scream, a scream to have made the angels shudder, to have inspired
pity in the devils of Hell, burst from him. Two yellow hands leaped at
his throat....
XXXVIII
THE SECRET TRAPS
Gaston Max, from his silken bed in the catacombs of Ho-Pin, watched the
hand of his watch which lay upon the little table beside him. Already it
was past two o'clock, and no sign had come from Soames; a hundred times
his imagination had almost tricked him into believing that the door was
opening; but always the idea had been illusory and due to the purple
shadow of the lamp-shade which overcast that side of the room and the
door.
He had experienced no difficulty in arranging with Gianapolis to occupy
the same room as formerly; and, close student of human nature though he
was, he had been unable to detect in the Greek's manner, when they
had met that night, the slightest restraint, the slightest evidence of
uneasiness.
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