tell which line a voice came over, and the telephonic distortion combined with the reverberation inside the helmet would make it practically impossible to identify the voice, the man who held the other ends of the lines would still know which was which when the time came to haul them up.
Altogether six loads came down, and the Saint's nerves were strained to the uttermost pitch of endurance while he waited for the last two of those loads. Even then, he could still lose everything; he could still die down there and leave Loretta helpless, with the only satisfaction of knowing that Kurt Vogel at least would never gloat over his defeat or her surrender. If the helmsman recovered too soon from the volcanic punch under the jaw ... He rubbed his cold right fist in the palm of his left, hand, wondering. His knuckles were still sore and his wrist still ached from the concussion; he was sure that never in his life had he struck such a blow. And yet, if Fate still had the cards stacked against him . . . He wondered what sort of a bargain he could strike, with Vogel at his mercy down there. . . .
'That's all.'
It must have been Arnheim's voice. The Saint heard it through a sort of muffling fog for which the acoustics of the helmet could not have been entirely responsible. He saw that the empty grab was coming up out of the pit for the last time. It bumped over the rocky floor, swung clear, and rose up under the steadily blazing lamp. The gold was all down, and only the account remained for settlement.
The thudding beat of the Saint's pulses which had crept up imperceptibly to a pounding crescendo during those last minutes of nerve-splitting suspense suddenly died down. Only then did he become aware, from the void left by its cessation, that it had ever reached such a height. But his blood ran as cool and smooth as a river of liquid ice as he folded Vogel's telephone wires over his knife-blade and snapped them through with one powerful jerk of his arm.
Quietly and steadily as if he had been dressing himself in costume for a dance, he brought the end of Vogel's lifeline round his own waist and knotted it in a careful bowline. He spoke into the telephone in a sufficient imitation of the flat rhythm of Vogel's accent.
'Wait a moment.'
He drew down some more of his own life-line and hitched it round a jagged spur of granite above the cut he had made in it, so that it would still be anchored there after he broke the telephone wires.
The top of Vogel's helmet was coming to the surface as he climbed up the ladder.
Simon went down on one knee at the edge of the hole. His right hand dabbed round and found a large loose stone, twice the size of his fist. He picked it up.
'No,' he said, still speaking with Vogel's intonation. 'You stay here. I have something else for you to do. I shall come down again in a few minutes.'
Vogel's hand came over the top of the hole and clutched for a hold. His head rose above the surface, and he waved the Saint impatiently back to make room for him to clamber out.
Simon did not move.
The broken end of Vogel's life-line trailed away from its lashing on his helmet, but he did not seem to have noticed it. His head turned up towards the light, and his lips moved in some words which no one would ever hear.
The Saint stayed where he was.
Perhaps it was the fact that he received no answer to whatever he had said that started the first wild and ghastly doubt in Vogel's mind. Perhaps it was the absolute immobility of the grotesque shape crouching over him. Whatever it may have been, he stopped. And then he brought his helmet slowly nearer to the Saint's, until barely six inches separated their front windows.
The Saint let him look. It had never been part of his plan that Vogel should be spared that final revelation. For the first time he held up his head and turned it so that the other could get a straight view into his helmet. The light above them reflected into his face from Vogel's upturned casque and filtered through the side panels to outline his features. The effect must still have been dim and shadowy, but at that close range it would still be recognisable.
And Vogel recognised it. His black burning eyes widened into fathomless pools of horror, and the thin bloodless lips drew back from his teeth in a kind of snarl. For the first time the smooth waxen mask was smashed away from his face, and only the snarl of the wolf remained. Then he began to speak. His mouth twisted in the shape of soundless words that no human ears would ever hear. Until he found that there was no answer and no obedience; and one of his hands groped round and found the loose
