The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

The man had the strength of ten, while the Saint's strength had already been cut down by half by the various punishings he had received. The strongest part of the Saint was his fingers, and with these he strove to take up again his first grip. He reached up for Essenden's throat, found it, circled the windpipe, tightened his hold crush­ingly. Essenden's face went red. His eyes dilated enor­mously, and the air wheezed painfully into his starved lungs; but he fought on like an animal at bay.

Simon dropped his chin on his chest and tried with his arms to ward off or at least break the force of the blows that Essenden rained upon him. But when he was guarding his face, Essenden drove his fist into his stomach. In the ordinary way, he would have made nothing of the blow, but at that moment he was weakened and unprepared for it. He gasped and rolled over, fighting down a flood of nausea that threatened to choke him, keeping his stranglehold grimly.

It so happened that the stone floor jutted up imme­diately under his arm.

It caught him in the elbow, in such a way that a twinge of numbing agony shot up his arm like an electric shock. The fingers of his right hand relaxed, and with a snarl of exultation, Essenden tore both his hands away and breathed again.

Hardly knowing what he did, the Saint wrenched one arm free and lashed out blindly.

He felt the punch jar a thinly covered bone, and Essenden sagged sideways, suddenly limp.

Simon dragged himself to his feet and limped over towards Jill, fumbling in his pocket.

The stream beside the wall had been four feet wide when he had first seen it. Now it was twice that width, and there was a turbulent flurry in its dark waters.

Essenden must have mistaken the time of the tide. And it rose with an appalling speed. While the Saint fought with the lock that held Jill's chains, he felt the cold water creeping up his legs; and when the chains fell away it was up to his knees. The stream was now a racing river as many yards wide as it had once been feet, and one edge of it was still spreading over the floor of the cave.

And Essenden was getting up again.

"Look out!" cried the girl.

Simon turned; and as he did so his bare foot fell on a familiar hardness.

Even so, it was a miscalculation on his part to try to pick up the gun.