through the grill into the compartment beyond now. The entire compartment was visible from where he stood. It was small and square and dimly lighted by an overhead lamp, and there was a paneled door leading into it.

Close to the door a man was standing. Corriston couldn't see his face. He was half-turned away from the wall opposite him, and the girl who was struggling to escape from him was more than two-thirds concealed by his massive shoulders.

He was holding her in a tight, merciless grip. He had locked one hand on her wrist and was preventing her from moving either backwards or forwards. It was costing him no effort. He simply stood very straight and still while she struggled vainly to free herself.

Immense strength seemed to emanate from him, complete assurance and a coldly calculating kind of brutality which appeared to be slowly undermining her will to resist. Her struggles became less frantic second by slow second, and that she was about to stop struggling altogether was evident from the way her right arm had begun to dangle and her body to sag.

The man was holding her by the left wrist in a left-handed grip. He was cruelly twisting her wrist and suddenly she cried out again in pain and despairing helplessness.

The blood started mounting to Corriston's temples. He began tugging at the grate with both hands, exerting all his strength in a desperate effort to dislodge it. It began to move a little, to become less firmly attached to the wall. He could feel it moving under his hands, rasping and creaking as it loosened inch by inch.

He was covered with sweat. Already in his mind he had killed the man, and Helen Ramsey was tight in his arms, happy and alive.

The man did not seem to hear the rasp of the grate coming loose. He neither turned nor raised his head. His free hand had gone out and across the girl's face. But if he had struck her on the face, she gave no sign. She did not recoil as if from a blow and there was something strange about the movement. It was as if the man had reached out to tear something from the girl's face—a veil or a mask.

His hand whipped back empty but his fingers were oddly twisted, as if he had clawed at something that had failed to come free.

Corriston pulled back his shoulders and his posture on the ladder grew more erect. He knew that his exertions might send the ladder toppling but it was a 

 Prev. P 38/121 next