The Creeping Death

CHAPTER XXII ON THE BRINK

THE verge of the cliff was clothed in dawning light. There, two figures had united in a struggle that would mean death to one or both. One hundred feet beneath, the river foamed its way through the gorge, between rock-studded banks.

The Shadow, strong and indomitable, was fighting with a man who was no longer young. Yet Lucien Partridge possessed surprising strength. More than that, he owned the fury of a fiend.

Crippled by wounds, The Shadow possessed but a fraction of his normal strength. Spurred by mad desire for revenge, Lucien Partridge was a demon in human form.

The bodies swayed backward and forward. At times they seemed to sidle toward the edge of the cliff. First one would urge the other backward; then the situation would change completely.

If Vic Marquette could aid The Shadow, the struggle would be ended. This equal fight could not persist; for The Shadow’s strength was waning more rapidly than that of Lucien Partridge.

Despite his wounds, Vic tried to come to The Shadow’s rescue. He managed to raise himself to his knees with the help of his one good hand. His gun was absent. He had dropped the automatic in his wild scramble for the workhouse.

Gaining his feet, Vic plunged forward through the doorway. His haste was his undoing. He lost his footing and sprawled crazily upon the ground. When he tried to rise again, his left wrist failed him. He could do no more than writhe painfully forward, in snakelike course along the ground.

The contestants were not aware of his approach. Their struggle was slow-moving. The Shadow was yielding. Slowly, inch by inch, Partridge was forcing him to the edge of the cliff.

Vic’s strength failed him as he arrived close by. Gasping, the secret-service man lay helpless on the ground, vainly striving to regain lost strength. He could see the profile of Lucien Partridge, white against the blackness of The Shadow’s cloak.

The old man was possessed with a mighty fury. His breath was coming in fierce spasms. Hideous curses were writhing from his livid lips.

Beneath the black slouch hat, Vic could see the glow of two burning eyes. He knew that The Shadow was striving desperately to overcome the old man’s amazing power. But still the two moved closer and closer to that threatening brink that towered above sickening depths!

WITH the edge of destruction scarcely more than a foot away, The Shadow gained new vigor. The last vestiges of his waning strength asserted themselves as he held his fierce adversary at bay.

While the two were locked in motionless pose, Vic Marquette urged himself nearer and nearer, staring weakly at the forms that were bathed in the reflected rays of the rising sun.

If The Shadow could only hold out! That was Marquette’s impelling thought. He knew that he was feeble; yet his slight strength might prove the weight that would swing the balance.

A few feet more! Vic Marquette collapsed with a hopeless gasp. He had arrived too late. Before his staring eyes, the struggle had come to a terrible conclusion.

The Shadow, yielding under the terrific strain, sank backward, and his tall form bent as Partridge sprang to the attack. The black-clad figure dwindled to dwarfish size as it slipped over the very edge, impelled by Partridge’s swift, triumphant thrust.

The Shadow was gone!

All that Vic Marquette could see was the figure of Lucien Partridge, momentarily stooped headforemost, bending clear over the edge of the cliff. The old man’s pose made it appear that he was watching the course of a body plunging into the depths.

His hands were just above the abyss; and as Marquette heard the gloating cackle that the old man uttered, he saw the hands swing wildly. They were clutching in the air as though endeavoring to grasp some solid substance for support.

The cackle turned to a frenzied cry as Partridge failed to regain his balance. The old man’s head toppled forward. Vic saw his hands make a wild grasp at the edge of the smooth precipice. Then, with a long scream, Lucien Partridge plunged headforemost to destruction!

The scream died in the distance. Vic could not hear the fall of the body. The end of the struggle had sickened him. He could not feel enthusiasm because of Lucien Partridge’s fate. The fact that The Shadow had first gone over that terrible brow was appalling.

Vic Marquette lay helpless and miserable, knowing that the futility of his own effort had abetted this result. Had he been able to come to the rescue; had he not weakened and fallen through the doorway of the workhouse, he could surely have saved the man who had saved him.

To Vic Marquette, hours of misery were packed into that one unending moment that followed the death plunge of Lucien Partridge. With eyes still staring, the secret-service man gazed toward the brink of the precipice, trying to visualize the last moments of that now ended struggle.

A groan escaped Vic Marquette’s lips. It was a groan of despondency. The secret-service man closed his eyes; then opened them to meet the increasing light of dawn.

Again Marquette groaned while he gazed with hypnotic stare toward the edge of the cliff. Then, unconsciously, the groan became a gasp.

Unbelieving, like a person who is witnessing the seemingly impossible, Vic Marquette stared in amazement at the very brink of the death cliff.

He was stupefied by what he saw.