There were remaining to her five cartridges in the revolver, and
somewhere there in the inky blackness about her were four men,
presumably ammunitioned without stint. Also their confederates would
shortly return, bearing flambeaux--and then her little moment of
advantage would end. Even if every cartridge at her command went
fatally home, the supply was inadequate to cope with such numbers.
The silence hung with a suspense that was well nigh unendurable and
when the filthy wings of a bat brushed her cheek again she had to bite
the blood out of her lips to stifle an outcry.
As black and seemingly as lifeless as the coal which men had sought
there was the cavern where she crouched. Alexander wondered why the
sound of her pistol, which must have thundered in ragged echoes through
the shaft, had not brought back the others. Now she was trapped and
there was no conceivable possibility of escape. At the touch of
unclean fingers she had seen red and struck out--and the rest had
followed as an avalanche follows a slipping stone.
At last when the breathless stillness could no longer be borne, she
cautiously stooped and raked her hand back and forth until it came in
contact with a loose stone.
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