And now he heard her voice again: 

“Mr. Micolo!  Oh, Mr. Micolo!  Where are you?”

Striking a match, he advanced into the room.

“Any gas here?” he asked, peering about for a burner.

Suddenly he started with violent emotion.  Behind him, in some unaccountable way, the door had been closed.  He heard a key turn, softly.

“What—­what’s this?” he exclaimed.  He heard the woman moving about, somewhere in the gloom.  “See here!” he cried.  “What kind of a—?”

The match burned brightly, all at once.  He peered about him, wide-eyed.

“This is no office!” shouted he.  “Here, you!  What’s the meaning of this?  This is a bed-room!”

Sudden realization of the trap stunned and sickened him.

“God!  They’ve got me!  Flint and Waldron—­they’ve landed me, at last!” he choked.  “But—­but not till I’ve broken a few heads, by God!”

The match fell from his burnt fingers.  Whirling toward the door, he rained powerful kicks upon it.  He would get out, he must get out, at all hazards!

Suddenly the woman began to scream, with harsh and piercing cries that seemed to rip the very atmosphere.

[Illustration:  Aiming at the base of the skull she struck.]

At the third scream, or the fourth, the key was turned and the door jerked open.

In its aperture, three men stood—­the two who had been so long trailing Gabriel, and a policeman, burly, red-jowled, big-paunched.

Gabriel stared at them.  His mouth opened, then closed again without a word.  As well for a trapped animal to make explanations to the Indian hunter, as for him to tell these men the truth.  The truth? They knew the truth; and they were there to crucify him.  He read it in their cruel, eager eyes.

The woman had stopped screaming now, and was weeping with abandon, pouring forth a tale of insults and abuse and robbery, with hysterical sobs.

Full in the faces of the three men Gabriel sneered.

“You’ve done a good job of it, this time, you skunks!” he gibed.  “I’m on.  You’ll get me, in the end; but not just yet.  The first man through this door gets his head broken—­and that goes, too!”

With a snarl of “You damned white slaver!” the officer raised his night-stick and hurled himself at Gabriel.

Gabriel ducked and planted a terrific left-hander on the “bull’s” ear.  Roaring, the majesty of the law careened against the bed, crashed the flimsy thing to wreckage and went down.

Then, fighting back into the gloom of the trap, Gabriel engaged the two detectives.  For a moment he held them.  One went to the floor with an uppercut under the chin; but came back.  The other landed hard on Gabriel’s jaw.

He turned to strike down, again, the first of the two.  He heard the bed creaking, and saw the policeman struggling to arise.  In a whirlwind of blows, the second detective flailed at him, striving to beat down his guard and floor him with a vicious rib-jolt.