Piracy
Coming from the opposite side of the tor to that of the Saint’s
take-off, Patricia and her two lieutenants had no need to make a
_détour_. They approached the Tiger’s ship on the sheltered side. The
hull of it cast a deep and spacious shadow over the moonlit waters,
and all the attention of the crew would be concentrated towards the
island and away from the swimmers, so that the only precautions the
raiders had to observe were those of slipping through the quiet sea
without noise.
When the sides of the ship loomed above them, Patricia forged ahead
and led the way up under the bows. There they rested for a moment,
clinging with cramped fingers to the edges of the plates, while their
leader reconnoitred.
She swam back a little way to get a clear view of the anchor chain,
and saw the same disadvantages in that line of attack as the Saint
himself had envisaged. Then, being the freshest of the trio after the
swim, she moved along the side to prospect for an alternative route.
Thus she discovered the rope ladder which the Saint had used, and
returned to inform the others of their good fortune. They followed her
back—Orace was plugging doggedly on, but Algy was in great distress,
and had held them back considerably in the last quarter-mile—and the
girl caught the lower rungs and pulled herself out of the water.
“Half a lap more, and then we can rest,” she encouraged in a whisper,
leaning down and pressing Algy’s hand. “Try to raise just an ounce
more—we’ve got to move fast till we find some place to hide.”
She scaled the ladder with a nimbleness that no old salt could have
bettered, and the straining of the ropes in her hands told her that
the others were trailing her as actively as they could. Looking before
she leapt, she saw that the only men visible were intent upon steering
an instalment of their precious cargo down into the hold aft, and in a
trice she had flashed over the rail and was standing in the shadow of
the deckhouse. In a moment Algy’s head topped the rail, and she
beckoned him to hurry. Somehow he clambered over and got across the
deck to join her, though he was dazed and swaying with cold and
fatigue. Orace came hard on his heels.
“How are we all?” asked Pat.
Orace was trying to rub some of the wet off his arms and legs.
“Orl right, miss—me ole woon’s painin’ a bit, but nuffin ta speak uv.”
“Algy?”
“F-f-frightfully sorry to b-be such a n-n-nuisance, old th-thing!”
Algy’s teeth were chattering like castanets. “But I’ll b-b-be all
right in a b-bally jiffy. I wish we could f-f-find the Tiger’s
whisky!”
The girl turned to Orace.
“Will you take charge for a minute?” she said. “I don’t know enough
about ships. Take us some place where we’ll be fairly safe from being
spotted.”
“Um,” said Orace, and scratched his chin thoughtfully. “’Tain’t sa
thunderin’ easy, onner tub this size. . . . I’ll goan seef they’ve
gotta fo’c’sle-’atch, f’ya don mine settin’ among the ’awsers.”
She nodded.
“Carry on—and be quick.”
She waited, supporting Algy with one arm. She kept a sharp look-out,
and her disengaged hand held Bloem’s automatic, for they could not
fail to be seen if anyone passed along that side of the deck. In which
case the adventure was likely to terminate without further
parley. . . . But luck was with them, and no one came, though they
could hear the low voices of the men working aft, the thrum and groan
of ropes and blocks and derricks, and the hum and clatter of the small
winch. In a very brief space of time she saw Orace slinking back in
the shadows.
“What luck?” she demanded softly.
“Didden think they’d ’av wun,” he replied—“but they yav! This wy——”
He led them swiftly to the bows, keeping well down in the lee of the
rail. In a short distance they were able to crouch under the bulwarks
at the fo’c’sle head.
Orace turned back the tarpaulin and raised the hatch. He shone his
torch down to show them the tiny compartment almost filled with coils
of hawser.
“’Tain’t much,” said Orace apologetically, “but it’s syfe fra bit.”
They got Algy down, and Patricia followed. Orace squeezed in last, and
pulled the tarpaulin over again as he lowered the hatch, so that at a
casual glance it would not appear to have been tampered with.
“Cosy enough ’ere,” said Orace, switching on his lamp for a moment.
“Ain’t much air, though, an’ if ennyone spots the ’atchis undid an’
battens it dahn we shall sufficate in an owrer two,” he added
cheerfully. “We mighter done wuss, on the ’ole. But wot’s nex’ on the
mean-you, Miss Patricia?”
“How’s Algy?”
Orace focussed the light. Where Mr. Lomas-Coper was not ashen pale he
was blue, but apparently his wound had closed up in the salt water,
for the bandage round his head was clean. He grinned feebly.
“I’m rather weak, but I’ll be lots better when I’ve warmed up. I’m
afraid I’m not much use as a pirate, Pat—it’s this blinkin’ whang on
the nut that’s done me in.”
The girl curled up against the bulkhead to give him as much room as
possible to stretch out and rest.
“Orace and I will have to go out scouting in relays till you’re
better,” she said. “We’ve got to find out where all the Tiger Cubs are
before we move—I don’t suppose there’ll be many aboard, but we’ve got
to locate them all and arrange to deal with them in batches so that
the rest won’t know what’s happening. Then there are those men you saw
on the quay. Bloem and Bittle will be here, and the Tiger—they’re the
most important and the most dangerous, and we can’t afford to make any
mistake about them.”
“I’m fer tykin the single ones as we meet ’em,” said Orace. “I’ll go
fust—startin’ naow. An’ when I git me ’ands on ennyer them
blankety-blanks they’ll wish they’d never bin bornd. I gotta naccount
ter settle wiv this bunch o’ fatherless scum.”
“I’ve also got an account to settle,” remarked Patricia quietly. “So I
think I’ll go first.”
Orace was not a man to waste time on argument; he was also something
of a strategist.
“We’ll go tergether,” he compromised. “I won’t innerfere, but I’ll be
a pairer vize in the backa yer ’ed. Mr. Lomas-Coper won’t ’urt ’ere
alonely, will yer, sir?”
“Don’t mind me, old sprout,” urged Algy. “I’ll tool along an’ chip in
as soon as I can—and I hope you’ll have left the bounder who pipped me
for me to clean up.”
There was really no reason for anyone staying with him, and Patricia
agreed to Orace’s suggestion.
They crawled out and replaced the hatch and tarpaulin cover as they
had found it. Then, as they hesitated under cover of the bulwarks,
Orace said:
“Mr. Templar ’ud be right—they’ll be thunderin’ short-’anded. Seemster
me, there won’t be no more thanna nengineer below, an’ p’r’aps a cook
in the galley. These motor ships is that luck-shurious yer don’ avta
be offended by more’n a nanful o’ vulgar seamen. Assoomin’ that, jer
finkyer c’u’d l’y aht the pertaterstoor wile I dots the metchanic one?
I wouldn’t letcha go alone, cept I knows be ixperience that
pertaterstoors ain’t like ord’n’ry men.”
“I’ll manage all right,” Patricia assured him. “Hurry up about it, and
I’ll meet you under that awning in front of the saloon. Then we can
arrange to tackle the men who’re loading the gold.”
“Righ-char, miss. . . . Remember that companion opposyte where we come
over the side? Go dahn—yer mos’ likely ter find the galley aft.”
Orace accompanied her as far as the top of the companion, and there
they separated. He had unostentatiously bagged the most ticklish job
in the programme for himself; for he had already located the
engine-room companion aft of the hatch where the Tiger Cubs were
working, and to reach it unobserved he would have to travel most of
the way hanging over the side of the ship by his fingers, returning by
the same method. But this fact he did not consider it his duty to
disclose.
As soon as the girl had disappeared, he climbed over the rail and let
himself down out of sight. In his younger days, Orace had been able to
awe recruits with displays of gymnastic prowess, and he had not yet
lost the knack. He worked swiftly and smoothly along the side, and did
not halt until his ears told him that he was level with the
after-hatch. There he paused and edged himself up till he could peep
over the coaming. He saw a crate go rattling down into the hold, and
then someone unseen said something, and one of the men went to the
starboard rail.
“Wot’s ’e s’y?” queried the man at the winch.
The man at the rail passed on the enquiry, and presently was able to
answer it.
“Ses three more journeys ’ll finish it.”
“Tell ’im ter ’urry ’em all along. The Old Man’s frettin’ ter get
orf.”
The command was duly relayed, and the man at the winch spat on his
hand and sent the cable swishing down for a second load.
Orace let himself down to arm’s length again and went on. The Tiger
Cubs were working quicker than they had anticipated, and three more
journeys, with at least two, if not three, of the ship’s boats on the
job, wouldn’t take such a long time. It was not an occasion for
dawdling.
Orace got well round to the stern and put a large ventilating cowl
between himself and the men at the hatch before he ventured to return
to the deck. Then he made a quick dash for the engine-room companion,
and reached it unnoticed.
It is difficult to move silently over iron gratings, but Orace’s bare
feet enabled him to go down unobserved until there was only a short
ladder to descend before he reached the level of the motors. There was
only one man below, and he was bending over, tinkering with a bearing.
Orace had got that far before the man straightened up to look for a
spanner, and in so doing discovered his peril. The engineer let out a
shout which reverberated deafeningly in the confined space, but which
would have been hardly audible outside, and rushed.
As he came on he wrestled with his pocket, where his gun must have got
stuck. That fluke gave Orace all the respite he needed, and saved him
having to shoot. He jumped, and his feet struck the engineer full in
the chest. The two went down together, but the engineer’s body broke
Orace’s fall, and the head which in a few seconds was pounded into
insensibility against a cylinder-block was not Orace’s. . . .
Orace was about to leave—was, in fact, already climbing—when he had an
inspiration, and returned. The stunned mechanic was of Orace’s own
build. Orace commandeered the man’s cap and blue jeans, and, finding a
convenient locker, pushed the engineer into it and turned the key.
Thus equipped, Orace felt that he had a decided advantage—he would be
able to move more freely about the ship, and, if he encountered any
Tiger Cubs, he would be safe from challenge in the darkness until he
had got close enough to make his distaste for their society
effectively evident. Once more he began to make his way to the deck.
He was half-way there when he heard the tramp of heavy feet coming
towards him. Orace turned and scuttled back. He kept his head averted
and bent low over the nearest motor. The feet grated on the companion
above him, and halted.
“All right down there, Joseph?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Orace in a muffled voice, without looking up.
“We’ll be off in less than an hour. You needn’t bother about running
on the electric motors going out—we want to get off as quickly as we
can.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“I’ll ring down as soon as the last load’s being taken in, and you can
start up then and keep running till we go.”
The footsteps retired along the deck overhead, and Orace breathed
again.
He had noticed the iron door behind him, but had assumed that it led
only to the fuel tanks. As a matter of fact, it did, but there was
also a narrow alley running between the tanks and continuing forrard
till it reached the foot of an emergency companion. He heard the
slight click of the door opening, and quickly bowed his head over the
engines again.
This man did not speak; but Orace, apparently intent on inspecting a
sparking-plug, could hear the stealthy slither of feet over the greasy
metal, and the hairs in the scruff of his neck prickled. There was
something sinister about that wary approach—the man behind him moved
so silently that Orace would never have noticed the sound if he had
not been expecting it. The door itself had been unlatched so
cautiously that that noise also would probably have escaped him if he
had not been listening for the retreat of the man who had spoken to
him.
The stealthy feet drew nearer, step by step, while Orace kept his back
turned and went on poring over the plug terminals. They were nearer
now—only a couple of yards behind him, as far as he could judge.
Another yard, and Orace gathered himself for a sudden movement. He had
ceased to wonder whether the intruder regarded him as an innocent
party. For some reason which he could not immediately divine Orace was
suspect.
Some premonition, the prompting of a sixth sense, made him swing aside
in the nick of time, and the smashing blow that had been aimed at his
head whizzed past his ear and clanged on the engine casing. Orace
whirled and leapt, but his feet slipped on the oily grating, and he
sprawled headlong. His blunderbuss was underneath the borrowed
overalls, and he had no time to fumble for it before his opponent had
pounced on him and caught his throat in a deadly grip.
Except the thrill of a sporting burglary—such as a raid upon the home
of a famous detective with the said detective in residence and, for
preference, entertaining a select party of his fellow-sleuths—there is
no thrill to be compared to the thrill of a refined form of piracy.
So Patricia realised as she stole down the dimly lighted alleyway aft
in search of the galley. There she was, on the Tiger’s ship, with only
two assistants, one of whom was temporarily _hors de combat_, and the
odds against them were five to one, at a conservative estimate. The
very forlornness of the adventure took away half its terrors, for with
everything to lose—and as good as lost at the first slip—there was
nothing to gain by footling and fiddling over the job. The only
earthly chance of success was to blind recklessly ahead and chance the
consequences. To funk the bold game would be fatal. The bold game was
the only one which offered the vaguest possibility of success—a plan
such as they had set themselves to carry out could only hope to
succeed if it were executed in the same spirit of consummate cheek and
hell-for-leather daring as that in which it had been conceived. And
that was what Patricia Holm intended to do, starting in at that very
instant.
Even so, sir and madam—that was the determination which was glowing
like hot steel in Patricia’s brain. Orace had gone off to deal with an
engineer, and Orace could look after himself as well as anybody.
Having laid out the engineer, he would repair to the _rendez-vous_,
and when the girl failed to put in an appearance, after a reasonable
time, he would set out in search of her—incidentally disposing of any
Tiger Cubs whom he encountered on the way. And, therefore, in a little
while, there would be two vengeful people creeping about the ship and
striking shrewd, secret blows at the enemy—here one moment, there the
next, coming and going like wraiths, and leaving no more evidence of
their passage than a Tiger Cub sleeping peacefully in the scuppers
here and there. The girl guessed that Orace was still troubled with
fears for her safety and doubts of her ability to pull her weight in
the undertaking, and so, to save bothersome argument, she was going to
take the bit between her teeth and leave him to fall into line behind—
and, once she was started, he would have no option but to do exactly
that, for the pace would be too hectic to allow any intervals for
discussion.
There is this about the thrill of action, the electric omnipresence of
danger, and the necessity for keeping yourself keyed up taut and ready
to make lightning decisions: it takes up all the time of all your
faculties and holds your brain buzzing round and round that one sole
pin-point of motive. Patricia was not callous. It wasn’t that she had
forgotten the Saint and gone gaily cavorting off on this new spree in
a manner that would make you think that piracy amused her just as much
as petting. It was simply that, having resolved to call the Tiger down
to an audit of the ledger, the concentration which that task demanded
would, until it was accomplished, leave no room in her mind for any of
the thoughts which had inspired it.
And so, as she crept nearer to the end of the alleyway, Patricia’s
nerve was neither dulled nor unbalanced by any irrelevant
considerations. She was just one hundred and thirty pounds of smoothly
functioning Tophet, actuated by one grim purpose, waiting to detonate
all over anyone who got in her way. And that road ran straight as an
arrow flight to a point directly over the Tiger’s shoe-leather. . . .
Men of the trade known to Orace as “pertaterstoors” may not be quite
as other men are, but one specimen at least can be certified as
possessing the gumption of ordinary men, for he heard the metallic
note in Patricia’s rapped command from the galley door, and, wisely,
decided not to shout for help.
“Up with ’em!” crisped the girl. “Don’t even open your mouth to gasp—I
might think you were going to yell, and then your children would all
be orphans!”
The man turned slowly, saucepan in hand.
He saw a slim, straight slip of a girl in a tight-fitting Jantzen that
emphasised the calmly efficient poise of her body. Beads of salt water
glistened on her brown skin in the lamplight, and her wet hair was
swept back from her forehead in an unruly mop. At any other time, the
cook, who was a connoisseur, would have been able to admire the
perfection of her figure and the miracle of a complexion which could
survive a two-mile swim and lose no jot of its beauty—in his somewhat
coarse and practical fashion. But now his eyes were riveted on the
blue-black gleam of the automatic which her small brown hand pointed
so steadily at his middle; and, raising those dilated eyes from the
gun to her face, he was able to appreciate only the firm set of her
lips and the bleak purposefulness of her gaze.
“I’m getting tired of waiting.” The words bit through the steamy air
with the chilly menace of bright steel. “Stick ’em up. And jump to
it!”
He started to raise his arms, and then the heavy saucepan catapulted
from his hand.
The girl saw it flying at her head, and ducked instinctively. The pan
thudded against the bulkhead behind her and clattered to the floor.
She saw the man leaping towards her, and pulled the trigger twice.
She was braced up for the expected stutter of explosion, and its
failure to materialise was a physical shock. In that split second of
panic she remembered the waterproof holster of which the Saint had
spoken, and which she had forgotten to provide herself with. Her fire
had produced no other sound than the snap of the cap—the prolonged
immersion had damped the cordite charge, and the gun on which she was
relying was no more use than a chunk of pig-iron. The man was rushing
at her with outstretched arms. . . .
Patricia had less than the twinkling of an eye in which to adjust
herself to the sudden petrifying reversal of circumstances, but she
achieved the feat. Hardly knowing what she did, she flung up her hand
and hurled the useless automatic with all her strength. It struck the
man squarely between the temples, and he went down in a heap.
The girl stood tense and motionless, wondering if anyone had heard.
Her heart was pounding furiously. That had nearly been a knock-out in
the first round! But it seemed that none of the other Tiger Cubs had
been near enough to notice anything, and gradually she got her breath
back and found her pulse throttling down to normal again.
The impetus of the man’s onslaught had carried him half-way out of the
door, and she had to drag him back into the galley. She picked up the
saucepan he had thrown and chucked it in after him. Then she pulled
the door to and turned the key on the outside.
The next move was undoubtedly towards the bridge. There would only be
the skipper up there, unless Bittle or Bloem or perhaps the Tiger
himself happened to have gone up to watch the loading from that point,
and even against those odds the girl felt capable of keeping her
wicket up, if she could only find a weapon. And once again her luck
was in. As she went back up the alleyway, she observed a door standing
ajar, and through it she glimpsed a row of rifles and cutlasses and
revolvers ranged neatly in racks. The Tiger was carrying a good
armoury.
She went in and selected a couple of revolvers. Boxes of ammunition
she found stacked up on the shelves below the gunracks. She loaded,
and went out again, locking the door behind her and tying the key to
her belt. That at least would worry the Tiger Cubs if it came to a
straight fight.
The girl padded down the alleyway forrard, her bare feet making no
sound on the carpet. At the end, the alley she was following ran into
another alley athwartships, and two doors faced her which she guessed
would open into the saloon. On her right, a companion went upwards
into darkness. She would have seen the sky at the top of it if it had
led on to the deck, and so she deduced that it led up into the
deckhouse. Climbing, she came, as she had expected, into another
alley, shorter and narrower than the one she had left, but the
companion continued its ascent, and thus she emerged on the upper
deck. Crouching under the shadow of a boat, she saw that she was just
astern of the bridge.
The upper deck was deserted. She could hear the winch aft thrumming
spasmodically, and thanked her stars that all hands would still be
engaged in getting the gold aboard. But they couldn’t take very much
longer over it, and before they were finished and bustling about
getting up anchor she had got to corral the skipper and the Tiger and
any of the more mature Cubs who happened to be loafing about up on the
bridge.
The bridge was built over a couple of big cabins. Certainly the Tiger
would occupy one of those, and she marked them down for investigation
later. But the first thing to do was to attack the bridge.
The bridge companion faced her. She gained it in half a dozen paces
and went up.
There was a man leaning over the starboard rail. The moonlight
revealed the dingy braid on his uniform and the peaked cap tilted back
from his forehead. He was gazing out to sea, chewing his pipe and
wrapped up in his thoughts. If details are to be insisted upon, he was
speculating about the riotous time he would have in Cape Town when he
was paid off for the voyage. There was, for instance, Mulatto Harry’s
place down by the docks—an unsavoury-looking joint enough from the
outside, but provided with a room furnished in Oriental magnificence,
to which only the favoured ones who were well provided with hard cash
were admitted. In that room were delights for which the soul of Mr.
Maggs hungered—better liquor than was served to the proletariat in the
filthy bar beyond which the proletariat never penetrated, and
decorative little pipes from which curled up thin wisps of seductive
smoke, and houris of a more subtle loveliness than that of the painted
half-caste women who frequented the better-known dives. Mr. Maggs
visioned the orgy which the Tiger’s money would purchase him; and, in
his heavy and animal fashion, Mr. Maggs was a contented man, for he
possessed the unlimited patience of the third-rate beast. And Mr.
Maggs was solidly champing over his dream for the umpteenth time since
the Tiger had found him in a dockside bar in Bristol, and made the
offer of a princely salary _plus_ bonus, when something hard and round
prodded Mr. Maggs in the spine and he heard a command which was not
quite unfamiliar.
“Hands up!”
The order hissed out very softly, but there was a sibilant menace
permeating its quietness which made the experienced Mr. Maggs obey
without question.
A hand dipped into his jacket pocket, and he felt his gun being deftly
extracted.
“Now you can turn round.”
Mr. Maggs pivoted slowly, and his jaw dropped when he saw the girl.
“You she-devil!” snarled Maggs, taking courage from the sight.
“Sticking _me_ up! Well, honey——”
He started to lower his arms. Two revolver muzzles jerked up and held
their aim at his chest. The hands that held them were as steady as the
hands of a stone image, and his keen stare could detect no trace of
nervousness in the face of their owner. Mr. Maggs, wise in his
generation, read the threat of sudden death in the girl’s cold eyes,
and stopped.
“Down the companion,” said Patricia. “And don’t try to get away or
shout or anything. There’s bound to be shooting sooner or later, and
it might as well start on you.”
Maggs complied to the letter. He was too old a hand not to recognise a
bluff when he saw one, and he knew that this slip of a girl with the
two guns wasn’t bluffing. He went slowly down the companion and
waited, and in a moment he heard her step down on the deck behind him,
and again the revolver nosed into the small of his back.
“Now—where’s the Tiger?”
He chuckled.
“You’re wrong there, you! The Tiger isn’t coming on this trip—he was
persuaded not to.”
“Where would you like to be shot?” she asked frostily.
“That won’t alter it,” said Maggs. “I tell you, the Tiger isn’t on
board. I can’t tell you why, and I can’t tell you where he is, but the
other guys arrived without him, and said he might come later or
probably he mightn’t come at all. You can ask Bittle.”
She could not decide whether the man was lying or not, but she sensed
that he was manœuvring for an opportunity to turn the tables on her.
“Where is Bittle?”
“The left-hand cabin.”
“Lead right in there,” said Patricia, and knew by the way he hesitated
that he had lied, and that he had been hoping she would postpone
entering that cabin and take him into the one on the right, where
perhaps Bittle was.
He opened the door and there she stopped him.
“Walk right in—and keep well away from the door. If you try to slam it
in my face you’ll get hurt.”
He submitted perforce, and she followed him in and kicked the door to.
She was then in a dilemma—a man could have tied Maggs up and left him,
but Patricia could not trust herself to do that, since she would have
no chance against him if he turned on her while she was unarmed, and
she could not truss him up effectively with one hand. And she could
hardly lock him in loose, when he could smash a porthole and raise the
alarm as soon as she passed on. In fact, there was only one way to
eliminate Mr. Maggs. . . .
Swiftly she reversed the revolver in her right hand, swept it up, and
crashed it down with all her strength on the back of his head.
The next moment she was looking down at his prostrate form, and she
found that she was trembling. To embark on an evening’s amateur
piracy—even to the extent of holding up the skipper at the end of a
gun—even to putting out a recalcitrant cook in fair fight—is one
thing. To strike a man down in cold blood is another, especially when
you do it for the first time in your uneventful life. She feared that
she might have killed him, but a rapid examination showed that he was
still breathing, though she reckoned by the vim she had put into the
blow that he would have no interest in the entertainment for a long
time. She regained her feet, considerably relieved.
“Pull yourself together, Patricia Holm!” she admonished herself. “This
isn’t a vicarage tea-party—you can’t afford to be squeamish. They’ll
do worse to you if they get you, so let ’em have it while you can!”
Now for Bittle. . . .
She locked Mr. Maggs in, and stowed the key away by a cleat, where it
could be recovered later if required. Then she crossed to the other
door, turned the handle noiselessly, and suddenly flung the door wide.
The cabin was in darkness. She searched for the electric light switch,
and the darkness was wiped out in a glare that half blinded her, but
she was able to see that the cabin was empty. An open valise was on
the bunk, and some clothes had been unpacked, and lay strewn about. A
faint odour of fresh tobacco proved that the occupant had not long
been gone. Then an ash-tray on the ledge of the disappearing
wash-basin caught her eye, and she discovered the origin of the smoky
smell, for the cigar had only just been lighted.
Would Bittle have left his cigar behind him?
An indefinable suspicion of impending danger tingled up her spine like
the caress of a thousand needle-points of ice. . . .
Or did it mean that he would be back in a moment? If so, she was
asking for trouble by keeping the light on and standing full in the
blaze of it. Hurriedly she clicked the lever over, and darkness
descended again.
She spun round with a start, and saw him at her shoulder, but he was
too quick for her. He had caught her two guns, one in each hand, and
torn them out of her grasp before she could move.