Under His Thumb — page 43: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

34 UNDER HIS THUMB. For a short space he had slept, overcome by exhaus- tion, and the sleep refreshed him wonderfully. Then he glanced about him in sudden terror, lest Dyer should reappear and again consign him to the dark space below. | But the young foreman was not there. At the same time he discovered that the door of the boiler- room was open, while the piece of steam-pipe with which it had been fastened lay upon the floor. Steve seized this, feeling that with it he could make a desperate defense, if necessary. Then he made his way back through the engine and press- rooms, past the silent monsters whose clangor of life was accustomed to shake the massive building from top to bottom. As the boy made his way toward the stairs he imagined that he saw a dark figure skulking in his rear. This caused him to quicken his footsteps. A back- ward glance showed him that the skulking figure likewise moved more quickly. There was no longer any doubt. The boy rea- lized that he was pursued, and, his nerves weakened by the severe strain to which they had been sub- jected, he bounded swiftly up the stairs—swiftly along the passage toward the counting-room. And after him glided the shadowy pursuer. comicbooks.col