The detective wasted no more breath. As the other car swept past, Maitland was shocked by a report and flash beside him. Hickey was using his revolver. The detonation was answered by a cry, a scream of pain, from the lighted cage. It paused on the instant, like a bird stricken a-wing, some four floors below, but at once resumed its downward swoop. "Down, down! After 'em!" Hickey bellowed. "I dropped one, by God! T'other can't--" "How many in the car?" interrupted Maitland, opening the lever with a firm and careful hand. "Only two, same's us, I hit th' feller what was runnin' it--" "Steady!" cautioned Maitland, decreasing the speed, as the car approached the lower floor. The other had beaten them down; but its arrival at the street level was greeted by a short chorus of mad yells, a brief fusillade of shots--perhaps five in all--and the clang of the gate. Then, like a ball rebounding, the cage swung upwards again, hurtling at full speed. Evidently Anisty had been received in force which he had not bargained for. Maitland instinctively reversed the lever and sent his own car upward again, slowly, waiting for the other to overtake it. Peering down through the iron lattice-work he could indistinctly observe the growing cube of light, with a dark shape lying huddled in one corner of the floor. A second figure, rapidly taking shape as Anisty's, stood by the controller, braced against the side of the car, one hand on the lever, the other poising a shining thing, the flesh-colored oval of his face turned upwards in a supposititious attempt to discern the location of the dark car. Hickey, by firing prematurely, lent him adventitious aid. The criminal replied with spirit, aiming at the flash, his bullet spattering against the back wall of the shaft. Hickey's next bullet rang with a bell-like note against the metal-work, Anisty's presumably went wide--though Maitland could have sworn he felt the cold kiss of its breath upon his cheek. And the lighted cage rocketed past and up. Maitland needed no admonition to pursue; his blood was up, his heart singing with the lust of the man-hunt. Yet Anisty was rapidly leaving them, his car soaring at an appalling pace. Towards the top he evidently made some attempt to slow up, but either he was ignorant of the management of the lever, or else the thing had got beyond control. The cage rammed the buffers with a crash that echoed through the sounding halls like a peal of thunder-claps; it was instantaneously plunged into darkness. There followed a splintering and rending sound, and Maitland, heart in mouth, could make out dimly a dark, falling shadow in the further shaft. Yet ere it had descended a score of feet the safety-clutch acted and, with a third tremendous jar, shaking the building, the car halted.