tter up with the men who sent
you here!" exclaimed Carew. "And I'll take the matter up at once.
Meanwhile, you will remain here. I'll not lose track of you until I
get to the bottom of this affair."

"Do you mean you intend to detain me here? Whether I will or no?"
demanded the thoroughly angered Martin.

"I do," stated Carew.

He barked an order in a foreign tongue. The two gargoyles at the other
end of the room sprang to life and started swiftly toward Martin.

Martin wheeled about and darted for the door to the hallway. He
reached it, and was jerking it open, when the two Japs flung themselves
upon him. He lifted one from his feet with a well-placed swing. The
other flung his arms about Martin's neck and clung there.

Martin staggered into the hall, wrestling with that leech-like hug. He
tore free from the fellow; and as he did he caught a glimpse of Captain
Carew through the open door. The man had not moved from his station
behind the table.

Then a mountain seemed to drop upon Martin's back. He was crushed face
downward upon the floor, enveloped and smothered by a vast and
sour-smelling bulk.

He struggled desperately and succeeded in partly rolling over on his
back. He flailed his arm twice, and felt his fist strike against soft
flesh. He saw hanging over him the unwholesome face of the
saloonkeeper, Spulvedo.

Then a heavy blow smote his jaw-bone, and he went a-dancing through a
world of bright, shooting stars, into darkness.

CHAPTER VI

PRISONER

The results of a forceful tap on the human jaw are various. One man
lies inert, dead of body, blank of mind; a second writhes about and
babbles; a third retains a modicum of control over locomotion, but the
mind journeys afar into a phantasmagoric world.

Martin was the third man during this, his first, reaction to a knockout
blow. He was not completely unconscious, but that terrific jolt seemed
to divorce body and mind. So far as further resistance was concerned,
he was helpless. He swam about in an opaque mist. There, afar off, on
the floor, was stretched another Martin Blake, a shadow of Martin
Blake; and he saw monstrous things surrounding this adumbration of
himself, headless bodies, and bodiless heads, and detached arms and
legs.

He saw these parts of men haul the unreal Martin Blake to his feet and
bundle him through the door, back into the big, lighted room. He saw
this other self, body sagging, head hanging, stand aga