in before the
paper-littered table and sway to and fro upon tottering legs. He
heard, from a great distance, the deep rumble of Captain Carew's
voice--but all he could see of Carew was a foot and a section of leg.
He saw a wide expanse of bare floor, and the floor was moving.

He hung suspended before a door. Came Carew's voice--

"Not there--fools--next room."

More moving floor. Another door. The door receded and showed a black
hole. Again the deep voice--

"Good place--safe--just quill-pusher--dump."

A headlong flight through darkness, falling, falling, into the
bottomless pit. A crash. And Martin's mind and Martin's body became
one again as he struck the floor.

He was lying face downward upon a bare floor. He sat up. His head was
ringing, and he could feel that his cheek was swelling. His addled
wits slowly settled themselves. He moved his head about and took
stock, as well as he could, of his new surroundings.

He retained a vague memory of his passage through the big room, and of
the two doors. So, he knew the place he had been so unceremoniously
dumped into was one of the rooms that opened upon Carew's headquarters.
The only light that entered the place crept under the door from the
room without. He knew, without experiment, the door was locked upon
him.

The room felt bare. He struck one of his few remaining matches. The
room was bare, not a stick of furniture in it. The single window was
closed, and he supposed it was shuttered as well, for he could not see
through it. But he would make sure. He clambered to his feet, a bit
dizzy yet but well able to control his movements. He moved softly
toward the window, feeling his way.

In a second his hand touched the window-ledge. He felt along the sash
and shoved upward. To his surprise, the window lifted easily. But the
hand he shoved without met, as he expected it would, a heavy wooden
shutter; and his investigating fingers disclosed, moreover, a padlock,
that, by means of a staple sunk in the sill, locked the shutter fast.
No hope of getting away through the window.

The certainty that he was imprisoned in this sealed box of a room was
not soothing to Martin's temper. He was not frightened--he was angry.
The haughty Carew had aroused in him resentment; now, he had been
slugged semi-conscious and locked in this room. His anger reached the
proportions of a rage, a hot, furious rage.

He left the window and crossed to the door. H