alled out.

Farrington was in the room now, Farrington with his trusty lieutenant,
and behind them the one-eyed Italian desperado whom Poltavo remembered
seeing in the power house one day, when he had been allowed the
privilege of inspection.

Some slight change had been made in the room since he was there last.
Poltavo's nerves were in such a condition that he was sensitive to this
variation. He saw now what the change was. The table had been drawn back
leaving the chair where it was fixed.

Yes, it was a fixed chair, he remembered that and wondered why it had
been screwed to the wood block floor. Dr. Fall and the engineer grasped
him roughly and hurried him across the room, thrusting him into the
chair.

"What are you going to do?" asked Poltavo, white as death.

"That you shall see."

Deftly they strapped him to the chair; his wrists and elbows were
securely fastened to the arms, and his ankles to the legs of the massive
piece of furniture.

From where he sat Poltavo confronted Farrington, but the big man's
mask-like face did not move, nor his eyes waver as he surveyed his
treacherous prisoner. Then Fall knelt down and did something, and
Poltavo heard the ripping and tearing of cloth.

They were slitting up each trouser leg, and he could not understand why.

"Is this a joke?" he asked with a desperate attempt at airiness.

No reply was made. Poltavo watched his captors curiously. What was the
object of it all? The two men busy at the chair lifted a number of
curious-looking objects from the floor; they clamped one on each wrist,
and he felt the cold surface of some instrument pressing against each
calf. Still he did not realize the danger, or the grim determination of
these men whose secret he would have betrayed.

"Mr. Farrington," he appealed to the big man, "let us have an
understanding. I have played my game and lost."

"You have indeed," said Farrington.

They were the first words he had spoken.

"Give me enough to get out of the country," Poltavo appealed, "just the
money that I have in my pocket, and I promise you that I will never
trouble you again."

"My friend," said Farrington, "I have trusted you too long. You forced
yourself upon me when I did not desire you, you thwarted me at every
turn, you betrayed me whenever it was possible to betray me, or whenever
it was to your advantage to do so, and I am determined that you shall
have no other chance of doing me an injury."

"What is this