I should be dead--and they would be free.

For myself, I did not care so very much. My chief thought was of
Sylvia, and of the awful fate which had overtaken her because she had
dared to warn me--that fate of which she had spoken so strangely on
the night when we had talked on the hotel terrace at Gardone.

That moonlit scene--the whole of it--passed through my fevered,
unbalanced brain. I lived those moments of ecstasy over again. I felt
her soft hand in mine. I looked again into those wonderful, fathomless
eyes; I heard that sweet, musical voice; I listened to those solemn
words of warning. I believed myself to be once more beside the
mysterious girl who had come into my life so strangely--who had held
me in fascination for life or death.

The candle-flame, still straight and unflickering, seemed like a
pillar of fire, while beyond, lay a cavernous blackness. I thought I
heard a slight noise, as though my enemies were lurking there in the
shadow. Yet it was a mere chimera of my overwrought brain.

I recollected the strange bracelet of Sylvia's--the serpent with its
tail in its mouth--the ancient symbol of Eternity. And I soon would be
launched into Eternity by the poisonous fang of that flat-headed
little reptile.

Thoughts of Sylvia--that strange, sweet-faced girl of my
dreams--filled my senses. Those shrieks resounded in my ears. She had
cried for help, and yet I was powerless to rescue her from the hands
of that pair of hell-fiends.

I struggled, and succeeded in moving slightly.

But the snake, maddened by its bond, struck again at me viciously, his
darting tongue almost touching my shrinking flesh.

A blood-red mist rose suddenly before my eyes. My head swam. My
overwrought brain, paralyzed by horror, became unbalanced. I felt a
tightness in the throat. In my ears once again I heard the hiss of the
loathsome reptile, a venomous, threatening hiss, as its dark shadow
darted before me, struggling to strike my cheek.

Through the red mist I saw that the candle burned so low that the edge
of the wax was on a level with the green silk cord, that slender
thread which withheld Death from me.

I looked again. A groan of agony escaped me.

Again the angry hiss of the serpent sounded. Again its dark form shot
between my eyes and the unflickering flame of the candle.

That flame was slowly but surely consuming the cord!

I shrieked for help in my abject despair.

The mist grew more red, more impenetrable. A