going to be opened? At last it swung inward, with a suddenness that
precipitated me inside the room.

The Madam was standing over me where I had fallen. At sight of me she
screamed. Surprise, fear, rage, struggled for mastery on her face. "It's
him," she cried, "_him_." Peering over her shoulder, with ashy,
horrified face, I saw her trembling husband.

"Berna," I gasped hoarsely. "Where is she? I want Berna. What are you
doing to her, you devils? Give her to me. She's mine, my promised bride.
Let me go to her, I say."

The woman barred the way.

All at once I realised that the air was heavy with a strange odour, the
odour of _chloroform_. Frenzied with fear, I rushed forward.

Then the Amazon roused herself. With a cry of rage she struck me.
Savagely both of them came for me. I struggled, I fought; but, weak as I
was, they carried me before them and threw me from the door. I heard the
lock shoot; I was outside; I was impotent. Yet behind those log
walls.... Oh, it was horrible! horrible! Could such things be in God's
world? And I could do nothing.

I was strong once more. I ran round to the back of the cabin. She was in
there, I knew. I rushed at the window and threw myself against it. The
storm frame had not been taken off. Crash! I burst through both sheets
of glass. I was cruelly cut, bleeding in a dozen places, yet I was half
into the room. There, in the dirty, drab light, I saw a face, the
fiendish, rage-distorted face of my dream. It was Locasto.

He turned at the crash. With a curse he came at me. Then, as I hung half
in, half out of the window, he clutched me by the throat. Using all his
strength, he raised me further into the room, then he hurled me
ruthlessly out onto the rocks outside.

I rose, reeling, covered with blood, blind, sick, speechless. Weakly I
staggered to the window. My strength was leaving me. "O God, sustain me!
Help me to save her."

Then I felt the world go blank. I swayed; I clutched at the walls; I
fell.

There I lay in a ghastly, unconscious heap.

I had lost!

BOOK IV

THE VORTEX

He burned a hole in the frozen muck;
He scratched the icy mould;
And there in six-foot dirt he struck
A sack or so of gold.

He burned a hole in the Decalogue,
And then it came about--
For Fortune's only a lousy rogue--
His "pocket" petered out.

And lo! it was but a year all told,
When there in the shadow grim,
But six feet deep in the icy mould,
They burned a hole fo