d if you won't go with me, I'll ask you to put me into my
bearings."

The stranger did not move in his attitude, or relax a muscle.

"You can't go from here now," he said; "nor, in fact, until I allow
you."

"Can't? But I must!" shouted John Ames. "Heavens! I don't see how you
can know all you have been saying; but the bare suggestion that she may
be in danger--all alone and helpless--oh, good God, but it'll drive me
mad!"

"How I can know? Well, perhaps I can't--perhaps I can. Anyway, there's
one thing you can't do, and that is leave this place without my aid. If
you don't believe me, just take a look round and try."

He waved his hand with a throw-everything-open sort of gesture. In
feverish strides, like those of a newly caged tiger, John Ames quickly
explored the apartment, likewise another which opened out of it. His
mind fired with Nidia's helplessness and danger, he gave no thought to
the curious nature of this subterranean dwelling; all he thought about
was means of egress.

At the further end of the apartment in which he had been lying yawned a
deep shaft like that of a disused mine. Air floated up this; clearly,
therefore, it gave egress. But the means of descent? He looked around
and above. No apparatus rewarded his view--not even a single rope. He
explored the further chamber, which, like the first, was lighted by a
curious eye-shaped lamp fixed in a hole in the rock-partition wall.
Here too were several smaller oubliette-like shafts. But no means of
exit.

The while, his host--or gaoler--had been standing immovable, as though
these investigations and their results had not the faintest interest for
him. John Ames, utterly baffled, gave up the search, and the terrible
conviction forced itself upon him that he was shut up in the very heart
of the earth with a malevolent lunatic. Yet there was that about the
other's whole personality which was not compatible with the lunatic
theory; a strong, mesmeric, compelling force, as far removed from
insanity in any known phase as it could possibly be. Power was
proclaimed large in every look, in every utterance.

"Was I right?" he said. "But patience, John Ames; you must be pitifully
wrapped up in this--`friend' of yours, to lose your head in that
unwonted fashion. Unwonted--yes. I know you, you see, better than you
do me. Well, I won't try your patience any longer. Had you not
interrupted me it would have been better for you; I was going