ath-room adjoining.
The covers of the bed had been turned back, ready for its occupant,
but the bed was undisturbed.

Godfrey glanced about the room again, a sort of frenzied concentration
in his gaze, and then went out, leaving the lights burning. It took
but a moment or two to look through the other suites. They were all empty.

"If Miss Vaughan was anywhere about, and unharmed," said Godfrey,
"the noise we made would have brought her out to investigate. There's
only one place she can be," and he led the way resolutely back to the
door of Silva's room.

The yogi had not moved.

Godfrey contemplated him for a moment, with his torch full on the
bearded face. Then he crossed the threshold, his torch sweeping the
floor in front of him.

"Let's see what the Thug is up to," he said, crossed the room, drew
back the drapery, and opened the door into the little closet where we
had seen Mahbub once before.

There was a burst of acrid smoke into the room, and Godfrey stepped
back with a stifled exclamation.

"Come here, you fellows!" he cried, and Simmonds and I sprang to his side.

For a moment I could see nothing; the rolling clouds of smoke blinded
and choked me; I could feel the tears running down my cheeks and my
throat burned as though it had been scalded.

Then the smoke lifted a little, and I caught a glimpse of what lay
within the room.

In the middle of the floor stood an open brazier, with a thin yellow
flame hovering above it, now bright, now dim, as the smoke whirled
about it. Before the brazier, sat Mahbub, his legs crossed with feet
uppermost, his hands pressed palm to palm before his face.

"But he'll suffocate!" I gasped, and, indeed, I did not see how any
human being could breathe in such an atmosphere.

And then, as the smoke whirled aside again, I saw the snake. Its head
was waving slowly to and fro, its horrible hood distended, its yellow,
lidless eyes fixed upon us.

Simmonds saw it too, and retreated a step.

"We'd better keep out of there," he gasped, "till that little pet's
put away in his basket."

But Godfrey seized his arm and dragged him back to the threshold of
the door.

"Look, Simmonds," he cried, rubbing his dripping eyes fiercely, "there
against the wall?--is there something there--or is it just the smoke?"

I looked, too, but at first saw nothing, for a cloud of smoke rolled
down and blotted out the light from Godfrey's torch. Then it swirled
aside, and against the farthe