im to obtain assistance for us!"

"A splendid notion if I could get my mouth anywhere within a foot of it,
but as this chain will not permit me to do that, it might as well be a
hundred miles off. It's as much as I can do to touch it with my
fingers."

"Do you think if you had a stick you could push a piece of paper
through? We might write a message."

"Possibly, but there's another drawback to that. I haven't the necessary
piece of stick."

"Here is a stiff piece of straw; try that."

He harpooned a piece of straw, about eight inches long, across the room
towards me, and, when I had received it, I thrust it carefully into the
pipe. A disappointment, however, was in store for us.

"It's no use," I reported sorrowfully, as I threw the straw away. "It
has an elbow half-way down, and that would prevent any message from
being pushed through."

"Then we must try to discover some other plan. Don't lose heart!"

"Hush! I hear somebody coming."

True enough a heavy footfall was approaching down the passage. It
stopped at the door of the room in which we were confined, and a key was
inserted in the lock. Next moment the door swung open and a tall man
entered the room. A ray of sunlight, penetrating between the boards that
covered the window, fell upon him, and showed us that his hair was white
and that his face was deeply pitted with smallpox marks. Now, where had
I met or heard of a man with those two peculiarities before? Ah! I
remembered!

He stood for a moment in the doorway looking about him, and then
strolled into the centre of the room.

"Good-morning, gentlemen," he said, with an airy condescension that
stung like an insult; "I trust you have no fault to find with the
lodging our poor hospitality is able to afford you."

"Mr. Prendergast," I answered, determined to try him with the name of
the man mentioned by my sweetheart in her letter. "What does this mean?
Why have we been made prisoners like this? I demand to be released at
once. You will have to answer to our consul for this detention."

For a brief space he appeared to be dumbfounded by my knowledge of his
name. But he soon recovered himself and leaned his back against the
wall, looking us both carefully over before he answered.

"I shall be only too pleased," he said sneeringly, "but if you'll allow
me to say so, I don't think we need trouble about explanations yet
awhile."

"Pray, what do you mean by that?"

"Exactly what I say; as you are l