the other part were five or six men.
Three of them were testing some substance at a table; three more were
gathered about old Luke Evans, whose silver chains had been removed
and replaced by ropes, which bound his limbs, and also bound him to a
heavy chair, which seemed to be affixed to the ground. One of the
three had a piece of metal in a pair of long-handled pliers. It was
white hot, and a white electric spark that shot to and fro between two
terminals close by, showed where it had been heated.

Dick started; he recognized one of the three men as Von Kettler. He
moved slowly forward, very softly, his feet making no sound on the
fiber matting that covered the floor.

* * * * *

"Did that feel good, American swine?" asked Von Kettler softly, and
Dick saw, with horror, a red weal on the old man's forehead. "Now you
are perhaps in a more gracious mood, Professor? The unknown isotope in
that black gas of yours--you are disposed to give us the chemical
formula?"

"I'll see you in hell first," raved old Luke Evans, writhing in his
chair.

Von Kettler turned to the man holding the white-hot metal, and nodded.
But at that moment a door behind Evans's chair opened, and Fredegonde
Valmy appeared in the entrance. Von Kettler turned hastily, snatched
the pliers from the man's hand, and laid the metal in a receptacle.

But the girl had seen the action. She looked at the weal on Luke's
forehead, and clenched her hands; her eyes dilated with horror.

"You have been torturing him, Hugo!" she cried.

"Freda, what are you doing in here? Oblige me by withdrawing
immediately!" cried Von Kettler.

"Where is Captain Rennell?" the girl retorted. "I will know!"

"He is upstairs, watching the approaching Yankee fleet, and waiting to
see its destruction," returned the other.

"You are lying to me! He has been killed, and this old man has been
tortured!" cried Fredegonde. "I tell you, Hugo Von Kettler, you are no
longer a half-brother of mine! I am through with you!"

"Unfortunately," sneered Von Kettler, "it is not possible to dispose
of a family relationship so easily."

* * * * *

"It is cheap to sneer," the girl retorted. "But you sang a very
different song when you were in the penitentiary, in terror of death,
and you begged me to come and throw you the invisible robe through the
bars. You promised me then that you would abandon this mad enterprise
and come awa