the room immediately above the
archway; and listening intently, I perceived above the other faint
sounds of the night, or thought that I perceived, the hissing of the gas
from the extinguished lamp-burner.

Unsteadily I rose to my feet, but found myself swaying like a drunken
man. I reached out for support, stumbling in the direction of the wall.
My foot came in contact with something that lay there, and I pitched
forward and fell....

I anticipated a crash which would put an end to my hopes of escape, but
my fall was comparatively noiseless--for I fell upon the body of a man
who lay bound up with rope close against the wall!

A moment I stayed as I fell, the chest of my fellow captive rising and
falling beneath me as he breathed. Knowing that my life depended
upon retaining a firm hold upon myself, I succeeded in overcoming the
dizziness and nausea which threatened to drown my senses, and, moving
back so that I knelt upon the floor, I fumbled in my pocket for the
electric lamp which I had placed there. My raincoat had been removed
whilst I was unconscious, and with it my pistol, but the lamp was
untouched.

I took it out, pressed the button, and directed the ray upon the face of
the man beside me.

It was Nayland Smith!

Trussed up and fastened to a ring in the wall he lay, having a cork gag
strapped so tightly between his teeth that I wondered how he had escaped
suffocation.

But, although a grayish pallor showed through the tan of his skin, his
eyes were feverishly bright, and there, as I knelt beside him, I thanked
heaven, silently but fervently.

Then, in furious haste, I set to work to remove the gag. It was most
ingeniously secured by means of leather straps buckled at the back of
his head, but I unfastened these without much difficulty, and he spat
out the gag, uttering an exclamation of disgust.

"Thank God, old man!" he said, huskily. "Thank God that you are alive! I
saw them drag you in, and I thought..."

"I have been thinking the same about you for more than twenty-four
hours," I said, reproachfully. "Why did you start without--"

"I did not want you to come, Petrie," he replied. "I had a sort of
premonition. You see it was realized; and instead of being as helpless
as I, Fate has made you the instrument of my release. Quick! You have a
knife? Good!" The old, feverish energy was by no means extinguished
in him. "Cut the ropes about my wrists and ankles, but don't otherwise
disturb them--"