t wall, and dropped it blazing down the
well.

Nick saw it coming, and was forced to drop back to the cellar floor.

"You vicious demon!" he cried, angrily. "Let up! You'll have the house
on fire!"

"That's just what I intend doing--and you with it!" screamed Cervera,
with a laugh. "I'll not leave you alive to get the best of me at some
later day."

Then she set fire to a silk skirt, and dropped it after the other.

Nick had not yet been able to extinguish the first, and the situation
was momentarily becoming more desperate. A cloud of smoke was filling
the well, with no draft to carry it away, and the heat was already very
oppressive.

Crouching on the curb of the lighted passage three floors above him,
Cervera was laughing wildly, with her handsome face reflecting the
bitter hatred by which she was inspired, as she hurriedly set fire to a
third garment and dropped it down the well.

The smoke at the bottom had become so dense that Nick no longer could
see her, but he felt quite sure that he could put an end to her present
murderous game.

He drew his revolver and fired two quick shots in her direction. One
bullet crashed through the ceiling above her. The second clipped a lock
of hair from over the vixen's ear.

It brought a shriek of alarm to her lips, and she sprang quickly back
from the curb over which she was stooping.

"_Caramba!_" she yelled, excitedly. "That's your game, is it?"

"You'll find it is, if you approach that opening again!" cried Nick,
half choked with smoke, while he fiercely strove to extinguish the
blazing garments.

"Oh, I'll not give you another chance at me!" screamed Cervera. "I'll
push over something heavier, and crush out your life with--"

She suddenly stopped, then held her breath and listened.

The crash of a breaking door reached her ears, then hurried footsteps
began falling on the main stairway leading to her chamber.

"Some one is coming!" she fiercely muttered. "Perhaps another detective!
I must be off!"

Yet so bitter was her hatred of Nick, and so intensely enjoyable to her
the trick she had served him, that she lingered for an instant in the
face of the impending danger, and screamed down the well, with a mocking
laugh:

"I'm obliged to leave you, Detective Carter! While I'm gone--keep
whistling!"

At the same moment Chick Carter rushed into the chamber and caught a
glimpse of her through the wreathing smoke, as she fled through the
lighted passage.

On