f fearfulness Oscar said:

"I have been betrayed."

"Betrayed?" repeated the woman.

"Yes."

"By whom?"

"_You_."

The woman laughed and said:

"But I thought you were a man of courage. Go on; I will go with you."

Oscar delayed a moment, making some remark, until he heard a signal--a
very tiny signal, but it was big and loud in its suggestions to him. He
stepped into the passage and a moment later a second door opened. The
secret room was disclosed and at least a dozen masked men who had been
seated at a long table arose. At the instant, as our hero recoiled, the
cold muzzles of two revolvers were placed on either cheek and a voice
said:

"Go ahead; you can't back out now."

It was a supreme moment of peril. Our hero had friends at hand, but
alas! ere his friends could announce themselves the deed of horror might
have been perpetrated. It was indeed a critical moment, but Oscar was
cool. He stepped forward and was pushed toward a seat, and the men
gathered at the table. All sat down also.

There followed a moment's silence. Oscar looked around. Near him stood
the siren who had allured him into the den, and her whole expression of
countenance had changed. She looked like a beautiful fiend as her eyes
gleamed with delight and the red glow of triumph flushed her features.
She was proud. She had promised to deliver the detective into the hands
of his intending assassins, and she had made good her word.

"So you have betrayed me," said Oscar.

"Yes," answered the woman, "I have betrayed you."

"The story about your brother was a lie."

"All these gentlemen are my brothers."

"And what now, woman?"

"You have just five minutes to live. You were set to destroy us; we will
destroy you."

"Poor creature," said Oscar in a tone of deep commiseration.

The woman glared, for there was a terrible significance in his tones,
and she shouted:

"Down him and make sure."

Alas! the arrangements fortunately were run on seconds, not minutes, or
our hero would have been a dead man. As the woman shouted "Down him!"
there came a second, voice, stern and commanding:

"Hold! don't let a man move or every soul of you dies."

There was a tableau at that moment such as never has been equaled on the
stage under all the complexity of colored lights. It was a scene never
to be forgotten by any of the witnesses, a scene awful in its intensity
of dramatic effect. The woman suddenly appeared to become frozen with
horror.