at seemed to him to be ages he lay
there watching the fiery death creep closer. Then the will to live
surged through him and he struggled furiously to escape from the deadly
path of the acid. Gone now was his flinching and shrinking as the sharp
barbs lacerated his tender flesh. Gone was the calmness that denoted
surrender and the acceptance of his fate.

With bunching muscles he writhed inch by inch to one side, out of the
path of the flow of the acid. He was just in time, for, at his last
mighty effort, the consuming fluid flowed past, not an inch from his
face.

To extricate himself from the coils of the wire was a slow and painful
task. Wounded with a hundred wounds, with each movement of his body
adding a further injury, many times Locke was forced to desist in his
efforts to free himself. However, he persisted, though, strong man that
he was, the tears of agony burned his eyes and beads of cold sweat stood
on his brow even before the first coil was loosened.

He could not, even to save his own life, have persisted in this
self-inflicted torture had it not been for the thought of Eva hurrying
to this dreadful den. That thought almost drove him mad and spurred him
to furious effort.

It was well that it did. For at this very moment the beastly emissary in
the cafe above was closing in on her.

Locke gave a final heave and tugged at the last strands of the wire that
held him prisoner. His clothes ripped to tatters and his flesh torn and
lacerated, he at last stood free.

Without an instant's pause he collected packing-cases and even barrels.
He stacked them one upon the other, pyramiding them under the trap-door
through which he had fallen into the cellar. Then he climbed upon them,
leaped, and tried to grasp the edge of the floor above him, but fell
short and came tumbling down amid the boxes and barrels, only to start
stacking them up all over again.

Finally he managed to grasp the edge of the floor with one hand and draw
himself up. For a few moments he lay panting on the floor, then groped
for the panel through which he had entered not half an hour before. It
was locked, but a shrewd kick above the lock opened it to him and he
rushed through the storeroom and out into the now brilliantly lighted
cafe.

He was barely in time.

The emissary already had Eva in his grasp and was choking her into
unconsciousness. The foul habitues of the resort, far from aiding the
poor girl, seemed for the first time tha