t
line toward him.

No such terror had ever before possessed the stout heart of the
Englishman. As the uncanny spot, ever growing brighter, advanced toward
him, he thought his heart had stopped beating; his brain was in a whirl.
After a long while the spot reached his feet and began to climb up his
legs. With a shudder and a smothered cry, he tried to draw his feet
away, but they were too firmly manacled.

"It is searching for my heart," thought Thorndyke. "My God, when it
reaches it, I shall die!" As the strange spot, gleaming like a burning
diamond in whose heart leaped a thousand different colored flames, and
which seemed possessed of some strange hellish purpose, crossed his
thighs and began to climb up his body, the brain of the prisoner seemed
on fire. He tried to close his eyes, but, horror of horrors! his eyelids
were paralyzed. It was almost over his heart, and Thorndyke was fainting
through sheer mental exhaustion when it stopped, began to descend
slowly, and, then, with a rapid, wavering motion, it fell to the floor,
flashed about in the darkness, and vanished.

An hour dragged slowly by. What would happen next? The Englishman felt
that his frightful ordeal was not over. To his surprise the darkness
began to lighten till he could see dimly the outlines of the chamber. It
was bare save for the chair he occupied against a wall, and a couch on
the opposite side of the room. The couch held something which looked
like a human body covered with a white cloth. He could see where the
sheet rounded over the head and rose sharply at the feet.

Something told him that it was a corpse and a new terror possessed him.
For several minutes he gazed at the couch in dreadful suspense, then his
heart stopped pulsing as the figure on the couch began to move. Slowly
the sheet fell from the head and the figure sat up stiffly. There was
a faint hum of hidden machinery at the couch, and a flashing blue and
green line running from the couch to the wall betrayed the presence of
an electric wire.

Slowly the figure rose, and with creaking, rattling joints stood erect.
Pale lights shone in the orbits of the eyes and the sound of harsh
automatic breathing came from the mouth and nostrils. Slowly and
haltingly the figure advanced toward Thorndyke. The poor fellow tried
to wrench himself free from the chair, but he could not stir an inch.
On came the figure, its long arms swinging mechanically, and its feet
slurring over the stone pa