After being led through a large room filled with many instruments of torture, and resonant with the shrieks of the victims of the wrath of P’an-ku, he was conducted to a small anteroom where two men, under the direction of Tzien Khan, removed his metal collar and seated him in a heavy metal chair which was bolted to the floor. These two men, as well as the others whose work it was to torture the prisoners, had their faces hideously painted with rings and lines of red and blue pigment. When they had the professor strapped securely in the chair, they measured his head. Then they went out, and presently returned with a metal helmet with a ring in the top. The helmet fitted his skull almost as tightly as if it had been made to order for him, and a metal chin piece which was fastened beneath the ears on either side was fitted in place and secured. A metal cable with hooks on each end was next passed through two stout pulleys suspended from the ceiling, one of which was directly above his head and the other about three feet in front of it. One end of the cable was hooked through the ring in his helmet. Then one of the men lifted a large, cylindrical vessel with a funnel-like opening and basket-like handle at the top, and hooked it on the other end. This done, Tzien Khan turned a valve, and a drop of water fell into the vessel. Noting its fall he watched a small instrument, evidently a chronometer, which he took from his belt pouch, until a second had fallen. For some time he continued to adjust the valve, until the falling drops seemed timed to his liking. Then he dismissed his two attendants and turned to the professor with his cruel, toothless grin. “Farewell, O spawn of a slimy worm,” he said. “In your slow and painful passing, meditate on the folly of opposing your puny will to that of the Lord of the Universe.” The professor was unable to make a reply, even had he desired to do so, for the weight of the vessel had pulled the helmet and chin piece so high that speech was impossible. The cords of his neck began to pain him sharply, and he tried to think of something which would take his mind off the pain. With the aid of his wrist watch, he calculated that the water was dripping into the container at the rate of a drop every minute. A dram an hour. Three ounces in a day. How much weight could the cords and muscles withstand? How long had he to live? XIX. DUNGEONS OF DARKNESS Ted Dustin’s first glimmer of returning consciousness after his space flier had crashed with him in the crater of Copernicus, was a queer, swinging sensation.