“Vell, you dake it out in vanting.” “See here, old man, this hair of yours don’t appear quite----” Nick broke off abruptly. He had reached down while speaking and seized the man’s soiled woolen cap and mop of gray hair, giving them a violent jerk. They came away in his hand, while the gray beard of the bowed rascal was torn out of place. The result was precisely what the detective had expected. The removal of the disguise revealed the pallid face and distorted features of the knave who had threatened him in Madison Avenue only a few days before, those of Stuart Floyd. Floyd evidently was expecting no less. In reality, he appeared to have planned for it. Like a flash, lurching forward from his stool while Nick was speaking, he suddenly threw both arms with viselike clutch around the detective’s legs, at the same time shouting, with frantic ferocity: “Now, boys, quick! Get him! Get him! Get him!” Nick Carter hardly knew where they came from, they came so quickly--the three ruffians who rushed into the place. Two were powerful fellows in the neighborhood of forty, both armed with heavy bludgeons. That they meant business, moreover, and were out for bloodshed or murder, even, if it became necessary, was speedily apparent. Nick realized on the instant that he had walked into a trap, an ambush from which escape would not be easy. He reached for his revolver, bent upon putting up the fight of his life, but he could not draw the weapon. For the frantic rascal on the floor, fiercely clutching Nick’s legs, was wriggling to and fro so furiously that the detective was nearly thrown from his feet. All the while, though the entire episode transpired in less than a quarter minute, Floyd was fiercely repeating: “Get him, boys, get him! Get him! Get him!” There was absolutely no occasion for these sanguinary commands. For the ruffians who had entered instantly attacked the swaying detective from behind. They fell upon him like wolves upon a wounded stag. Blow followed blow in quick succession, with merciless force, until Nick sank, dazed and bleeding, upon the floor, scarce conscious of what afterward transpired. In a vague way, however, as one senses such things in a dream, or a hideous nightmare, Nick knew that he was being hurriedly bound and robbed of his revolvers. He heard the brutal voices of his assailants, but they sounded faint to him and far away. He knew, in a dazed way, that the great heap of rags was hurriedly pushed aside, that a trapdoor which they had concealed was quickly opened, and that he then was hurriedly carried down several low steps and through a dark, earthy-smelling passage, then up other steps, and into a stone-walled room lighted only by the feeble rays of an oil lamp. Then the cobwebs began to clear from his battered head.