“I am glad to know that the room is so well protected,” observed the senator. “Just draw a little closer to the table, will you? I want to show you the papers that have brought me all the way from Washington--and at a time when I really ought not to have left the Senate.” He got up from his own chair, as if to move it, and, as Portersham hitched nearer the table, the senator managed to get right behind him. At the same instant he thrust his hand into an inside pocket. If the acting governor had chanced to turn, he would have observed that the good-humored expression had entirely left his visitor’s face. His lips had drawn down at the corners, while his eyes seemed to narrow and come closer together. There was a strange ferocity in the whole countenance, curiously at variance with the light and pleasant words with which he had entered the room. When Senator Garnford’s hand came out of his pocket, it did not hold papers. Instead, he brought forth a small bottle and a folded pad of white cloth. Keeping a wary eye on Portersham, who was trying to get his chair into a convenient position at the table, the senator gently drew the cork from the bottle in his hand. He placed the pad of cloth over the neck of the bottle and let the contents saturate it through and through. “What’s that?” exclaimed the acting governor, as he began to turn in his chair. “I thought I smelled a strange----” He did not get any further. Senator Garnford seized him around the throat in an iron grip and pulled his head back. “Let go!” gasped Portersham. “What the----” The pad, reeking with the sickly smelling stuff, was jammed over his mouth and nostrils and held there. The acting governor was a sturdy fellow, and if he had not been taken so entirely by surprise, might have given this steel-muscled senator a hard tussle. As it was, he could only struggle feebly, while vainly endeavoring to shout for help. Not that it would have done him any good. He had spoken truly when he said that any sort of disturbance might take place in this felt-lined room without its being heard outside. But it was only natural for him to endeavor to cry out. It was the involuntary act of an animal in extreme peril or pain, when a human being does not reason any more than a dog. The chloroform worked rapidly. Moreover, the senator had jerked his head against the back of the chair with a force that would have half stunned him, even without the anæsthetic. Jabez Portersham managed to emit a gurgling cry. But the arm around his throat pressed more tightly, while the fumes of the drug crept upward and gripped his brain. Vainly the acting governor tried to get out of the chair, with only a vague consciousness of what was happening.