His knee came into contact with something hard and metallic. He struck a match, and saw that he had found a chain, one end of which was attached to a massive leg-iron, and the other secured to an eye-bolt sunk into the wall. The shank of the eye-bolt was badly corroded where it entered the masonry. A few minutes of wrenching and tugging sufficed to separate the chain from its anchorage. The result was a crude flail which in a strong hand could shatter whatever skull it struck. Farrell was armed again, and his spirits rose accordingly. He retraced his course and crept down the passageway toward the light. As he halted in the shelter of a jamb he saw that the vault ahead of him was illuminated by a glowing brazier; and the scene gave him a foretaste of what his own fate might be. The black, oily form of a muscular negro crouched beside the brazier. The bellows in his hands wheezed from his vigorous efforts to fan the charcoal fire to a white heat. Tongs or other long-handled implements projected from the incandescent mass. Limned in harsh highlight and black shadows Farrell saw two white-robed Ismailians whose predatory, Semitic features were stern from the contemplation of their task. Both were armed with simitars and pistols. The object of their scrutiny was a man who sat crouched by a pilaster. Farrell could distinguish no features beyond the aquiline curve of his nose, and the black, spade-shaped beard. The hands, clasped about the knees, were fettered at the wrists. "God!" muttered Farrell as the red glow became a dazzling whiteness. "That lad sitting there looks for all the world like an innocent bystander. Either that party isn't for him, or he has more guts than any ten men I've ever seen.... I've not been here long enough for that to be my reception committee...." Farrell appraised the situation, and gaged the distance between his lurking-place and the group at the brazier. "Too far! They'd get wise before I got within striking distance ... now if this piece of chain were only a solid bar so that I could slug, swat, and parry instead of having to use it like a whip ... now what?" The taller of the Ismailians glanced up, and with a gesture indicated the ceiling. Farrell could not distinguish his words, but it was evident that he had addressed the negro, who set aside his bellows, picked up a length of thin rope, and rose. Then Farrell understood. They were going to slip the cord through a ring in the low ceiling, lash the prisoner's ankles, and suspend him so that the white-hot irons could be applied without interference from the victim's agonized writhing. "Missed my chance!" growled Farrell. "They were all off guard, and I could have cold-calked them! Too late, now." The Ismailian on the right addressed the prisoner; but the other was looking in Farrell's direction, though not directly at his lurking-place. The negro was shifting the implements that projected from the bed of coals.