"You see, Alice," said the doctor, taking his place beside her. "Don't you think of interfering, or you shall get your dose." "You yellow fiend!" breathed Alice, feeling that such cruelty was beyond endurance. "Wouldn't I like to have the turning of that screw with you on the table! How dare you resort to such barbarous methods as this?" "Have a care!" hissed the doctor. "That's the rack--the old-fashioned rack, such as your white holy men used to resort to when they wanted to make a man holy in some other way than his own. It is still in use in China for extorting confessions from thieves. Nice contrivance, isn't it? But its use has been by no means confined to the Chinese." "What you allude to happened two hundred years ago, and you know it," retorted Alice. "It takes yellow fiends like you and your friends here to torture a woman in these days!" "Bah! They would rack people to death for religion's sake to-day if they dared," answered the doctor. "But you have your warning, so heed it," he added, and advancing to the princess, he again asked her if she was ready to reveal the secret. "Never!" she cried. "You can torture me all you will, but you will never learn from me that which will place in your hands what I choose shall belong to my husband, Ah Lung." "Ah Lung is not your husband nor will he ever be unless you yield to my request," declared the doctor. She gave him one look and turned her head away. "Give the screw a twist!" cried the doctor, and the old Chinaman obeyed, the two masks standing on each side reciting something in old Chinese which Alice could make nothing of. Skeep Hup bore the pain thus inflicted unflinchingly. She shut her eyes, set her lips, and never uttered a sound. "Will you tell?" demanded the doctor. No answer. "Give it another turn!" he thundered. The screw was turned again. The masks chanted louder than ever. The Chinese princess groaned in her misery. Alice was forced to turn her head away. They let her lie so for a few minutes before the doctor again put the question. This time she answered, declaring that never would she tell. "You fool!" cried the doctor. "Do you realize that I mean to continue to order that screw turned until your limbs are wrenched off?" "I believe you," replied the princess, "but I shall never tell." He let her lie there in agony for a few minutes, and then put the request again. This time there was no answer. The victim of this yellow fiend was almost past speech. "Go it again!" thundered the doctor. "You fiend!" cried Alice. "Release that woman or I'll do something desperate. In the name of humanity! In the name of your mother! Dr. Garshaski, forbear!" "Interfere at your peril!" thundered the doctor, and as he spoke the screw was turned once again. If Alice had been in possession of her revolver she surely would have shot the fiend, but that had long ago been taken from her.