Already Nayland Smith was bending over the intrepid explorer, whose fierce blue eyes glared out from the sun-tanned face madly, whose gray hair and mustache literally bristled with rage long repressed. I choked down the emotions that boiled and seethed within me, and sought to release the second captive, a stockily-built, clean-shaven man. First I removed the length of toweling which was tied firmly over his mouth; and-- "Thank you, sir," he said composedly. "The keys of these irons are on the ledge there beside the lantern. I broke the first ring I was chained to, but the Yellow devils overhauled me, all manacled as I was, half-way along the passage before I could attract your attention, and fixed me up to another and stronger ring!" Ere he had finished speaking, the keys were in my hands, and I had unlocked the gyves from both the captives. Sir Lionel Barton, his gag removed, unloosed a torrent of pent-up wrath. "The hell-fiends drugged me!" he shouted. "That black villain Homopoulo doctored my tea! I woke in this damnable cell, the secret of which has been lost for generations!" He turned blazing blue eyes upon Kennedy. "How did _you_ come to be trapped?" he demanded unreasonably. "I credited you with a modicum of brains!" "Homopoulo came running from your room, sir, and told me you were taken suddenly ill and that a doctor must be summoned without delay." "Well, well, you fool!" "Dr. Hamilton was away, sir." "A false call beyond doubt!" snapped Smith. "Therefore I went for the new doctor, Dr. Magnus, in the village. He came at once and I showed him up to your room. He sent Mrs. Oram out, leaving only Homopoulo and myself there, except yourself." "Well?" "Sandbagged!" explained the man nonchalantly. "Dr. Magnus, who is some kind of dago, is evidently one of the gang." "Sir Lionel!" cried Smith--"where does the passage lead to beyond that doorway? "God knows!" was the answer, which dashed my last hope to the ground. "I have no more idea than yourself. Perhaps ..." He ceased speaking. A sound had interrupted him, which, in those grim surroundings, lighted by the solitary lantern, translated my thoughts magically to Ancient Rome, to the Rome of Tigellinus, to the dungeons of Nero's Circus. Echoing eerily along the secret passages it came-- the roaring and snarling of the lioness and the leopards. Nayland Smith clapped his hand to his brow and stared at me almost frenziedly, then-- "God guard her!" he whispered. "Either their plans, wherever they got them, are inaccurate, or in their panic they have mistaken the way." ... Wild cries now were mingling with the snarling of the beasts.... "They have blundered into the old crypt!" How we got out of the secret labyrinth of Graywater Park into the grounds and around the angle of the west wing to the ivy-grown, pointed door, where once the chapel had been, I do not know. Light seemed to spring up about me, and half-clad servants to appear out of the void. Temporarily I was insane.