It was the cruelest blow of all, and for a moment, I confess, I gave way to despair. Then slowly courage returned, and I strode to the door again. The lighted match had shown me a queer scene between the bars of my door and I wanted to have another look at it, if only to keep my mind occupied while I waited for death. For at last I felt that I was to die. By the flickering light of the match I saw a strange thing indeed. The room beyond was a much larger one. It had two windows in it, but it was entirely unfurnished except for the extraordinary contrivance in the center of the floor. Lighting one match after another, I made out the general aspect of this contrivance. But I was very far from being able to explain it. Clearly it had to do with electricity, for six thick iron pillars standing about eight feet high were equipped with heavy wires which ran to a big machine set against the wall and boxed in. But these pillars were in a circle about ten feet in diameter, and it was the queer affair at the center of this circle that drew my attention most. By the light of several matches I made out that it was some sort of cylinder, about three feet in diameter, open at the top and bottom, and with a hinged doorway about a foot wide. This cylinder was about eight feet high, and both the cylinder and the door in it seemed to be made out of some sort of semi-opaque material that looked like Venetian glass. A network of wires ran to it from the six pillars and seemed to be welded into the surface of it. It looked for all the world like some sort of an electrical bath, I thought. But my last match burned my fingers before I could make out anything further about it, and I sat down to wait for what was to come with as much resignation as I could muster. At all events I still had my ring. And if I could not escape, I could perhaps take some toll from my enemies before I died. I said my enemies, but it was Ivanovitch that I wanted to kill. The veneer of civilization is thin, I found, for after what he had done to Margaret I could contemplate killing him in cold blood quite calmly. And it was Ivanovitch who came! The first hint I had of the presence of any one besides myself was the sudden glare of electric lights in the room beyond the cell in which I stood. I went softly to the barred door and looked through it. Two men had just entered through a door at the other side of the larger room. As they came from behind the glass cylinder I saw that one of them was Ivanovitch. The other, a lowering fellow with the face of a peasant, I had not seen before. In the bright light I took a hasty glance at my surroundings while they came toward me. And I started with surprise, for all of the house I had seen was built with the very height of luxury, and here the floors and walls were of rough stone! Was I in the same house at all?