"Enough of that rubbish," he retorted harshly. "You cannot haze me twice. You could not have at all if I had stopped to think or been quite well. But I'm liverish and out of sorts to-day--the result of staying up all night nursing Ottley." "You'll see when the time comes--if you have the courage," I responded in an acrid tone. "You cannot scare me, Belleville, because you cannot harm me without hurting yourself--and in your deeps of heart, you rogue, you know it." He burst out laughing, but there was a note of nervousness in his mocking mirth that pleased me passing well. "Pah!" he said at last. "Would you sit there trussed up like a chooky skewered for the table if you had the power you pretend?" "Idiot!" I snapped. "Can electricity unbuckle straps without machinery? Yet it can splinter rocks without an effort and without assistance." "Ah!" said he, "ah! So you pretend----" "Try me!" I interrupted. "Not I," cried he. "I've encountered so many wonders lately that I'm now beginning to regard what I of old considered the impossible as the most likely thing of all to happen. I don't believe you, Pinsent, but neither do I disbelieve you. Therefore, acting on the kindly hint you dropped, I'll take all sane precautions. Au revoir." He marched to the door, passed out and disappeared. I chewed the bitter cud of thought for some hours. Meanwhile I grew desperately hungry, ay, and thirsty, too. There came a time when I would have given the last of my possessions for a beef-steak and a jug of water. And, oh! how tired I was of my position. The blood gradually ceased to circulate properly through all my parts. My hands became purple. My legs went to sleep. My limbs were on a rack of pins and needles and even breathing hurt me. I did my best by straining at the bonds at intervals to promote the arterial flow and stop the agony of muscular irritation. But it was a poor best, and I sank welcomely at length into a benumbed lethargic state near akin to stupor, from which I knew I could wake to anguish by the merest movement. As near as I can guess twelve hours had uncoiled their lethal folds before my infernal captor returned to the laboratory. One instant I was sharply sensible and suffering most damnably. The rogue looked positively sick and he smelt like a gin palace. He had evidently drunk a deal of spirit, but he was not the least intoxicated. "It is over!" he cried and threw himself into a chair. "What?" I questioned. "Ottley is dead," said he, "and I am glad of it, all said and done, though I worked like a galley slave to keep him by me. He was a fine cloak for my doings, but he grew wearisome--the fractious old fool--at times. And I'm not sure I'd bring him back now--were I able." "And Miss Ottley?"