I was unhurt, and desperately I rushed to where I thought the room's exit might be. But strong fingers gripped my shoulder and I was flung violently sidewise. I must have struck my head against something as I went down. My senses faded; the last thing I remember was that jeering, mocking laughter floating out of the darkness. CHAPTER FIVE When I came to, I was still lying where I had fallen. Striking my head had knocked me out momentarily. I heard voices; some one was kneeling beside me. I opened my eyes, but everything was black. I remember feeling my head; It was not cut. I was unhurt, and I struggled to a sitting position. Whoever it was beside me, now stood up and moved away. The girl's voice came to me out of the darkness. The low words were unintelligible--yet they were words not wholly unfamiliar in ring. The darkness was full of little darting red spots. And my eyes pained me; the backs of my eyeballs were burning. I was blind. I had thought the light in the room had suddenly been extinguished, and a vague idea that my antagonist could see in the dark had possessed me. But it wasn't so. He had blinded me with the tiny flash of light that had struck into my eyes. My head was still reeling from the blow it had received when I fell. They carried me, half conscious, into some other room, and left me lying on something soft. I closed my eyes, but I could not shut out those darting red spots. At last, I must have drifted off to sleep. When I awoke it was morning. The red glow of the sunrise was coming in through a small aperture up near the ceiling. I could see it; the blindness had passed. My head was still ringing and my eyes still pained me, but I was uninjured. I was on a low couch, with a fur rug under me. My overcoat lay beside me on the floor. The whole thing seemed like a dream, but finally I got it straightened out in my mind. I was in a fairly large bedroom. Two windows of heavy transparent material were up near the ceiling. Opposite the windows was a doorway with a curtain. I slipped into my overcoat, searching its pockets. My cap was there, but the compass and the flashlight were gone and my Collinger had already been taken from me. The storm outside seemed to have passed. The house was dead silent. I went to the curtain; beyond it was a small hall, empty, and with another curtain at its further end. This I pushed aside cautiously. I was looking into the main living room of the house, and met the direct gaze of a man who was lounging there. I dropped the curtain hastily, but he had seen me and sprung to his feet--a powerful man, taller than myself, with gray, loose-fitting trousers and naked torso. I retreated back to the bedroom; the fear of what he might do to me, blind me or worse, made me anything but anxious to encounter him again.