He began to murmur to himself again. "In the first place Gouldesbrough has got me out of the way successfully. I have disappeared from the world of men, the field is clear for him. But he has not killed me. For some reason or other, dangerous though it must be for him, he is keeping me alive. It surely would have been safer for him to have murdered me in this secret place, and buried me beneath the stone flags here? I am forced to conclude that he is keeping me for an even worse revenge than that of immediate extinction. It is torture enough to imprison me like this, of course. But, if the man is what I feel he is--not man, but devil--would he not have tortured me in another way before now? There are dreadful pains that fiends can make the body suffer. One has read of unbearable agonies in old books, in the classics. Yet nothing of the sort has been done to me yet, and I have been long in this prison. My food has been plentiful and of good quality, even definitely stimulating I have thought at times. "It is obvious then that I am not to be subjected to any of the horrors one has read of. What _is_ being done to me? when, each day, I am fixed rigidly upon that couch, and the brass helmet is put upon my head, what is going on? I cannot feel any sensation out of the ordinary when I am tied down there. I am no weaker in body, my faculties are just as unimpaired when I am released as they were before. At least it seems so to me. I can discover no change in me either, mental or physical. "Something is being done by means of electricity. The coils of wire that lead from the helmet to the plug in the wall show that. The way in which the couch is insulated, the vulcanite collar, the rubber pillow, all lead to the same conclusion. At first I thought that a torturing current of electricity was to be directed into the brain. That my faculties, my very soul itself, were to be dissolved and destroyed by some subtle means. But it is not so. There is no current coming to me through the wire. Nowhere does my head touch metal, the cap is lined throughout with rubber. But yesterday, as my gaoler held up the helmet to examine it before putting it on my head, I had an opportunity of seeing the whole interior for the first time. "There was very little to see! At the top was a circular orifice which seemed to be closed by a thin disc of some shining material. That was all. It looked just like the part of a telephone into which one speaks. My brain, my body, are not being acted upon. Nothing is being slowly instilled into my being. _Can it be that anything is being taken away?_" He bent his head upon his hands and groaned in agony. All was dark and impenetrable, there was no solution, no help. He was in the grip of merciless men, in the clutch of the unknown. The electric light in the cell went out suddenly. CHAPTER XIII LORD MALVIN