Still with the poniard in her jeweled hand, still shrieking wildly, she leaped to his side, and with a single sweep of the keen weapon severed the rope binding his arms. Then Nick snatched the poniard from her hand. With several swift cuts and slashes he released his limbs, and sprang quickly to his feet. He had already shaped his course. He had observed on the sulphur barrels, near the wall, a strip of matting, used as a cover for them. Nick snatched it from the barrels, and rushed to wrap it around the skirts and limbs of the terror-stricken woman. For several moments the result seemed doubtful, so doubtful that Nick finally threw Cervera heavily to the floor, the better to press the matting closely around her and so smother the flames. In this he presently succeeded, but not before she was so severely burned as to be rendered utterly helpless. When Nick arose to his feet Cervera remained lying prostrate on the floor, moaning with pain, yet in a state of semi-consciousness only. A glance told Nick that she could make no move to escape, and he now had other work than that of looking to her comfort. He ran to the stone door, threw the bolts, and quickly dragged it open. Even as he did so, from out of the gloom of the adjoining cellar, a man came into view, as if suddenly arisen from the ground. The man was Dave Kilgore. CHAPTER XXII. THE LAST TRICK. "Carter!" "Kilgore!" Each man uttered the name of the other, as if with the same breath. The meeting came so suddenly that, for the bare fraction of a second, both men were nonplused. Then both whipped out a weapon. Crack! Bang! They fired together, and both missed, Nick's usually accurate aim being spoiled by the gloom of the cellar. Kilgore instantly sprang further away in the darkness, and aimed again. The hammer of his weapon fell as usual, but there was no report. In his recent fight at the Venner house he had emptied both of his revolvers, save the one bullet that had just missed Nick Carter. Then Kilgore, failing to have found Nick at his mercy, thought only of making his own escape. He turned and ran toward the open door by which he had entered. At that moment Chick's ringing voice sounded from outside. "This way! this way, Patsy!" he cried, louder than the rolling thunder overhead. "I've found the rat hole!" "I'm with you," yelled Patsy. They were already at the door. By the frequent flashes of lightning they had, after the fight at Venner's, succeeded in following Kilgore across the meadows, and they well knew that he was headed to get even with Nick. Now Nick's voice rang through the cellar. "Look out for him, Chick," he commanded. "He's coming that way. Look out for his gun." "Hurrah!" roared Chick, the moment he heard Nick's voice. "Let him come, gun and all!"