e to fear nothing more than death, they could defy him.
And not many could attain to that courage. But a few....

"I'll have some help, anyway," muttered Bell savagely to himself.

It it a long ride to the Botanical Gardens, from which one half the
surface lines of Rio take their name. On the way out to the Lagao
Rodrigo de Feitas, which, is close by the Garden itself, Bell had time
to work over for the thousandth time the information he possessed, and
realize its uselessness. Two things, only, might be of service. One
was that Ribiera was the nephew of the person referred to as The
Master, and yet was evidently as much subjected to him as his own
victims to himself. The other was that the ultimate end of all the
ghastly scheme was in some fashion political. If wealth alone had been
Ribiera's aim, the gathering of his slaves would have had a different
aspect. The majority of them would have been rich men, men of
business, men who could pay out hundreds of thousands a month in the
desperate hope of being permitted to remain sane. There would not have
been politicians and officials and officers of the army.

"The key men of the country," growled Bell inaudibly, "enslaved to
Ribiera. They give him the power he's after more than cash. And it's
those key men who have more to lose than money. There's such a thing
as honor...."

Three times the conductor stopped beside him and suggestively rattled
the coins in his box. Three times Bell absent mindedly paid the fare
for the zone. But the ride is a long one, and he had had time to
realize the hopelessness of any single-handed attack upon the thing he
faced long before the end.

Then he absently moved through the amazing collection of tropic and
near tropic growths that is the Botanical Garden until he came at once
to Paula and the Lagoa Rodrico de Freitas.

* * * * *

It was alive with birds, and they hopped and pecked and squabbled
without acrimony within feet of her seated figure. Bell knew that she
had been waiting for a long time. He looked quickly at her face. It
was quite pale, but entirely tearless.

"Here is the message, Senhor Bell," she said quietly, "but I think I
have been followed."

Bell growled in his throat.

"I did not discover it until I reached this spot," she said evenly.
"And I did not know what to do. If I left, I would be seized and the
message taken--and I think that someone would have waited here for
you. So, i