ed Slade under the
armpits. The body remained flaccid even when dragged out of the passage.

Lennon struck a match and bent low over the ghastly face of the man he
had felled. The scoundrel was only stunned. Lennon's look of anxiety
gave place to a stern smile. Though certain of the man's guilty
intentions, he could not put an end to him.

He again grasped the unconscious man and dragged him across the living
room and out beside the crane of the hoist. A loop of the rope-end about
the clumsy ankles, and two or three turns of the windlass lifted the
inert body so that it dangled head downward.

To swing the crane out through the opening and lower away on the rope
was the easiest part of the undertaking. Lennon reversed the crank of
the windlass, around and around, with purposeful deliberation. He hoped
that Slade would recover consciousness while still swinging in mid-air.
There was grim pleasure in the thought of how the scoundrel would first
become aware of the dim starlit precipice beside him and then would
rouse to the shame and danger of his hanging.

When the rope was rather less than half unwound from the windlass Lennon
paused to shift his grip on the crank. At the same moment a candle that
had been masked by a blanket glowed out at him from the doorway of the
living room. The muzzle of a small revolver thrust forward above the
candle.

"Hands up--quick--or I'll shoot," threatened a vibrant, low-pitched
voice.

The menace was very real. Most men would have obeyed the command and let
Slade drop to a head-foremost smash on the cliff foot. Lennon cried back
at the threatener without releasing his hold on the windlass:

"Pardon me, Miss Farley--I----"

"You!" Holding up the candle, Carmena stepped in to peer about the big
anteroom. "Way you were stooped over I mistook you for---- Almost fired.
What you doing?"

The query was charged with suspicion. Lennon thrust in the crank peg,
folded his arms, and leaned against the windlass.

"I met your father's partner wandering about, and thought he needed an
airing."

The girl stared from the windlass out along the taut rope.

"You don't mean----"

"Yes, dangling head down."

"Dead?"

"Merely knocked out--worse luck! But one way of restoring consciousness
is to raise the feet above the head. He may wake up any moment and
appreciate the situation."

"Any moment?" cried Carmena. She half dropped her candlestick on the
stone floor and sprang to the windlass