touches me; it is a trick, it is all a trick
to bind me to him! Oh, Chunda Lal! Hurry! he is going to kill him!"

But supreme above all the other truths in the world, the joyous truth
that Miska was to live set Stuart's heart on fire.

"Thank God!" he said fervently--"oh, thank God! Miska!"

At the garden-door a group of men awaited them. Sergeant Sowerby and
two assistants remaining to watch the entrance and the lane, Miska
led Stuart and the burly Inspector Kelly along that path beside the
wall which Stuart so well remembered.

"Hurry!" she whispered urgently. "We must try to reach him before ..."

"You fear for Chunda Lal?" said Stuart.

"Oh, yes! He has a terrible power--Fo-Hi--which he never employs with
me, until to-night. Ah! it is only Chunda Lal, who saved me! But
Chunda Lal he can command with his _Will._ From it, once he has made
anyone a slave to it, there is no escape. I have seen one in the city
of Quebec, in Canada, forget all else and begin to act in obedience
to the will of Fo-Hi who is thousands of miles away!"

"My God!" murmured Stuart, "what a horrible monster!"

They had reached the open door beyond which showed the dimly lighted
passage. Miska hesitated.

"Oh! I am afraid!" she whispered.

She thrust the keys into the hand of Inspector Kelly, pointing to one
of them, and:

"That is the key!" she said. "Have your pistol ready. Do not touch
anything in the room and do not go in if I tell you not to. Come!"

They pressed along the passage, came to the stair and were about to
ascend, when there ensued a dull reverberating boom, and Miska shrank
back into Stuart's arms with a stifled shriek.

"Oh! Chunda Lal!" she moaned--"Chunda Lal! It is the trap!"

"The trap!" said Inspector Kelly.

"The cellar trap. He has thrown him down ... to the ants!"

Inspector Kelly uttered a short laugh; but Stuart repressed a shudder.
He was never likely to forget the skeleton of the Nubian mute which
had been stripped by the ants in sixty-nine minutes!

"We are too late!" whispered Miska. "Oh! listen! listen!"

Bells began to ring somewhere above them.

"Max and Dunbar are in!" said Kelly. "Come on, sir! Follow closely,
boys!"

He ran up the stairs and along the corridor to the door at the end.

A muffled shot sounded from somewhere in the depths of the house.

"That's Harvey!" said one of the men who followed--"Our man must have
tried to escape by the tunnel to the river bank!"

Inspector Kel