y dull and lifeless, like those of the
coolie-guards. His gaze rested on Ku Sui, and the Eurasian asked him:

"Is it ready?"

"Yes, lord,"--tonelessly.

"Through here, then, my friends." The door opened and closed behind them
as they stepped inside. "This is my main laboratory. And there, friend
Carse, is the object which is to concern us."

With one glance the adventurer took in the laboratory. It was a great
room, a perfect circle in shape, with doors opening into the four wings
of the building. The walls were lined with strange, complicated
machines, whose purpose he could not even guess at; in one place there
was a table strewn with tangled shapes of wire, rows of odd-bulging
tubes and other apparatus; and conspicuous by one door was an ordinary
operating table, with light dome overhead. A tall wide screen placed a
few feet out from the wall hid something bulky from view. Carse noted
all these things; then his gaze went back to the object in the middle of
the floor which Ku Sui had indicated.

It was, primarily, a chair, within a suspended framework of steely bars,
themselves the foundation for a network of fine-drawn colored wires.
Shimmering, like the gossamer threads of a spider's spinning, they wove
upward, around and over the chair, so that he who sat there would be
completely surrounded by the gleaming mesh.

Within the whole hung a plain square boxlike device, attached to the
chair and so placed that it would be directly in front of the eyes of
anyone sitting there. Ropes were reeved through pulleys in the ceiling,
for raising the wire-ball device to permit entrance. And standing ready
around it, were four men in surgeons' smocks--white men with intelligent
faces and dull, lifeless eyes.

* * * * *

The Hawk knew the answer to the question he curtly asked. "Its purpose,
Dr. Ku?"

"That," came the suave reply, "it will be your pleasure to discover for
yourself. I can promise you some novel sensations. Nothing harmful,
though, however much they may tire you. Now!" He gave a sign; one of his
assistants touched a switch. The wire ball rose, leaving the central
seat free for entrance. "All is ready. May I ask you to enter?"

Hawk Carse faced his old foe. There was stillness in the laboratory then
as his bleak gray eyes met and held for long seconds Ku Sui's enigmatic
green-black ones.

"If I don't?"

For answer the Eurasian gestured apologetically to his guar