she knew were plotting
to kill you. The very man who was posing as her father--and who
afterwards affected friendship for you--told that pair of unscrupulous
assassins, Reckitt and Forbes, a fictitious story of how Sonia--for
that is her real name--had denounced them. This aroused their hatred,
and they decided to kill you both. From what I heard afterwards, they
entrapped you, and placed you in that fatal chair beside the venomous
reptile, while they also tortured the poor girl with all the horrors
of the serpent, until her brain became deranged. Suddenly, however,
they became alarmed by discovering a half-witted lad wandering in the
garden where the bodies of previous victims lay concealed, and, making
a quick escape, left you and her without ascertaining that you were
dead. Eventually she escaped and rescued you, hence their fear that
you would inform the police, and their frantic efforts to secure the
death of both of you. Indeed, you would probably have been dead ere
this, had I not taken upon myself the self-imposed duty of being your
protector, and had not Louis Lessar most fortunately escaped from
Devil's Island to protect his daughter from their relentless hands."

"His daughter!" I gasped, staring at him.

"Yes. Sonia is the daughter of Phil Poland, alias Louis Lessar, the
man who was falsely denounced by Pennington as an accomplice in the
assassination of the young Under-Secretary, Mr. Burke, on the Riviera.
After I had arrested her father one night at the house where he lived
down near Andover, Pennington compelled the girl to pass as his
daughter for a twofold reason. First, because he believed that her
great beauty would render her a useful decoy for the purpose of
attracting young men into their fatal net, and secondly, in order that
Forbes should secure her as his wife, for it was realized how, by her
marriage to him, her lips would be sealed."

"But they all along intended to kill me."

"Of course. Your life was, you recollect, heavily insured at
Pennington's suggestion, and you had made over a large sum of money to
Sonia in case of your demise. Therefore it was to the interests of the
whole gang that you should meet with some accident which should prove
fatal. The theft of the jewels of the Archduchess delayed the
conspiracy from being put into execution, and by that means your life
was undoubtedly spared. Ah! monsieur, the gang recently led by Arnold
Du Cane was once one of the most daring, the m