herself, she slipped to
the granite floor on her knees.

"Please, please," she begged. "I give in, _senor_, I give in."

But as she spoke her right hand closed about a square jagged bit of
rock.

"So, my pretty," sneered Cateras, "you have learned that Juan Cateras
is not a man to trifle with. It is well." And, releasing his grip
upon her, he allowed the girl to rise.

As she stood there in the half light, her grey eyes flashing, her young
bosom rising and falling, she was a vaguely defined but alluring
figure. So Juan Cateras thought, and he took a step nearer, his thick,
red lips curling with lust, eager to claim their rich reward. As they
came closer Stella Donovan stiffened.

"Look, _senor_," she whispered--"behind you!"

The Mexican in his eagerness was off his guard. He turned to look, and
at that instant the girl drew back her sturdy arm and then brought it
forward again with all her vigour. _Cluk_! She heard the rock sound
against her oppressor's head, heard a low moan escape his lips, and saw
him sink slowly to the floor at her feet.

The next instant she was beside him, in terror lest she had killed him;
but a hurried glance, supplemented by her fingers which reached for his
pulse, assured her that she had only stunned her assailant. Her heart
beat less rapidly now, and she again had control of her mental
processes. With deft hands that worked speedily in the darkness she
unstrapped from around his waist the belt with its thirty-six
cartridges and revolver, then pulled from his pocket the keys, not only
to her cell, but, she judged, to others.

The feel of their bronze coldness in her hot hands brought a quick
message to her brain; beyond a question of doubt, the missing Cavendish
was concealed in one of the dark, dank cells in the immediate vicinage,
if not actually in this same passage, then in another one perhaps not
greatly distant. The speculation gave her determination and decision.

Reaching beneath her outer skirt, she jerked loose her white petticoat,
and then began tearing it into long strips which she knotted together.
This done, she bound Juan Cateras's hand and foot, and, with some
difficulty, turned him over on his face after first thrusting into his
half-open mouth a gag, which she had fashioned from stray ends of the
providential petticoat.

Then leaping to her feet and strapping the ammunition belt and revolver
about her waist, she stole on tiptoe to the doorway and pee