t
moment.

"In payment for this service, the man insisted upon presenting my
great grandfather with jewels the value of which on a yearly basis
transcended all our other income combined. My great grandfather
demurred but the man said nothing brightens memory so much as
material gain and he did not want the agreement to be forgotten."

"What happened to the man?" the young listener asked.

John Pride shook his head sadly. "We never knew. When all the
arrangements were made, he came again to the office, thanked my great
sire for his services, and was never seen again."

"He must have given you his name."

John Pride frowned. "He used a name of course but there was the
impression of its not being his true one. The book mentions this. The
name he used was C. D. Bram."

"Portox!" the young man cried suddenly.

"What did you say?"

"Portox. The name is back in my mind. I used it as I awoke."

"A strange name."

"And stranger still is the fact that I know nothing of it--wait!" The
young man's handsome features strained as he concentrated with all his
power. Sweat stood out on his forehead. But then a look of
disappointment came into his face and his broad shoulders sagged. "No.
The knowledge is somewhere back in my mind but I cannot capture it."

John Pride was about to speak but the young man stayed him with a
sudden intense look. "One thing however is very clear to me."

"And that is--?"

"The face of my mother."

"The woman who held you in her arms in the hotel suite?"

"No, I do not think so. But I see a face clearly in my mind. A sad and
beautiful face. There is a marked resemblance between it and what I
see in that mirror. She is the most beautiful woman who ever lived and
I yearn to find her and take her in my arms."

"I hope you succeed."

* * * * *

A tragic light appeared in the young man's eyes. "But where is she?
How can I find her? Why did she leave me in this place?"

"I do not have the answers to those questions. But I have a theory
concerning you and the elapsed years."

"Tell me!"

John Pride spoke firmly but with obvious awe. "I think you were
brought here as an infant for some reason known only to the one who
called himself C. D. Bram."

"Or Portox."

"Perhaps. I think you were placed in that bed and left there for one
hundred years."

"But--"

"Consider. That door has never been opened. There is certainly no
other exit to this cavern."

"A