sing on his hands and knees he peered between two of the jars. The
head was not more than a yard from Nick's eyes, but the face was turned
away.

By the hair, and the general outline, it might be Deever's. At all
hazards Nick must get a sight of it before it was consigned to the
furnace in which a fire, supported by peculiar chemical agencies and
much hotter than burning coal, raged furiously.

Suddenly, when it seemed as if the doctor was about to raise an arch of
fire-brick in order to throw the head into the fire, he turned and
dropped the grim object into the jar almost directly above Nick's head.

It was carefully done, though quickly. The head sank without a splash.
Only a single drop of the fluid--a drop no bigger than a pin's
point--fell upon the back of Nick's hand.

It burned like white, hot iron. It seemed to sink through the hand upon
which it fell.

Nick sprang to his feet, not because of the pain of the burning acid,
but because he knew that he must instantly obtain a sight of the head or
it would be dissolved.

It lay face upward in the jar, but the acid, even in that instant, had
done its work.

All semblance to humanity had vanished. As Nick gazed, the head seemed
to waver in the midst of the strange fluid, and then, suddenly, Nick
saw, in a direct line where it had been, the bottom of the jar.

The head had been dissolved.

Nick raised his eyes to Dr. Jarvis' face.

There stood the doctor, entirely unmoved. He looked directly at Nick but
seemed not to see him.

His eyes were fixed, and their expression was peculiar. One less
experienced than Nick would have supposed Dr. Jarvis to be insane.

Certainly his conduct as well as his appearance seemed to justify such a
conclusion.

But Nick knew better. He recognized at once the peculiar condition in
which Dr. Jarvis then was. He had seen the phenomenon before.

"Walking in his sleep," Nick said to himself. "Shall I wake him here? I
think not. Let me see what he will do."

CHAPTER III.

THE DOCTOR OFFERS A BRIBE.

Nick was not greatly surprised by his discovery. He knew that Dr. Jarvis
was a sleep-walker.

The reader may remember the case of a young woman who, in her sleep,
walked nearly a mile on Broadway, and was awakened by a policeman to
whom she could give no account of her wanderings.

At that time, the newspapers had a good deal to say about sleep-walking,
and several good stories were printed about Dr. Jarvis. The doc