silence was pierced by a shriek, the sweat-starting,
nerve-racked cry of a man in awful pain. It was not an appeal for
mercy, or a cry for assistance, but just a naked yell wrung from a
throat grown big-veined in the agony of torture. Wilson could think
of only one thing, the rats. He had a vision of them springing at
some poor devil's throat after he had become too weak to fight
them off. The horrible damp air muffled the cry instantly. He heard an
oath from his guide and the next second the fellow flew past him
like a madman and vanished from sight toward the outer door. For a
second Wilson was tempted to follow. The thought of Jo turned him
instantly. He leaped to the left from where the cry had come,
holding the lantern above his head. His feet slipped on the slimy ooze
covering the clay floors, but by following close to the wall he
managed to keep his feet. So he came to an open door. Within, he saw
dimly two figures, one apparently bending over the other which lay
prostrate. Pushing in, he thrust the lantern closer to them. He had
one awful glimpse of a passion-distorted face; it was the Priest! It
sent a chill the length of him. He dropped the lantern and shot
blindly at the form which hurled itself upon him with the flash of
a knife.

Wilson felt a slight sting upon his shoulder; the Priest's knife had
missed him by the thickness of his shirt. He closed upon the skinny
form and reached for his throat. The struggle was brief; the other was
as a child before his own young strength. The two fell to the floor,
but Wilson got to his feet in an instant and picking up the other
bodily hurled him against the wall. For a second he tasted revenge,
tingled with the satisfaction of returning that blow in the dark. The
priest dropped back like a stunned rat.

The light in the overturned lantern was still flickering. Snatching it
up he thrust it before the eyes of the man who now lay groaning in the
aftermath of the agony to which he had been subjected. The lantern
almost dropped from his trembling fingers as he recognized in the face
distorted with pain, Don Sorez. In a flash he realized that the Priest
had another and stronger reason for joining this expedition than mere
revenge for his people; doubtless by a wile of some sort he had caused
the arrest of these two, and then had led the attack upon the prison
for the sake of getting this man as completely within his power as he
had thought him now to be. The torture was fo