lict with his
assailants, he brought his jaws together as if with superhuman power,
and with a force that crushed the infernal device between them, much as
if it had been little more than an eggshell.

One of the ruffians heard the snapping crunch, and uttered a cry of
amazement.

The cry was echoed by hurried footsteps in the house.

Then a rear door was suddenly thrown open by Rufus Venner, and a flood
of light revealed the struggling men, still battling furiously on the
pavement.

Nick now had both opponents down, and within another minute he would
have had them at his mercy, a fact which Venner instantly perceived.

He sprang nearer, drew his revolver, and dealt the detective a single
swinging blow upon the head.

Nick dropped like an ox struck down in the shambles.

The darkness of night was as nothing to the darkness that instantly fell
upon him.

CHAPTER VII

A STRATEGIC MOVE.

Nick Carter had a head that was used to hard knocks, and it required
more than one to put him down and out for any considerable period.

The great detective recovered consciousness within half an hour after
the blow received from Rufus Venner, and he fell to taking the measure
of his situation the moment the cobwebs began to clear from his brain.

He found himself bound hand and foot with ropes, and lying upon the
floor of a dark room. That he was in the dwelling occupied by the
Spanish dancer, Nick had not a doubt.

As his mind became clearer and his eyes accustomed to the darkness, Nick
discovered a narrow thread of light some yards away and close to the
floor, and presently the sound of lowered voices faintly reached his
ears.

"A light in the next room," he said to himself. "Probably the whole gang
is out there, sizing up my case, and deciding what to do with me. If
they are there, I must get a better look at those two ruffians. I owe
them something for their work of to-night, and I always mean to pay such
debts.

"One of them was called Dave, and it may have been Dave Kilgore himself.
In which case, by Jove! I was right in thinking that this diamond
robbery only masks some deeper and bigger game.

"I wonder if they suspect my identity. If not, what sort of a game have
they been playing here to-night?"

Nick very quickly measured the various possibilities of the unusual
situation.

If the man whose name he had heard was indeed David Kilgore, then Rufus
Venner, as well as Cervera, might be in league with