n
of the afternoon?

"Does it take three to show me to the door? With your permission I will
depart."

"Not yet Doctor Chicago--not yet."

"Ha! you would attempt violence. Well, I'm ready to meet these fellows,
thanks to the forethought that caused me to arm myself before starting
on this quixotic errand to-night."

The young Chicagoan throws a hand back, meaning to draw the little
pocket revolver which has more than once served him well, but, to his
dismay, it is gone.

He sees a derisive smile upon the features of Pauline, and knows she has
taken it while he lay there unconscious on the couch.

"I was afraid you might do yourself damage, John. If you are wise you
will submit tamely," she says, and clapping her hands again sets the
three men upon him.

Craig is no Hercules in build, and besides, his left arm is in rather
a poor condition for warfare, being exceedingly sore.

Still he is not the one to submit tamely so long as a single chance
remains, and for the space of a minute there is a lively scene in the
oriental apartment, in which divans are overturned, men swinging
desperately around, and even Pauline Potter, accustomed to stage battles
only, is constrained to utter a few little shrieks of alarm.

Then it is over.

Doctor Chicago, breathing hard and looking his dogged defiance, stands
there in the hands of his captors.

"Do you change your mind, John Craig?" asks the woman, fastening her
burning gaze upon his face.

"I have too much Scotch blood in me for that. On the contrary, I am
more than ever determined to pursue my mission without any outside
assistance," he answers.

"Take him away!" she cries, and the look that crosses her face can only
be likened to the black clouds preceding the hurricane.

John struggles no longer, for he realizes that he is safer out of her
sight than in it.

They take him through a door-way and the last he hears from the
beautiful tigress is her taunting cry of:

"We will break this proud spirit of yours, John Craig--what you scorn
now you will beg for after awhile, when it is too late!"

He wonders whether this is a prophecy.

The men hurry him along a narrow hall, for many of these Maltese houses
are built in a queer way, nor do they treat him with consideration, but
rather the contrary.

When he ventures to protest, the man who opened the door orders silence
and enforces it with a cowardly blow from his fist.

John looks him straight in the eye and s