ays:

"You coward! I will remember that," at which the man turns his head away
and swears under his breath.

Presently they halt in front of a door, which the leader unlocks. At a
word from him the young American is pushed inside.

John, receiving such an impetus, staggers and throws out his hands for
support, but failing to find anything of this kind, pitches over, just
as the door slams shut.

He recovers himself and sits up, a trifle bruised, but not otherwise
injured through his rough treatment.

This is a nice predicament, to be shut up in a house of Valetta, while,
perhaps, Philander Sharpe returns to the hotel with a story of his
succumbing to the wiles of a beautiful enchantress.

The steamer will sail without him, and the duse must be to pay
generally.

John begins, like a man, to wonder if he can do anything for himself;
that spirit so distinctive, so Chicago like, will not allow him to sit
down and repine.

Surrounded by gloom, how will he find out the nature of his prison?

He endeavors to penetrate the darkness--a trace of light finds an
entrance under the door and relieves the somber blank. It does more, for
all at once John's eyes discover something that rivets his attention.

There are two of them--eyes that gleam in the darkness like those of a
great cat.

A thrill sweeps over the doctor; can it be possible they have shut him
in here with some great fierce animal that will tear him limb from limb?
Is this Pauline Potter's dramatic revenge?

Who can blame him for a sudden quaking in the region of his heart--such
a fate is too terrible to calmly contemplate; but this qualm is only
momentary, and then Doctor Chicago is himself again, brave and
self-reliant.

CHAPTER VIII.

HER DEBT CANCELED.

He begins to reason, to strain his mind in search of all the things he
ever heard with relation to a meeting between unarmed men and wild
beasts.

The power of the human eye has been held up as an example, and surely
here is a chance to try it--the stake, his life.

By this time he becomes cognizant of a certain fact that renders him
uneasy; the yellow orbs do not seem as far away as before, and it is
evident that they approach gradually nearer.

He can even imagine the great body of the animal, perhaps a tiger from
African shores, creeping on its belly, inch by inch shortening the
distance between itself and its prey.

John cannot retreat--already he is in a corner, with the wall beh