owly passed away. The face muscles relaxed and gradually the light of
reason appeared in his eyes.

In a questioning manner Flint gazed about him. He saw the cave with its
scintillating points of fire, as the man with the torch gesticulated. He
saw the emissaries, and the realization that his position was perilous
came to him. But it was only when he saw the towering form of the
Automaton that his blood froze with horror and he made a frantic effort
to escape the very thing which he had feared existed in Madagascar and
had attempted to betray to Brent on the fatal night.

It was useless. He was soon borne down by the thugs, who stationed two
of their number to guard him. Seeing the utter hopelessness of any
attempt to escape, Flint sat quietly, while his crafty mind schemed for
some other plan. Suddenly he saw the bottle, the contents of which had
restored his reason. Reaching out slyly, he turned it around until he
could read the label, and then, even in his predicament, he exulted over
his discovery. It was the antidote. Like a flash came to him a shrewd
scheme to use the knowledge.

An emissary who seemed to be a leader came over to him.

"Flint," he snarled, "you get one chance--see? Beat it back to Brent
Rock and see that you get that Brent girl to come to the place where we
will turn you loose. Understand? If you fail it means death. Think it
over."

Flint could only agree.

They bandaged his eyes and quickly led him back over the road by which
they had come.

CHAPTER VIII

Brent Rock was brilliantly lighted against Locke's coming. At the foot
of the great stairway a group of excited servants had gathered, as if
for mutual protection.

"Not another day will I stay in this house," quavered the cook. "What
with crazy laughing and the other carryings-on, I'm fair distracted."

"Take shame to yerself, Mary Dolan, for yer gab of quittin', with the
master and Miss Eva in sore trouble," answered the second girl. "But as
you say," she continued, shaking her head, "it's a gloomy old place, and
if it wasn't for Miss Eva I'd not be long in going myself."

"'Ave you no loyalty?" asked the butler, turning on them both.

"Hould yer jaw, Johnny Bull," threatened the cook. "Indade no foreigner
can tell Mary Dolan her duty."

So they wrangled back and forth, and the underlying cause of all the
discord was the old one--fear.

Nor was Eva exempt from its baneful influence. She was here, there,
everywhere, all