ence and darkness his laugh sounded unearthly.

A cold perspiration broke out on him. It seemed as if hours passed
before he again heard the sliding noise on the wall. Some one was coming
to him. The sound grew louder and nearer, till a firm hand was laid on
his arm; it felt as cold as ice through his clothing.

"Come," a voice whispered, and the Englishman was led forward. Presently
another door opened--a door that closed after them without any sound.
Here the silence was more intensified, the darkness thicker as if
compressed like air.

Hands were placed on the shoulders of Thorndyke and he was gently forced
into a chair. As soon as he was seated two metal clamps grasped like
a vise his arms between the elbows and the shoulders, and two more
fastened round his ankles.

There was a faint puff of air from the door and the prisoner felt
that he was alone. Terror held him in bondage. He tried to think of
Bernardino, but in vain. Did they intend to drive him to madness? He
began to suspect that the king had discovered his natural superstition
and had decided to put it to a test. What he had undergone so far he
felt was but the introduction to greater terrors in store for him.

There was a sigh far away in the darkness--then a groan that seemed to
flit about in space, as if seeking to escape the dark, and then died
away in a low moan of despair. Before him the blackness seemed to hang
like a dark curtain about ten yards in front of him, and in it shone a
tiny speck of light no larger than the head of a pin, and which was so
bright that he could not look at it steadily. It increased to the size
of a pea, and then he discovered that, at times, it would seem miles
away in space and then again to draw quite near to hand. Glancing down,
he noticed that it cast a bright round spot about an inch in diameter on
the floor, and that the spot was slowly revolving in a circle so
small that its motion was hardly observable. Surely the mind of a
superstitious man was never so punished! When Thorndyke looked steadily
at the spot, the black floor seemed to recede, and the spot to sink far
down into the empty darkness below like a solitary star; So realistic
was this that the Englishman could not keep from fancying that this
chair was poised in some way over fathomless space. Presently he noticed
that the spot had ceased its circular movement and was slowly--almost as
slowly as the movement of the hand of a clock--advancing in a straigh