ed and bit his lip, for the
strange thing took hold of his flesh with the tenacity of a powerful
suction-pump.

"Ouch!" he exclaimed playfully, but Johnston saw that he had turned
pale, and that his face was drawn as if from pain.

"Hold still!" ordered the medical man; "it will be over in a minute;
now, be perfectly quiet and listen to the bell!"

The Englishman stood motionless, the sinews of his neck drawn and
knotted, his eyes starting from their sockets. Thorndyke felt the rubber
tube quiver suddenly and writhe with the slow energy of a dying snake,
and then from the quivering bell came a low, gurgling sound like a
stream of water being forced backward and forward.

Tradmos and the medical man stepped to the bell and inspected a small
dial on its top.

"What was that?" gasped the Englishman, purple in the face.

"The sound of your blood," answered Tradmos, as he removed the
instrument from Thorndyke's flesh; "it is as regular as mine; you are
very lucky; you are slightly fatigued, but you will be sound in a day or
two."

"Thank you," replied the Englishman, but he sank into a chair, overcome
with weakness.

"Now, I'll take you, please," said the medical man, motioning Johnston
to rise.

"I am slightly nervous," apologized the latter, as he stood up and
awkwardly fumbled the buttons of his coat.

"Nervousness is a mental disease," said the man, with professional
brusqueness; "it has nothing to do with the body except to dominate it
at times. If you pass your examination you may live to overcome it."

The American looked furtively at Thorndyke, but the head of the
Englishman had sunk on his breast and he seemed to be asleep. Johnston
had never felt so lonely and forsaken in his life. From his childhood he
had entertained a secret fear that he had inherited heart disease, and
like Maupassant's "Coward," who committed suicide rather than meet a
man in a duel, he had tried in vain to get away from the horrible,
ever-present thought by plunging into perilous adventures.

At that moment he felt that he would rather die than know the worst from
the uncanny instrument that had just tortured his strong comrade till he
was overcome with exhaustion.

"I never felt better in my life," he said falteringly, but it seemed to
him that every nerve and muscle in his frame was withering through fear.
His tongue felt clumsy and thick and his knees were quivering as with
ague.

"Stand still," ordered the physician ste