it was, the circumstances had arrived at such a condition that
leaving her chair would be equivalent--so far as her companions were
concerned--to the calling out of Nick Carter's name.

Madge knew Curly John, and she knew him for a man who never made idle
threats. His reputation among his fellows was that he spoke very rarely,
and said very little when he did speak, but that what he said was always
to the point, and that he always meant what he uttered.

And so she saw the tables rather turned upon herself. Instead of Nick
Carter being in her power, she was temporarily in his.

The situation had its ludicrous side. Each was in a sense the prisoner
of the other, for, while Nick Carter could not hope to escape from that
room unless she gave him permission to leave it, she could not rise from
the chair upon which she was seated without risking death unless he
permitted it.

If only she could have conveyed the shortest kind of a message to Mike
Grinnel, or have signaled some word to Slippery, or to Surly Bob, or
Gentleman Jim, or Fly Cummings, or Cuthbert, or Maxwell, or The Parson,
all of whom were in that room at the time, everything would have been so
easy for her.

But she could not leave her chair; neither could she signal to any of
these.

Nick Carter's eye was upon her; his arm was extended across the table,
and she knew the potency of that arm, as well as something about the
strength and fund of resource of the detective.

But the situation was unbearable. She felt that she could not endure it,
and that in some manner it would have to be brought to a close, and at
once.

And so she leaned still further back in her chair, gradually tilting it
until it rested poised upon the two rear legs.

And then, with a sudden motion, and at the same instant uttering a
scream, which rang shrilly through the room, she threw herself directly
backward, at the same time kicking up her feet and so striking them
fiercely against the under side of the table.

The weight of her body and the force with which she struck the table
instantly overturned it, bottles, glasses, and all, so that it crashed
to the floor in utter confusion.

And at the same instant every one in that room leaped to their feet and
reached for their weapons.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FLIGHT THROUGH THE CELLAR.

The action of Black Madge was so sudden and so unlooked for that it came
as an entire surprise, even to Nick Carter, and the act which overt