" DINNER IS NOW SERVED IN THE DINING ROOM."

Otago Witness, Issue 2809, 15 January 1908, Page 71

" DINNER IS NOW SERVED IN THE DINING ROOM."

Sick at neart he -staggered back, knowing that by an almost superhuman ingenuity all his plans of discovery had be&n foreseen, and that at every turn he was mocked and derided by intelligence superior to his own. But at any rate there was going to be food — food ! Now all other circumstances must give way to that.

Upon one^end of the dining room table a white cloth had been spread and laid with knives and forks, plates and cruets, in the ordinary fashion. There was a loaf of bread, a little disn of butter rolled into balls with parsley spread among them, a round of honest Yorkshire beef, and a decanter of claret.

" Well, here goes," Gilbert said aloud. "It it is my last meal I will make it like a man.."

Be eat down. A serviette was folded upon his place, and he lifted it, when something fell out upon the table. It was the photograph of Sadie Wilshire, radiant and beautiful. The sight of that beloved face, that sweet, bright smile, stabbed through his heart like an arrow. He was almost upon the point of breaking down when the other side of his brain told him that this refinement of mental torture had just that design — to rob him of courage and to fill him with hopelessness.

Gilbert cut himself a large plateful of beef.

How good the meal was! This, at least, •was not a sham and pretence ; there was no lurking danger in this. The good wheaten bread, the revivifying wine, the red meat infused a new courage and a new strength. But he did not forget to look at his watch- as he sat down. It was a quarter to 1, and if the sinister message he had received upstairs was to be believed, until a quarter to ii -he would be unmolested.

He did not realise that lie was displaying the most extraordinary :ourage and self-reliance under conditions which might have killed another man already. He never thought about it at all ; but even in this hour of supreme and awful peril to his body, in this hour of terrible mental torture, he behaved like one of the taut and worthy heroes of the age when Drake and Raleigh scoured' the coasts of Spain, and retained at least a little of his manhood and bis serenity.

That new and more poignant dangers were in store he was very well aware. He could not but be aware, after all he had already undergone, that it was but the beginning of greater perils to come. It was mere idleness to suppose that his enemies- had yet exhausted anything but the mere beginnings of their plan. Yet he felt more confidenst than at any time before since he had awakened a bound captive in the silent hall ; indeed, his whole wits seemed sharpened and more keen than he ever remembered they had been at any period of his life. Danger sometimes has this effect upon oertaan temperaments. It is in the hour when utter disaster seems most imminent that the great ones — the men of action — of this world have proved theor qualities most splendidly. So it was with Gilbert now ; he was prepared for anything, resolute and strong to fight to the last against even such odds> as these.

"Now," he said to himself, "I know where I am, I know who are up against roe, and I have a sort of idea of the means they will employ, judging by the experiences of the last few hours. Howev&r, I must understand -and always keep in mind this one central fact. I' am confronted by dangers to my, Ufa -which are purely mechanical. It ia not as though I had the opportunty of a- personal contest with any on© of my enemies. But I also am a mechanic — there is little that I donot know in. tfiis regard. So now X must)

take no single step without calculating what that step might mean to me. I must brine into bearing all my knowledge ol electricity and of mechanics. I must ba alert to discover any possibility of concealed mechanism which may be designed to do me this or that harm. Surely the task is not too great after all. They have forgotten, perhaps, that once I have spent' a few hours in this hideoais place I shall gain a knowledge of their methods. The window, for instance. I know exactly how it was charged with the current: they hare a dynamo hidden somewhere, ajid they are running it with an oil engine to fill the accumulators. That is quite obvious. The trick of the walkingstick in the hall frightened me at first, but it was simply .dons by a ball an<j socket attachment. Y&, there again I understand. The falling window was simple enough ; I could get out drawings for it in an hour. Tt wa6 only my own unwarinoss that made me a victim. Tha little table in the bedroom was ft child's trick, of course.

"Very well, then, I know these are only,, the beginnings ; but surely I can anticipate even the worst that they can do, or, at! any rate, be so alert that I can savd myself; in fact, the whole time I musti be like a -leopard crouched to spring, notj at a possible object, but away from th^ unknown." .-

Hope and confidence returned to Yfiva t his face had lost the crows-feet of ,f«ar t the colour had returned to his cheeks.

Yes, even yet he would circumvent thesd devils, for whom, at that moment, ha began to feel a certain contempt, trapped and prisoned as he was. Youth — thai wonderful power of youth — became his shield and buckler, and he saw himself in swift imagination conquering all obstacles, breaking forth from this housa of mystery, and clasping his love in. Ms arms once more.

"Why," he tried aloud, "I have nofi. explored a tenth part of this place. yet, and I have got my jolly old poker. But! I must not be rash ; I must move with' extreme care. Perhaps the best thing of all would bo to go upstairs once more into the bedroom where the window fell upon me. There I can think out a plan of campaign. What is the time?"

He looked at his watoh. It was now, a minute before a quarter to 2. He'hurx ried to the door of the dining-room, grasp* ing the poker in his right hand and turn* ing the handle with the other.

As. he did so he gave a loud shriek of^ pain

A knife, a curved knife, had oorae out from the china ball of the handle and pierced his palm through, and through. ,

(To be continued.)