Part 23 (1/2)

”And you, Sidney! Who'd ever thought of finding you in town again?

Why, I thought you were still somewhere up the Zambesi.”

”Got back yesterday, my dear fellow. And not sorry either, I can tell you. The surveying for the new railroad was a far tougher job than I antic.i.p.ated. I went down with fever, so they sent me home on six months' leave.”

”But you're all right now,” Winsloe said, and then introduced his friend as Sidney Humphreys who, he explained, had been out in Africa in connection with the Cape to Cairo railway.

”Where are you fellows going?” asked the newcomer.

”Home, I think,” Winsloe replied. ”Hughes doesn't care for ballets.”

”Come round to my rooms and see the curios I've brought back,” he urged.

”I've still kept on the old chambers. The things I've got were mostly dug out of the ruins of an ancient city--relics of the time of King Solomon, I believe. You're fond of antiques, Ellice, so come and spend an hour and have a look at them. You'll be interested, I promise you, and I'd like to know your opinion.”

Winsloe hesitated for a moment, then, turning to me, said,--

”You'll come too, won't you?”

At first I excused myself, for I was anxious to find Eric, but presently I allowed myself to be persuaded, for truth to tell, I, too, was very fond of antiquities, and was therefore anxious to see this latest find.

We drove in a hansom along Regent Street, and then through several side streets, until presently we alighted before the door of a dark, respectable-looking house, into which Humphreys let us with his latchkey.

”Go on up,” he exclaimed, when we were in the hall. ”You know your way, Ellice--the old rooms, second floor.”

And so while he held back in the hall looking at some cards that had been left, I climbed the broad old-fas.h.i.+oned stairs with Winsloe.

At the first landing my companion held back for me to go on before, laughing, and saying,--

”Go straight on--the room right before you,” and compelling me to ascend first, he followed.

Suddenly I heard men's voices raised in angry altercation, apparently proceeding from another room, and what was more, I was struck by a distinct belief that one voice was Eric's. Yet surely that could not be possible.

”I defy you!” I heard the voice cry. ”Say no more. You hear! You may kill me, but I defy you!”

I halted, startled. The voice was so very like Eric's that I could have sworn it was his.

A sharp cry of pain--a man's cry--rang out from behind a closed door on the landing I was approaching. Then there followed a long-drawn-out groan, ending almost in a sigh.

A tragedy was being enacted there!

I clapped my hand upon the revolver I always carried in my hip-pocket, and went forward quickly, eager and puzzled, but just as I placed my feet upon the last steps to gain the landing where the man's chambers were, four or five of the stairs suddenly gave way beneath me, and I fell feet foremost into the great yawning opening there revealed. I was the victim of a dastardly treachery!

I know that I clutched wildly at air when I felt myself falling down, down to what seemed an unfathomable depth. I held my breath, for at that instant a man's wild shriek rang in my ears. Then next second I felt my skull crushed, and with it all consciousness became blotted out.

I was entrapped--helpless in the hands of quondam friends who were really my bitterest and most unscrupulous enemies.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

IS EXTRAORDINARY.

The agony was excruciating. A burning bubbling seethed in my brain, as though my skull were filled with molten metal. My mouth was parched, my neck stiff, and my jaws were fixed when I opened my eyes and found myself in a great chasm of cavernous darkness.