longer morning and I have not been hung."
"No, and you're not going to be, either. I have prepared a much more pleasant death for you."
"Thanks!"
"Don't waste your thanks," replied Ward. "Before you're through you'll be far from thanking me. You see, Waring, your little outbreak this morning set me to thinking. If you had taken things quietly I would have hung you, and it would all be over now. But you had to try to escape and that set me to thinking that hanging was too pleasant for you. It would be over too quickly. There would be no time for reflection. So I devised something really fitting for your case."
While Ward was speaking the man Poole had entered, carrying a wooden box which he deposited gingerly in one corner and then quickly withdrew. He seemed afraid.
"Yes, Waring," Ward went on, "I've planned a death for you that I like much better than hanging. And, damn your rotten soul to eternity," he snarled, "you'll know what real torture is before you go out!"
With a sudden movement, he whirled, kicked the lid from the box, darted through the doorway, and had crashed the door shut before Ross fairly realized what he was doing.
Half bewildered, it was a moment before he could attach any meaning to Ward's action. Then it dawned on him that there was a deep significance to the box which Poole had brought in. Some sinister portent lay in that box of wood.
Fascinated, Ross sat watching the box, realizing that it held his fate, scarce knowing what to expect, and certainly not expecting what developed.
For a long minute nothing happened. Ross grew nervous with the strain. Then a faint buzzing came from the box. Silence. Again came that strange sound. And again. A slithering rustle as of stiff silk rubbed together.
And then Ross's scalp prickled with horror and his blood fairly froze in his veins, for over the edge of the box appeared a hideous, swaying head! There came a second! A third! And then a fourth!
They were huge diamond-back rattlesnakes!
As Ross recognized the big diamondbacks he knew instantly that he was trapped. To step down onto the floor meant death, a horrible, grewsome death. To remain on the table—
Instinctively, he drew his feet up onto the table as the big reptiles left the box, one by one. He counted eight in all.
Ross gave himself up to black despair. Down there on the floor awaited a fate too hideous for words. . . .
IT MUST have been fully two hours later, and dusk was already settling down and darkening the room, when Ross heard footsteps.
They approached his prison. For a moment. his heart leaped within him at the possibility of rescue. But the door did not open. Instead, he heard the taunting voice of Ward from outside:
"Oh, you're safe enough so far, Waring. They can't get you as long as you stay on that table. I planned that. Wasn't it kind of me to be so thoughtful? But there won't be any food and there won't be any water, and all the time you'll be going through hell. I planned that, too. And then there'll come a time when you can't stand it any longer. You'll either fall from the table from weakness, or you'll go mad and step down onto the floor. They'll always be waiting, Waring. And then they'll get you, damn you!" The voice, rising to a shrill crescendo of passion, ended in a burst of wild maniacal laughter.
Receding footsteps told him that Ward had gone away.
As the gloom deepened into utter darkness it seemed to Ross that he would go mad. His brain seethed with wild impulses. A hundred times he pictured himself lying there on the floor, a bloated, blackened thing. A hundred times he went through death. Only that hope which "springs eternal" kept him from stepping down onto the floor and making an end of it.
Gradually Ross quieted. He finally settled back against the wall in a state of apathy, little knowing or little caring when the end would come.
An hour passed.
Suddenly Ross became aware of an unusual sound. From somewhere in back of him came a low "Hist!" so low as hardly to be heard. Stealthily, he raised himself to the height of the barred window and peered into the darkness.
Dimly he could make out a head outlined against the sky. A low, whispered voice spoke:
"You take!"
Unmistakably it was the voice of Wong. There was a grating sound as of something being passed between the bars.
Ross reached out his hand and it closed over cold steel.
An automatic!
"You take!" again came the whispered voice.
This time Ross found his hand closing over a cartridge belt.
"Me bring Ga'fin. You shoot!"
Like a ghost, the form at the window was gone without a sound.
With the feel of that cold steel in his hand Ross's spirits rose like a tide. All his waning confidence returned. He was instantly his own man again, confident, cool, without fear.
Quickly he buckled the belt around his waist. With sure fingers, he made certain that the gun was loaded. Slipping off the safety, he knelt on the table, facing the door, and waited.
Ross did not know whether he would ever leave that room alive, but he did know that the first men to open the door would die.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"YOU'LL SETTLE WITH ME"
ARTHUR WARD stood with his back to the big living-room fire, his feet wide apart, hands crossed behind his back, head lowered, eyes peering from beneath shaggy brows. It was a characteristic attitude and one which peculiarly expressed the man's calculated cruelty.
Beebe was seated on the wide fireplace bench, his feet stretched far in front of him. He was slowly smoking, his whole sprawling attitude one of indolent approval. Things were shaping themselves quite to the liking of Larson Beebe.
The girl, Virginia, was seated in a chair somewhat in front of her uncle. The wild look of her eyes and her agitated face told that she was going through an ordeal that was breaking her bit by bit.
"But, Uncle Arthur," she burst out, "surely you can't mean to-do this terrible thing. Why, I don't love Mr. Beebe at all. I scarcely know him, and I don't want to marry anyone."
"My dear niece," replied Ward evenly, "love has no part in my scheme of things. Hate rules the world, and hate is my creed. Love makes people soft and indolent. Hate is the great inspirator. Hate makes the world go 'round.
"Sentiment has no place whatever in this marriage. It is entirely a marriage of convenience. Your personal inclinations have no weight whatever. I wish you to marry Beebe; therefore you will do it."
The girl's color had heightened as she listened to her uncle’s ultimatum. As he finished, a grim expression of defiance settled on his face.
"Well, I won't!" she answered crisply.
"As you will, Virginia, but if you do not consent to marry Beebe within twenty-four hours I shall leave you here alone with him. I imagine after a couple
