trust himself to wait, and he used his time by examining the whole of this cell. The walls were huge, unyielding plates and there was no window; but, passing back and forth, he repeatedly felt the roughness of a grate underfoot. This he finally investigated, a gesture more than a hope. For this served as the room's only plumbing and was foul and odorous and could lead nowhere save into a sewage pipe.For the space of several loud and shattering drops De Wolf stood crouched, loose grate in hand, filled with disbelief. For there was a faint ray of light reflected from somewhere below, and in that light it could be seen that there was room enough to pass through!

Suddenly crafty, he listened at the door. Then, with quick, sure motions, slid into the foul hole and pulled the grate into place over his head. The light, not yet seen, was beckoning to him at the end of a tunnel in which he could just crouch.

He crawled in the muck for two hundred feet before he came to the light, and here he stopped, staring upward. The hope in him flickered, waned and nearly vanished in a tidal wave of despair. For the light came from an upper grate fourteen feet above the floor of the tunnel, far out of reach upon a slimy, unflawed wall. He tried to leap for it and fell back, slipping and cruelly banging his head as he dropped.

Again he took solid hold of himself. He forced his trained mind to think, forced his trained body to obey. He stood a long way back from himself and critically observed his actions and impulses as though he was something besides a man and the man was on parade.

He looked farther along the tunnel and fumbled his way away from the light. He was sure he would have another outlet presented to him by fate. He could not be led this far without some recompense. And he felt in the top of the tunnel for a grate which might lead out through an empty cell. The tunnel curved and then a new sound made him fumble before he took another step. There was a drop there, an emptiness which might extend ten feet or a hundred. He had to return or chance it.

The water which sluggishly gurgled about his ankles spilled over the soft lip of the hole and dropped soundlessly. Suddenly he was filled with sickness and panic and premonition. This foul trap into which he had ventured hemmed him close, imprisoned him, would embrace him for some awesome purpose and never give him up.

He forced himself into line. He froze his terror. He dropped blindly over the lip of the hole.

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