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g purple. Suddenly, though I had given no tug, I heard the stone under me crunch at its edges, and felt it begin to rise a little at one side! What could have loosened it, when all my efforts had failed? No matter! if I could pull it away now and make a breach, I would at least gain a long respite. I tugged again and found it easy to pull the loosened stone up on one edge, till it tottered and fell over against me. Feverishly I watched the poison about me; it rose no longer; slowly it began to sink away. Thank God for so much!
Then suddenly I heard voices calling me. They seemed to come from below. Yes! It was Hotep in Kemish,--and the doctor in English! Were they confined in the cavern below, then? And had the gas been reserved for them, when it had finished its dread work with me? Horrible thought! If so, in saving myself I was only sending the sure poison to them. Where were they? I could not see down through the murky stuff; but I must warn them.
"Halloo! The gas is poisonous! Leap through, save yourselves! Climb out, or it will kill you!"
"Bear up!" I heard the doctor's voice begin, "one minute more and we----" Then there was a violent coughing, a door slammed, and the voice was barely heard--afar off--as through a wall. Had they escaped, then, to another room? I had no further time to puzzle what it meant, for another slab of my floor rose, wavered and fell over with a crash, and up through the purplish gas I could see a great round black thing rising, stretching high up into the room until its top almost touched the roof.
My God! It was the projectile!
When the breach in the floor was cleared, all the gas rushed down into the lower chamber. The projectile eased over on its side, and out of the rear port-hole came Hotep with a revolver and a sword. He soon had me cut loose, and then he told me how it all had happened.
He had been chamberlain but a single day when he discovered the existence of a secret subterranean chamber under the ante-room of the banquet