A more viciously cruel and vindictive creature never drew the breath of life.

She laughed again, and slowly pressed the weapon closer—­and then, with a sudden startled cry, she drew back and leaped to her feet.

A noise like that of a mighty cannonade seemed to shake even the solid walls of this buried chamber.

It was the crash of thunder in the heavens overhead.

It was Cervera’s first intimation of the terrible tempest that had been gathering outside.

At first she thought the sound was that of revolvers, and she darted to the door and listened, pressing her ear to the wall.

The instant her back was turned, Nick made a desperate attempt to free himself, straining cords and muscles under the determined effort.  It proved vain, however.  The ropes held him as if made of twisted steel.

Yet in his brief but desperate struggle his right arm came in contact with an object in the side pocket of his sack coat.

The object was a box nearly filled with parlor matches—­one of the most dangerous and treacherous creations of man’s inventive genius.

Like a sudden revelation, or a bolt out of the blue, there leaped up in Nick’s mind a possible way of escape.

He thought of Cervera’s garments, of the fluffy lace skirts beneath her gown, to which a single flash of fire would instantly prove fatal.

The resort to such means seemed horrible—­yet Nick well knew it was the one and only resource left him.

He glanced sharply at Cervera.  She was still listening at the door, with her evil face a picture of intense suspense.

With a quick turn of his wrist, Nick succeeded in extracting the box from his pocket.  Then he forced it open, and with a move of his hand he scattered its entire contents over the floor around his chair.  The tiny matches fell with scarce a sound, and Cervera, ten feet away, failed to hear them.

Then Nick quietly worked his chair back a foot or two, in order to bring some of the fateful things upon the floor directly in front of him.

A moment later Cervera turned from the door.

“Thunder—­it was thunder,” she muttered, under her breath.  “There’s a storm outside.”

“Somebody coming?” queried Nick, with taunting accents.

He now aimed to provoke her, to force the situation to a climax, lest any mischance should have befallen Chick, or perverted in any way his own designs upon Kilgore and the gang.  His taunting remark proved effective, moreover.

With a snarl of rage Cervera darted toward him, with eyes for him alone, never for the floor.

“You dog!” she cried, through her white teeth.

“Do you mock me again?”

“Oh! no, of course not,” sneered Nick.

“You lie!  You do!  You think some one will come—­that you will then escape me,” screamed Cervera, quivering through and through with venomous passion.