As for Locke, he made a frantic attempt to reach Eva, but his way was blocked by a score of emissaries and the Automaton himself.  Desperately Locke dashed at the iron monster, only to be hurled to the floor as though he were a tiny child.

In another moment the emissaries had bound him and carried him to the alcove in which hung the noosed rope.

The hypnotist now pulled a lever and the method of the death intended for Locke was revealed.  Directly under the suspended rope was a trap-door, which opened.  Locke gazed down into blackness, nothingness.  An emissary threw some small, heavy object into the yawning hole.  For a long time nothing was heard.  Then finally, far, far below there came to their ears the sound of a distant splash.

The fiendish plan was simple—­to hang him and then to cut the rope.  His body would go hurtling down to the subterranean river below and be carried out to sea.

The hypnotist reversed the lever.  The trap-door closed.  Locke was dragged beneath the rope and it was adjusted around his neck.

Even in this awful moment his sole thought was of Eva.  Would they throw her, unconscious, down the same yawning trap?

Powerless, he stood bound, fascinated, as he saw three emissaries seize her.  But instead of dragging her to the trap, they dragged her toward one of the panels in the wall.

What nameless torture was in store for her?

He struggled furiously to get free to rush to her, but the noose only tightened on his neck.

The hypnotist stepped to the lever that operated the trap under Locke’s feet and began to pull the lever down.

CHAPTER XXIII

With a crash the hypnotist dropped unconscious to the floor as the hypnotic machine started to revolve rapidly.  The emissaries turned from Locke and were dazzled by the blinding flashes from the whirling mirrors.

It was Zita who caused all the commotion.  Unnoticed by the thugs, who were intent on sending Locke to his death and dragging Eva through the panel, Zita had managed to free herself from her bonds and, true to her promise to Locke that she would help him, she had risked all for his sake.

Once free from the ropes, she had seized a heavy bronze vase and, at just the critical moment of danger, had hurled it at the hypnotist’s head, striking him a terrific blow that had felled him and left him unconscious on the floor before he could spring the trap.  She had then set the mechanical hypnotic machine in motion, and, standing behind it, was herself practically invisible.  It all happened so quickly that it seemed like a miracle.

Locke, his hope revived, swiftly grasped the one chance for life that was left to him.  By contracting his muscles he was able to slip out of the ropes which bound his arms.  But since the noosed rope around his neck held him so that his toes barely touched the floor of the trap, he could not, try as he might, manage to get the noose free.