Once or twice on the descent into the cafe Eva hesitated, but was gently urged on by Dora.

Eva was utterly disgusted by the flotsam and jetsam in human guise that she found sprawling at the tables, but she decided to brave the place.

“Wait a moment and I’ll get Mr. Locke,” smiled Dora.

For a moment, the better to blot out the distasteful scene, Eva closed her eyes.

When she opened them again it was to look into the ferocious, bestial face of the giant emissary who, with fingers clutched like the talons of some foul bird, was reaching toward her to grasp her by the throat.

In the noisome cellar Locke lay as though fascinated by the dread form that confronted him, as well as by its more dreadful purpose.

The Automaton drew back its massive foot and deliberately kicked over one after another of the carboys.

A pungent odor at once permeated the cellar air as the acid ate into the floor.

Its purpose accomplished, the Automaton stalked toward Locke, and stood towering above him.

Would it crush out Locke’s life under its ponderous heel?  Or would it leave him to a death more horrible?

Like writhing serpents, the rivulets of seething, burning acid crept closer, closer.

CHAPTER XVII

The Automaton and its emissaries left the cellar.  In the distance a door slammed and Locke was left to his terrible fate.

Except for the gurgling of the flowing acid and the scampering of the rats all was silent.

Locke tried to move.  But the sharp barbs of the wire cut into his flesh, a torture to test the fortitude of a stoic.

Moreover, Locke had barely recovered from the shock of his fall into the cellar.  Thus for a few seconds that seemed to him to be ages he lay there watching the fiery death creep closer.  Then the will to live surged through him and he struggled furiously to escape from the deadly path of the acid.  Gone now was his flinching and shrinking as the sharp barbs lacerated his tender flesh.  Gone was the calmness that denoted surrender and the acceptance of his fate.

With bunching muscles he writhed inch by inch to one side, out of the path of the flow of the acid.  He was just in time, for, at his last mighty effort, the consuming fluid flowed past, not an inch from his face.

To extricate himself from the coils of the wire was a slow and painful task.  Wounded with a hundred wounds, with each movement of his body adding a further injury, many times Locke was forced to desist in his efforts to free himself.  However, he persisted, though, strong man that he was, the tears of agony burned his eyes and beads of cold sweat stood on his brow even before the first coil was loosened.

He could not, even to save his own life, have persisted in this self-inflicted torture had it not been for the thought of Eva hurrying to this dreadful den.  That thought almost drove him mad and spurred him to furious effort.