EXPECTATION 201

after having seen the inventor make for his laboratory,
when three men scized me from behind. With a gag
in my mouth and my eyes bandaged, I felt myself
dragged, then lowered into a kind of hole with another
person, whom I thought I recognized by his moans as my
ex-patient. I felt I was on some floating object, and
knew that it must be the tug which had returned. Then
it seemed to me that the vessel sank under the waters;
a collision hurled me to the bottom of this hole, the air
soon became exhausted, and finally I lost consciousness.
I knew no mere.

Serko listened to me with profound attention, his eyes
were hard, his forehead was wrinkled, and yet he had no
reason to think that I did not speak the truth.

“You maintain that three men fell upon you?” he
asked, :

“Ves, I thought they were some of your people. But I
did not seethem coming. Whowere they ?”

“Strangers whom you must have recognized by their
language.”

“ They did not speak.”

“You have no idea of their nationality ?”

“ Not the least.”

“You do not. know their reason for entering the
cavern?”

“JT don’t know it.”

«And what do you think about it all?”

“What do I think, M. Serko? I tell you I thought
that some of your pirates had been ordered to fling me