“So soon!” Santenel mentally croaked. “So soon I have him in my power! And I feared it might be the work of hours. Yes, he is already under my influence and does not know it. I have him again. Ah! Charles Conrad Merriwell! You, who hounded me over the earth until at length I turned at bay, determined to crush you instead of permitting you to crush me, I have you again in my power, and you shall not escape!”
The reflective light began to fade out of the eyes of Mr. Merriwell, to be replaced by a look of vacancy. Then he made a struggle to arouse himself, but the struggle was weak and ineffective. Santenel’s mysterious power was already over him, holding his will in subjection.
And Frank, who had saved him before, was far off in New London, battling with the New London polo-team!
In a little while Santenel began to talk in a low, soothing monotone, still stabbing Merriwell’s face and eyes with his terrible eyes.
“In those days I was not known as Dion Santenel,” he droned, as if seeking to strengthen a memory that he sought to stir in the mind of the man he was subjugating. “Then I was called Brandon Drood. You struck me, you know—struck me like a dog, for cheating you at cards, and I planned a revenge, a sweet revenge. I discovered, as I lay on my bed where your blow had placed me, that I was able to hypnotize you—made the first discovery of the fact that I have that mysterious power over other men. I used it. I made you imprison yourself in that tunnel in the Ragged Queen Mine, where I supposed you would die. But you found a way out. You regained possession of what I thought a used-out mine, which you named the Lost Man, and from which you dug a fortune. Then, with that wealth at your back, you began to hound me, pursuing me everywhere, dragging me down when I climbed to affluence and striking at me without mercy. But now my time has come! The worm has turned. I have studied and plotted and planned for this hour. For this hour I have made myself all men—coming and going with the silence of night and like the changing characters on the theater boards. All for this hour! What have I not suffered, endured? For this hour! For this hour!”
The dilating and contracting pupils seemed miniature furnaces with their shooting flames, and the words lulled Merriwell as the crooning lullaby of a mother lulls to sleep the babe.
“You are in my power, and you will do as I wish!” Santenel said at length, ceasing that low droning.
He arose and locked the door, turning the key in the lock and hanging a cloth over it to keep out any penetrating gaze, though the position of the door made it most unlikely that any one could see where Merriwell sat, bolt upright now in the chair.
Coming back, Santenel made a pass with his hands over Merriwell’s face, commanded him to rouse up, and Merriwell sat up yawning as if he had been aroused from a nap. He looked at Santenel with vacant curiosity.
“Now as to that business,” said Santenel, spreading out some blank paper on the marble-topped table and producing pen and ink.