“You let our enemy escape,” gloated Ling Soo, “but that shall not save you. He was overpowered — perhaps he is dead at this moment. I am to perform the duty that was to be yours. Our plans shall prevail — in spite of your treachery, Foy.”
The words had no effect upon the prisoner.
“You will not speak?” Ling Soo’s question was malicious. “Then know the torture! Your senses have been gone. You have not felt the great pain yet. Unless you speak now, I shall depart. You shall suffer while I am away.”
The eyelids of Foy were narrow and defiant.
“You have had your choice,” said Ling Soo calmly. “I go. If you cry out — it can do you no good. Our friends, only, are here.”
He hung the lantern on the wall. He stood, squat and glaring, by the open door to the next compartment. The shadow of Foy, long and fantastic, spread across the floor. Ling Soo had no time for shadows.
“Remember,” came his cackling, singsong tones, “you are in the rack of torture. The rack from which no man can save himself!”
With that, Ling Soo was gone. Leaving the lantern so its glow would remind Foy of his hopeless position, Ling Soo closed the door.
As an instrument of agony, the Chinese torture rack was one of the strangest and most formidable devices in all the world. It brought slower pain than did the infernal creations of the Middle Ages, but its work was sure.
Ling Soo had spoken the truth when he had praised this Oriental contrivance; but he had been in error when he had said that escape was impossible. Some years before, one man had managed to extricate himself from its toils. The American, Houdini, had allowed himself to be fastened in a Chinese torture rack and had worked his way free after long and strenuous efforts.