When Gordon again recovered consciousness he found that he was lying on the floor of what was apparently a narrow hall, near the foot of a stairway. His hands were lashed tightly behind him, and his feet and legs were so firmly pinioned together that he could scarcely move.
Beside him lay Leah, also tightly bound. A short distance down the hall was the closed door of Arlok’s work-room, recognizable by the thin line of red light gleaming beneath it.
Moonlight through a window at the rear of the hall made objects around Gordon fairly clear. He looked at Leah and saw tears glistening on her long lashes.
“Oh, Blair, I was afraid you’d never waken again,” the girl sobbed. “I thought that fiend had killed you!” Her voice broke hysterically.
“Steady, darling,” Gordon said soothingly. “We simply can’t give up now, you know. If that monstrosity ever opens that accursed Gate of his our entire world is doomed. There must be some way to stop him. We’ve got to find that way and try it—even if it seems only one forlorn chance in a million.”
Gordon shook his head to clear the numbness still lingering from the effect of Arlok’s tentacle. The Xoranian seemed unable to produce a paralysis of any great duration with his weird natural weapon. Accordingly, he had been forced to bind his captives like two trussed fowls while he returned to his labors.
Lying close together as they were, it was a comparatively easy matter for them to get their bound hands within reach of each other, but after fifteen minutes of vain work Gordon realized that any attempt at untying the ropes was useless. Arlok’s prodigious strength had drawn the knots so tight that no human power could ever loosen them.
Then Gordon suddenly thought of the one thing in his pockets that might help them. It was a tiny cigarette lighter, of the spring-trigger type. It was in his vest pocket completely out of reach of his bound hands, but there was a way out of that difficulty.