"No. Only I mean to make you secure."
"This won't hold me long. I'll break your wires in a flash, you little fool."
"No, you will not. The moment the wire is parted that bell will ring, and I shall begin firing, and keep it up till you are disabled or dead."
The man swore savagely, but the cold thread of insulated wire over his throat thrilled his every nerve. It seemed some magic bond, mysterious, wonderful, and dreadful. This cool man of science was an angel of awful and incomprehensible power. His lamp of such mystic brilliance and that battery quite unnerved his coward heart. What awful torture, what burning flash of lightning might not rend him to blackened fragments if the wires were broken! To such depths of puerile ignorance and terror did the wretch sink in his guilty fancy. He dared not move a muscle lest the wire break. The very thought of it filled him with unspeakable agony. The son of science placed himself before his prisoner. With the revolver at easy rest, he said:
"Mr. Belford, I am going to call help. Do not move while I open the door."
In mortal terror the wretch turned his head round to see what was going on. He managed to get a glimpse of the room without breaking the wire round his throat, and he saw the young man stoop to the floor at the door and pick up something. Then he made some strange and rapid motions with the fingers of his right hand, while the left still steadied the revolver.
For several minutes nothing happened. The two men glared at each other in silence, and then there was a sound of opening doors. One closed with an echoing slam that resounded strangely through the old house, and then there were light footsteps in the hall.
"Oh! Elmer! What is it? What has happened?"
"Nothing very serious—merely a common burglar. I called you because I wished help."
"Yes, I heard the bell, and I read your message in my room by the sound. I dressed as quickly as possible. Is there no danger?"