Then the masked faces silently regarded the young inventor.
CHAPTER XXI
A TEMPTING OFFER
“Sit down, please!”
The masked man at the head of the table—who seemed to be the leader—thus spoke to Tom and motioned to a chair, the only one in the room that was not occupied. Tom looked at it a bit suspiciously at first. He knew something of trick chairs—seats that, once occupied, gripped the sitter in arms of steel. Also this chair might be over some trapdoor which opened into a pit or into a tunnel that led to the lake.
But Tom reflected that if the men had contemplated treachery they could have exercised their will upon him when he first landed on the island. They need not have waited until now.
The chair seemed an ordinary one, and as the leader motioned toward it another of the masked men pulled it slightly forward. Clearly it had no mechanism connected with it.
“Well, I’m here,” said Tom, as he settled back in the chair, noting that it felt all right.
“So we see, and we are glad of this chance to do business with you,” remarked one, who, for want of a better designation at present, shall be denominated Mr. X. “It did not occur to us,” he went on in cultured tones, “that you would care for this method of arriving at a settlement. But, since you have, it appears to be a very good one. We are ready to do business with you.”