"Nick Carter!"

"Exactly!"

"So this is your game, is it?" Venner fiercely began. "If you think--"

"Stop right there, Venner," Nick sternly commanded. "Speaking of games, I am here to discover what sort of a rascally game you and this Kilgore gang are playing. I have learned enough to show me that you are a knave and a--"

"By heavens, Carter--"

"Stop!" thundered Nick. "Don't pull a gun! If you do, I'll end your--"

But he got no further, for there the climax came.

A single sharp whistle sounded from the kitchen.

Instantly Nick felt a rope noose jerked taut around his ankles, nearly throwing him from his feet.

From beneath the table, the hanging cover of which had effectually concealed him, Jean Pylotte had managed to adjust the noose upon the floor about Nick's legs. At the signal given him, he had quickly drawn it taut.

At the same moment Kilgore and Matt Stall leaped upon Nick from the kitchen and hall doors, bearing him heavily to the floor, while Venner ran to clap a revolver to the detective's head.

"Hang to his feet, Pylotte," cried Kilgore, fiercely.

"I've got 'em fast," shouted the diamond maker, from under the table.

"Quit, Carter, or I'll blow your brains out," commanded Venner, with his pistol at Nick's head.

Nick had been making a great bluff at putting up an ugly fight, but now he very agreeably subsided.

The affair was going precisely as he desired, yet for the sake of appearances he angrily snarled:

"Let up, you dogs! So this is your game, is it? Turn that gun another way, Venner, you miscreant! It might go off, and I'm not fool enough to invite its contents. This dirty game that you've played--"

"Dry up!" Kilgore sharply interrupted, while he and Stall quickly secured Nick's arms with a rope. "You'll not live to know the game that we have played, Nick Carter."

"Won't I?"

"Not if I live!" cried Kilgore, with vicious significance.

"Well, maybe you'll not live long," retorted Nick.

"I'll close that saucy trap of yours, at all events," sneered Kilgore.

"Give me that gag, Matt--quick."

Nick no longer resisted. A glance at the clock on the mantel told him that nearly ten minutes had pa.s.sed since he left Chick. He suffered himself to be gagged, then raised to his feet, from which Pylotte now cast the line and emerged from under the table.

Nick bestowed one look upon him, from which the rascal shrank and shuddered.

Kilgore now turned quickly to Venner, and hurriedly cried:

"You remain here, Rufe, and leave us to dispose of this fellow. We'll run him over yonder, and return as quickly as possible. It's not safe to keep him here until we have landed his running mate."

"But--"

"Don't stop for buts!" cried Kilgore, fiercely. "Go see if you can sight Chick Carter. If he is still in the carriage, we are all right up to now. In six or eight minutes go down there and give him to understand that his interpreter wants him to come in here. Before you reach this room with him, we three will be back to help you turn him down. Do you understand?"

"Sure!" cried Venner, thrusting his weapon back in his pocket. "He cannot suspect that we have recognized Nick, and he'll come in, all right."

"Go, then! We'll be back here in six minutes."

Venner hastened to one of the front windows of the house and peered out toward the street. At that moment a flash of lightning, followed by the nearer roll of thunder, dispelled for an instant the intense gloom of the night.

A growl of profound satisfaction broke from Venner while he gazed, and he muttered exultingly:

"By Heaven! we're all right! He's waiting in the carriage, and Dalton is still on the box!"

Nick was being pushed out of a back door of the house, meantime, and then across the lawn and through the dark stable.

The ruffians who were hurrying him away did not stop there, however.

Pylotte ran on ahead, while Kilgore and Matt Stall continued urging the detective across the grounds, making toward the old wooden mansion in which their secret plant was located.

It seemed to them the safest place in which to confine Nick, pending the delay in getting hands upon Chick.

Presently they came to a dry ditch, walled at each side, and originally built for draining the low meadows between the two estates. Into this they plunged, following it until they arrived near a wooden bulkhead in the foundation wall of the house. This was the secret way of entering, to which Cervera had referred the previous night.

Pylotte already had opened it, and Nick was quickly forced through a dark cellar.

"All right," cried Kilgore. "Let us in."

Instantly the secret stone door was thrown open, and Nick was nearly blinded by the flood of light in the room into which he was abruptly thrust.

He stood in the subterranean chamber of the diamond plant.

And there, erect on the floor, with her evil countenance a picture of malicious triumph, stood his crafty combatant of the previous night--Sanetta Cervera.

"_Caramba!_" she cried, shrilly, with a vicious laugh. "So you've got him! Well done, Dave! Well done!"

"Yes, and we'll presently have the other," cried Kilgore, panting hard after his exertions.

"Good for you, Dave," screamed Cervera, exultingly. "But this is the one I want most--this is the one!"

"Look lively, Matt. Lend a hand here, and we'll bind him to yonder chair."

"And leave Cervera to guard him, eh?"

"That's the stuff."

"Can she do it?"