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No. He was wounded by a savage enemy. I have been helping to make him well

again. He has wronged me as much as he has you. If I do not wish to kill him,

why should you? He did not mean to wrong us. He thought that he was doing

right. He is in trouble now and we should stay and protect him."

"He lies," suddenly shouted another of the horde. "He is not one of us. Kill him!

Kill him! Kill Maxon, too, and then we shall be as other men, for it is these men

who keep us as we are."

The fellow started forward toward Number Thirteen as he spoke, and moved by

the impulse of imitation the others came on with him.

"I have spoken fairly to you," said Number Thirteen in a low voice. "If you cannot

understand fairness here is something you can understand."

Raising the bull whip above his head the young giant leaped among the

advancing brutes and lay about him with mighty strokes that put to shame the

comparatively feeble blows with which von Horn had been wont to deal out

punishment to the poor, damned creatures of the court of mystery.

For a moment they stood valiantly before his attack, but after two had grappled

with him and been hurled headlong to the floor they gave up and rushed

incontinently out into the maelstrom of the screaming tempest.

In the doorway behind him Sing Lee had been standing waiting the outcome of

the encounter and ready to lend a hand were it required. As the two men turned

back into the professor's room they saw that the wounded man's eyes were open

and upon them. At sight of Number Thirteen a questioning look came into his

eyes.

"What has happened?" he asked feebly of Sing. "Where is my daughter? Where is

Dr. von Horn? What is this creature doing out of his pen?"

The blow of the parang upon the professor's skull had shocked his overwrought

mind back into the path of sanity. It had left him with a clear remembrance of

the past, other than the recent fight in the living room--that was a blank--and it

had given him a clearer perspective of the plans he had been entertaining for so

long relative to this soulless creature.

The first thought that sprang to his mind as he saw Number Thirteen before him

was of his mad intention to give his daughter to such a monstrous thing. With

the recollection came a sudden loathing and hatred of this and the other

creatures of his unholy experimentations.

Presently he realized that his questions had not been answered.

The Monster Men