CHAPTER XXIII.
THE TRIO RETURN.
How long I remained unconscious I could not say. When I did come to, during some seconds I was unable to realise my position. It was like waking out of an uncomfortably heavy sleep. Consciousness returned by degrees, and painfully; as it were, by a series of waves, which were like so many shocks. I was oppressed by nausea, my eyes were dim, my brain seemed reeling, as if it were making disconcerting efforts to retain its equilibrium. It was some time before I understood that I was still in my own room; yet, longer before I had some faint comprehension of the situation I was in, and of what was taking place about me.
It was probably some minutes before I completely understood that I was trussed like a fowl, and that the exquisite pain which I was enduring was because of the tightness and ingenuity of my bonds. I was on the floor with my back against the wall. Cords which were about my wrists were attached to my ankles, passed up my back, then round my throat, so that each movement I made I bade fair to choke myself. It was a diabolical contrivance. The cords were thin ones—red-hot wires they seemed to me to be, they cut my wrists like knives, and burned them as with fire. My legs were drawn under my body in an unnatural and uncomfortable position. They were torn by cramp, yet whenever I made the slightest attempt to
