There seemed no possibility of escape. He looked about him.
They were in a small room where lay a litter of rubbish--torn
bits of cloth, old hides, pieces of fiber rope. In the center
of the room was a cylindrical shaft with an opening in its face.
Bradley knew it for what it was. Here the arch-fiend dragged his
victims and cast their bodies into the river of death far below.
The floor about the opening in the shaft and the sides of the
shaft were clotted thick with a dried, dark brown substance that
the Englishman knew had once been blood. The place had the
appearance of having been a veritable shambles. An odor of
decaying flesh permeated the air.

The Englishman crossed to the shaft and peered into the opening.
All below was dark as pitch; but at the bottom he knew was
the river. Suddenly an inspiration and a bold scheme leaped to
his mind. Turning quickly he hunted about the room until he
found what he sought--a quantity of the rope that lay strewn here
and there. With rapid fingers he unsnarled the different lengths,
the girl helping him, and then he tied the ends together until he
had three ropes about seventy-five feet in length. He fastened
these together at each end and without a word secured one of the
ends about the girl's body beneath her arms.

"Don't be frightened," he said at length, as he led her toward
the opening in the shaft. "I'm going to lower you to the river,
and then I'm coming down after you. When you are safe below,
give two quick jerks upon the rope. If there is danger there and
you want me to draw you up into the shaft, jerk once. Don't be
afraid--it is the only way."