"Well," he regretted, "there are always the finger stretchers.

They're crude, Kronberg, and homemade, but in time they'll do the work." Kronberg's face grew colorless as death itself as his mind leaped to the torture of the day before.

A clamp for every finger tip, a metal bar between--the hell-conceived device invented by his jailer forced the fingers wide apart and held them there as in vise until a stiffness bound the aching cords, then a pain which crept snakelike to the elbow--and the shoulder.

Then when the tortured nerves fell wildly to telegraphing spasmodic jerkings of distress from head to toe, the shrugging devil with the flute would talk vividly of roaring wood fires and the comforts awaiting the penitent below.

Yesterday Kronberg had fainted.