orrying uncle Phaeton, and already through his
busy brain were flashing horrid pictures of punishment and sacrifice,
of hideous scenes of torture, wherein the eldest son of his dead sister
played a prominent role, perforce.

He dared not trust his tongue to make answer, just then, and sent the
aeromotor onward at top speed, leaning far forward to win the earliest
glimpse of--what?

He caught sight of blazing beacons fairly encircling the Lost City,
forming a cordon through which no stranger could hope to pass unseen. He
beheld hundreds of armed shapes rushing to and fro, plainly looking for
some intruder or other enemy, yet almost as certainly failing as yet to
make the longed-for discovery.

Not until that moment had uncle Phaeton dared indulge in even the shadow
of a hope. The awful alarm seemed proof conclusive that poor Bruno had
been taken, through the treachery of Ixtli.

Naturally enough, that was his first belief, but now, as the air-ship
slackened pace to circle more deliberately above the valley, all eyes
on the eager watch for either Bruno or something to hint at his fate,
Professor Featherwit lost a portion of that conviction.

If Bruno had indeed fallen victim to misplaced confidence, and had
been craftily lured into this den of ravening wild beasts, why all this
confusion and mad skurry? Why had not the traitor first made sure of his
victim? Why such a general alarm?

Although such haste in getting afloat had been made, some little time
had been thus consumed, and, before the aerostat was fairly above the
Lost City, Bruno and Ixtli had dropped by stages down the shadowed side
of the Temple of the Sun God, to burrow underneath the ground as their
surest method of eluding pursuit.

Only for that, the end might have been different, for, once sighted,
Gillespie would have been rescued by his friends, or those friends would
surely have shared death with him.

And so it came to pass that, circle though they might, calling ears
to supplement their eyes, swooping perilously low down in their fierce
eagerness to sight their imperilled one, never a glimpse of the young
man could they obtain, nor even a definite hint as to where next to look
for him.

"Surely they cannot have captured Bruno, as yet?" huskily muttered uncle
Phaeton, hungrily straining his eyes without reward. "If the poor boy
had actually fallen into such evil hands, why such crazy confusion?
Why--oh, why did I permit his coaxings to overpo