ish, and without a hint of
normal emotion or sanity. The mouth gaped, but no coherent words
issued--only a high-pitched tittering.

* * * * *

"Tolkemec!" whispered Tascela, livid, while the others crouched in
speechless horror. "No myth, then, no ghost! Set! You have dwelt for
twelve years in darkness! Twelve years among the bones of the dead! What
grisly food did you find? What mad travesty of life did you live, in the
stark blackness of that eternal night? I see now why Xamec and Zlanath
and Tachic did not return from the catacombs--and never will return. But
why have you waited so long to strike? Were you seeking something, in
the pits? Some secret weapon you knew was hidden there? And have you
found it at last?"

That hideous tittering was Tolkemec's only reply, as he bounded into the
room with a long leap that carried him over the secret trap before the
door--by chance, or by some faint recollection of the ways of Xuchotl.
He was not mad, as a man is mad. He had dwelt apart from humanity so
long that he was no longer human. Only an unbroken thread of memory
embodied in hate and the urge for vengeance had connected him with the
humanity from which he had been cut off, and held him lurking near the
people he hated. Only that thin string had kept him from racing and
prancing off for ever into the black corridors and realms of the
subterranean world he had discovered, long ago.

"You sought something hidden!" whispered Tascela, cringing back. "And
you have found it! You remember the feud! After all these years of
blackness, you remember!"

For in the lean hand of Tolkemec now waved a curious jade-hued wand, on
the end of which glowed a knob of crimson shaped like a pomegranate. She
sprang aside as he thrust it out like a spear, and a beam of crimson
fire lanced from the pomegranate. It missed Tascela, but the woman
holding Valeria's ankles was in the way. It smote between her shoulders.
There was a sharp crackling sound and the ray of fire flashed from her
bosom and struck the black altar, with a snapping of blue sparks. The
woman toppled sidewise, shriveling and withering like a mummy even as
she fell.

Valeria rolled from the altar on the other side, and started for the
opposite wall on all fours. For hell had burst loose in the throne room
of dead Olmec.

The man who had held Valeria's hands was the next to die. He turned to
run, but before he had taken half a dozen steps, To