istening, and he stood as still.
Then she put out her hand and caught his sleeve and he followed her
again. Their footfalls were deadened by a thick carpet; Kendric could
see nothing. Never a sound came to him save that of their own quiet
progress. They went forward a dozen steps and Zoraida paused abruptly.
Another dozen steps and again a pause. Then he heard the soft jingle
of keys in her hands; lock after lock she found swiftly in the dark
until she must have shot back five or six bolts; a door opened before
them. He could not see it, since beyond was a dark no less
impenetrable, but caught the familiar creak of hinges. He heard the
door close softly when they had gone through; he heard the several
bolts shot back. Then Zoraida left him, groped a moment and thereafter
the tiny flare of a match in her upheld hand showed her to him and,
vaguely, his surroundings. They stood in a low-vaulted, narrow
passageway through what appeared to be rock.

Set in a shallow niche in the wall was a small lamp which Zoraida
lighted. She held it high and continued along the passageway. Now
Kendric saw that a long tunnel ran ahead of them, walls and ceiling
rudely chisseled, the uneven floor pitching gently downward. Herein
two men, their elbows striking, might walk abreast; here a man as tall
as Kendric must stoop now and then. The tunnel ran straight a score of
paces, then turned abruptly to the right. Here was another door with
its reenforcement of riveted steel bars and its half dozen bolts and
padlocks. Zoraida gave him the lamp to hold, then produced a second
bunch of keys and one after the other opened the padlocks. The door
swung back noiselessly; they went through, Zoraida closed it and
dropped into place the steel bars.

"Doors and bars and locks and keys enough," mocked Kendric, "to guard
the treasure of the Montezumas!"

She turned upon him with her slow, mysterious smile.

"And not alone in doors and locks has Zoraida put her faith," she said.
"If I had not prepared the way neither you nor another man, though he
held the keys, could ever have come so far! I have been before and
removed certain small obstructions. Come! I will show you others,
Zoraida's true safeguards."

They were in a small square chamber faced with oak on all sides
excepting ceiling and floor which were of hewn rock. The panels of the
walls, each some two feet wide, had, all of them, the look of narrow
doors, each with its heavy l