id Zoraida sharply, "that you may understand why I
mention to you the second, is this: You will never go free until I say
the word! And I shall never say the word until you and I have brought
the rest and placed it here!"

So there was other treasure! Like this, rich, wrought vessels, fine
gold, pearls perhaps! And Zoraida did not yet know where it was;
Barlow had had enough sense to keep his mouth closed. Jim Kendric's
thoughts flew back and forth rapidly; the strange thing was that at a
time like this the vision which shaped itself, vivid and clear cut in
his mind, was of little Betty Gordon with a double string of pearls
around her throat!

"Of what are you thinking?" demanded Zoraida sharply. She had been
watching him keenly. "There is a look in your eyes----"

For an instant she almost dared think that that look was for her; Jim
flushed. Zoraida's black brows gathered, her eyes went as deadly cruel
as ever were the eyes of her ancient forebears though they watched the
priests at the sacrificial stone.

"You think of her!" she cried angrily. She stamped upon the stone
floor, she clenched her hands and lifted them high above her head in a
sudden access and abandon of rage. "You think that, having made mock
of me, you shall turn to her? Fool! Seven times accursed fool! I
will show you the doll-faced, baby-eyed girl--and you will see, too,
what fate I have reserved for her. To cross the path of Zoraida
means---- But what are words? You shall see!"

With a strange sick sinking of his heart Kendric followed her,
forgetting the treasure about him.

CHAPTER XVI

HOW TWO, IN THE LABYRINTH OF MIRRORS, WATCHED DISTANT HAPPENINGS

An oppression such as he had never known fell upon Kendric. Nor was
the depressing emotion an emanation alone of his growing dread on
Betty's account; the atmosphere of the place through which he moved
began to weigh him down, to crush the spirit within him. They left the
treasure chamber which was six times doubly locked after them. They
went through the ancient empty rooms and out into the gardens.
Kendric, looking up, saw the small ragged patch of sky and felt as
though upon his own soul, stifling him, rested the weight of the hollow
mountain. To him who loved the fresh, wind-swept world, the open sea
with its smell of clean salt air, the wide deserts where the sunshine
lay everywhere, this pleasure grove of a long dead royalty was become
musty, foul, permeated w