to have lost
consciousness of it. He was striking fresh matches; he stooped and
picked up something at his foot; a little gasp broke from him. He
tossed it down, caught up something else.

"Gold!" he muttered. "Gold everywhere!"

Zoraida looked about her, seeming unmoved. Her eyes followed Rios
contemptuously, roved away about the room, tarried only briefly with
the heaped-up treasure, sped to Kendric and to Betty.

"You are fools, fools!" she taunted them. "All thanks, Senor Kendric,
for having led me straight to that for which I have been looking all my
life."

Rios had come back to her side, both hands full.

"Zoraida," he said swiftly, "let us talk reason as the American says.
We have this!" He held up his hands; his eyes gloated. "Let them have
their lives and go, so that they take nothing in their hands. Look at
this! Here----"

His words trailed off abruptly in a scream of terror. He had moved
only a trifle as he spoke, he had taken a step backward between the two
high heaps of treasure where the pit was. He was falling--he threw out
his arms, clutching wildly. In a flash he was gone from sight. But
not alone. For his hand, seeking to save him, had caught at Zoraida
and she was snatched back, overbalanced, drawn down with him. Her
scream rose above his cry of terror. Both vanished and Jim and Betty
stood alone, looking into each other's wide eyes.

"Do you think--they are dead?" faltered the girl.

They went to the hole and looked down. The view which Kendric had seen
before slowly disentangled itself from the darkness. They saw nothing
of those who had fallen.

"It would mean the short fall here," said Kendric musingly, "the steep
slide and no doubt another drop at the end. We wouldn't be able to see
them at first. But someway, I don't believe they are dead!"

He did not explain then; it would take too long and they had their own
salvation to work out. But here was his thought: Zoraida had dropped
back into the gardens of the golden king. He did not believe she would
be able to climb up this way again. And he did not believe that she
would have with her the many keys needed to open the way she knew. It
impressed him that here might be the judgment of a just God--Zoraida
immured for all time in the heart of ancient Mexico. Zoraida with her
priests and young men and children whom her stern decree had imprisoned
here. Zoraida and Ruiz Rios together in the place of hidden tre