the room, but I had not gone more than half way when my legs
bent under me and I sank to the floor. Dimly I saw Harry's face above
me, as though through a veil--then another face that came close to my
own--and a voice:

"Paul! My love! They have killed him!"

Soft white arms were about my neck, and a velvet cheek was pressed
against my own.

"Desiree!" I gasped. "Don't! Harry! No, they have not killed me--"

Then Harry's voice:

"That's all right, old fellow. I know--I have known she loves you.
This is no time to talk of that. Listen, Paul--what you were going to
do for Desiree--if you can--they will be back at any moment--"

That thought kindled my brain; I raised myself onto my elbow.

"I haven't the strength," I said, hardly knowing how I spoke. "You
must do it, Harry; you must. And quick, lad! The dagger!
Desiree--the dagger!"

What followed came to me as in a dream; my eyes were dim with the
exhaustion that had overcome my body. Desiree's face disappeared from
before my face--then a silence--then the sound of her voice as though
from a distance:

"Harry--come! I can't find it! I dropped it when I ran across--it
must be here--on the floor--"

And then another sound came that I knew only too well--the sound of
rushing, pattering feet.

I think I tried to rise to my own feet. I heard Harry's voice crying
in a frenzy: "Quick--here they come! Desiree, where is it?"

There was a ringing cry of despair from Desiree, a swinging oath from
Harry, and the next instant I found myself pinned to the floor by the
weight of a score of bodies.

Chapter XIII.

INTO THE WHIRLPOOL.

I hardly know what happened after that. I was barely conscious that
there was movement round me, and that my wrists and ankles were being
tightly bound. Harry told me afterward that he made one last desperate
stand, and was halted by a cry from Desiree, imploring him to employ
the club in the intended office of the dagger.

He wheeled about and raised it to strike; then his arm dropped, unable
to obey for the brutal horror of it. In another instant he and
Desiree, too, had been overpowered and carried to the floor by the
savage rush.

This he told me as we lay side by side in a dark cavern, whither we had
been carried by the victorious Incas. I had expected instant death;
the fact that our lives had been spared could have but one meaning, I
thought: to the revenge of death was to be added the vindictiveness of