ough we did not mean to use them,
for a miss would have meant an alarm.

"If she is alone!" I was saying within myself, almost a prayer, when
suddenly one of the Incas turned, facing us squarely, and gave a start
of surprise. We leaped forward.

Half a dozen bounds and we were upon them, before they had had time to
realize their danger or move to escape it. With a ferocity taught us
by the Incas themselves we gripped their throats and bore them to the
floor.

No time then for the decencies; we had work to do, and we crushed and
pounded their lives out against the stone floor. There had not been a
sound. They quivered and lay still; and then, looking up at some
slight sound in the doorway, we saw Desiree.

She stood in the doorway, regarding us with an expression of terror
that I did not at first understand; then suddenly I realized that,
having seen us disappear beneath the surface of the take after our dive
from the column, she had thought us dead.

"Bon Dieu!" she exclaimed in a hollow voice of horror. "This, too! Do
you come, messieurs?"

"For you," I answered. "We are flesh and bone, Desiree, though in ill
repair. We have come for you."

"Paul! Harry, is it really you?"

Belief crept into her eyes, but nothing more, and she stood gazing at
us curiously. Harry had sprung to her side; she did not move as he
embraced her.

"Are you alone?"

"Yes."

"Good. Here, Harry--quick! Help me. Stand aside, Desiree."

We carried the bodies of the two Incas within the room and deposited
them in a corner. Then I ran and brought the spears, which we had
dropped when we attacked the Incas. Desiree stood just within the
doorway, seemingly half dazed.

"Come," I said; "there is no time to be lost. Come!"

"Where?" She did not move.

"With us. Isn't that enough? Do you want to stay here?"

She shuddered violently.

"You don't know--what has happened. I want to die. Where are you
going to take me?"

"Desiree," Harry burst out, "for Heaven's sake, come! Must we carry
you?"

He grasped her arm.

Then she moved and appeared to acquiesce. I started ahead; Harry
brought up the rear, with an arm round Desiree's shoulders. She
started once more to speak, but I wheeled sharply with a command for
silence, and she obeyed.

We reached the turn in the corridor and passed to the right, moving as
swiftly and noiselessly as possible. Ahead of us was the light from
the doorway of the room in which w