ry uttered a hoarse cry of exultation.
The next instant we were dashing headlong down the steps, avoiding a
fall by I know not what miracle. And there before us was the entrance
to the tunnel.

I held Harry back, almost shouting: "You stay here; guard the entrance.
I'll get her."

"No," he cried, pushing forward. "I can't stay."

"Fool!" I cried, dashing him back. "We would be caught like rats in a
trap. Defend that entrance--with your life!"

I saw him hesitate, and, knowing that he would obey, I dashed forward
into the tunnel. When nearly to its end I made a misstep on the uneven
ground and precipitated myself against the wall. A sharp pain shot
through my left shoulder, but at the time I was scarcely conscious of
it as I picked myself up and leaped forward. The end was in sight.

Just as I reached the foot of the spiral stairway I saw a black form
descending from it. That Inca never knew what hit him. I did not use
my spear; time was too precious. He disappeared in the whirlpool
beneath the base of the column through which Harry and I had once
miraculously escaped.

But despair filled my heart as, with my feet on the first step of the
spiral stairway, I cast a quick glance upward. The upper half of the
inside of the column was a raging furnace of fire. How or from what it
came I did not stop to inquire; I bounded up the stairway in desperate
fury.

I did not know then that the stone steps were baking and blistering my
feet; I did not know, as I came level with the base of the flames, that
every hair was being singed from my head and body--I only knew that I
must reach the top of the column.

Then I saw the source of the flames as I reached them. Huge vats of
oil--six, a dozen, twenty--I know not how many--were ranged in a circle
on a ledge of stone encircling the column, and from their tops the fire
leaped upward to a great height. I saw what must be done; how I did it
God only knows; I shut my eyes now as I remember it.

Hooking the rim of the vat nearest me with the point of my spear, I
sent it tumbling down the length of the column into the whirlpool, many
feet below. Then another, and another, and another, until the ledge
was empty.

Some of the burning oil, flying from the overturned vats, alighted on
the stairway, casting weird patches of light up and down the whole
length of the column. Some of it landed on my body, my face, my hands.
It was a very hell of heat; my lungs, all the i