tarted around that turn.

Then Inspector Campbell acted. He whirled as though on a pivot, the
heel-knife flashing toward the men behind them.

Shots coughed from the pistols that were pressed almost against his
stomach. His body jerked as the bullets struck it, yet he remained
erect, his knife stabbing with lightning rapidity.

One of the hooded men slumped down with a pierced throat, and as
Campbell sprang at the other, Ennis desperately launched himself at
Chandra Dass. He bore the Hindoo from his feet, but it was as though he
was fighting a demon. Inside his gray robe, Chandra Dass writhed with
fiendish strength.

Ennis could not hold him, the Hindoo's body seeming of spring-steel. He
rolled over, dashed the young American to the floor, and leaped up, his
dark face and great black eyes blazing.

Then, half-way erect, he suddenly crumpled, the fire in his eyes
dulling, a call for help smothered on his lips. He fell on his face, and
Ennis saw that the heel-knife was stuck in his back. Inspector Campbell
jerked it out, and put it back into his shoe. And now Ennis, staggering
up, saw that Campbell had knifed the two hooded guards and that they lay
in a dead heap.

"Campbell!" cried the American, gripping the detective's arm. "They've
wounded you--I saw them shoot you."

Campbell's bruised face grinned briefly. "Nothing of the kind," he said,
and tapped the soiled gray vest he wore beneath his coat. "Chandra Dass
didn't know this vest is bullet-proof."

He darted an alert glance up and down the lighted tunnel. "We can't stay
here or let these bodies lie here. They may be discovered at any
moment."

"Listen!" said Ennis, turning.

The chanting from ahead swelled down the tunnel, louder than at any time
yet, waxing and waxing, reaching a triumphant crescendo, then again
dying away.

"Campbell, they're going on with the ceremony now!" Ennis cried. "Ruth!"

The detective's desperate glance fastened on the dark mouth of one of
the branching tunnels, a little ahead.

"That side tunnel--we'll pull the bodies in there!" he exclaimed.

Taking the pistols of the dead men for themselves, they rapidly dragged
the three bodies into the darkness of the unlit branching tunnel.

"Quick, on with two of these robes," rasped Inspector Campbell. "They'll
give us a little better chance."

Hastily Ennis jerked the gray robe and hood from Chandra Dass' dead body
and donned it, while Campbell struggled into one of the others.