Part 29 (1/2)

He resuht of the door--I was on the left

The stone appeared to be going faster It reached the top--passed it--and quickly swung in toward the wall and disappeared, probably to rest on a ledge above

We stood waiting, tense and alert The open doorway gaped on the black, ele urn shone di, no indication that any one was in the passage, but we dared not look out in that darkness The suspense was trying enough; Harry ripped out an ih to step in the entrance, but I waved him back

Then cah overwhel forely at us After so many weary days of dull inaction and helpless, hopeless apathy, a mad joy fired h and struck a blow for freedom and life

That blow crushed the skull of one whose fingers were atatthe club; another swayed, toppling against the doorway and leaning there with the blood strea from his broken head, quite dead, but held erect by the pressure of his fellows from behind

If the doorway had been but a foot wider ould have been overwhelet to us at once, and they found the gold which their ancestors had carried fro for theth of a hundred arh it had been a feather, and with deadly accuracy

Harry fought like a demon I think I did all that a ht down et my man

But the i of a Maxirasp the throat of one who had his teeth set in ht before hiain, his club descended on one black skull with a glancing blow and shot off to the head of another with the force of a sledge-has; it was all one writhing, struggling, bloody horror; but afterward the eyes of memory showed thely without order from the brain; I was not conscious that itof tiht down that bar of gold on thick, black skulls and distorted, grinning faces But they would not disappear One fell; another took his place; and another, and another, and another

The bodies of those who fell were dragged away from underneath I did not see it, but it must have been so, or soon ould have raised our own barricade for defense--a barricade of flesh And there was none

I began to weaken, and Harry saw it, for he gasped out: ”Steady--Paul

Take it--easy They can't--last--forever”

His bloere redoubled in fury as hemore than his share of the attack, so that I almost had tier My brain hirlinground I kept h the force of soone

And then, for an instant, Harry's eyes met mine, and I read in them what neither of us could say, nor would With the fury of despair we struck out together in one last effort

Whether the Incas saw in that effort a renewed strength that spoke of immortality, or whether it happened just at that er forcing them to their death, I do not know It may have been that, like soh

From whatever cause, the attack ceased alun; they fell back froed forith raised club, and the forms melted away into the darkness of the corridor

Harry turned and looked atfroether we staggered back across the roos bent under me and I sank to the floor Dih a veil--then another face that came close to my own--and a voice:

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

Soft white arainst asped ”Don't! Harry! No, they have not killed ht, old fellow I know--I have known she loves you

This is no ti to do for Desiree--if you can--they will be back at any ht kindled my brain; I raised th,” I said, hardly knowing how I spoke ”You er!