She half screamed.… They also had risen, pacing slowly toward the doors.
It could not be! They could not be deserting her! But they were going away like the others, without looking in her direction. No, she must not scream … she must wait patiently … wait for a sign. Still walking slowly, three of them had gone to the three doors, but the fourth, Dick, turned suddenly, his finger on his lips.
Forgetting Huascar's words, Maria-Teresa half rose in her seat. There was a revolver in Dick's fist now, and her father had vanished through one of the doors, looking to make sure that the courtyard was deserted. Then his voice gave the signal:—"Recuerda!" (Remember!) Dick dashed up the porphyry steps, Don Christobal following, while the two others remained at the doors.
"Come, Maria-Teresa! Quick!"
Dick stretched out his hands to take little Christobal, and Maria-Teresa had risen, when a terrible whistling sound filled the hall, and the two prisoners, shrieking, were hurled back into the seat by the monstrous folds of a huge serpent which seemed to spring into life about them, binding them down to the throne of Death. The serpent of the House of the Serpent had come to claim his prey.
Raising his revolver, Dick thundered at the
