Huascar raised his hand, and the temple began to empty in silence. There was not a song, not a murmur, only the slip of innumerable sandals on the stone slabs of the floor. Huascar and his priests, the nobles, young men, virgins, curacas and mammaconas crossed the threshold of the golden doors.

Huayna Capac Runtu had descended from his throne and taken his seat beside the dead King, on the seat left vacant by Maria-Teresa; the Red Ponchos lifted the two monarchs, the dead, and the living, to their shoulders, and in their turn vanished into the Corridor of Night.

There remained in the hall only the Guardians of the Temple and the ashes of the first victims.

Hardly had the three gnomes closed the doors to carry out their horrible duties in peace than a shadow rose up before them. Squeaking with terror, they fled into the Chapel of the Moon, but vengeance followed them there, and it was at the foot of its altar that they were shot down like loathsome beasts. White as Maria-Teresa had been, but icy-cool in the moment of action, Dick fired only one shot into each hideous skull.

Then he turned and ran into the temple, where Orellana was already raining blows on the tomb with his pick. Dick wrenched the tool from his hands, and set to work. But the stones did not move. His forehead covered with icy perspiration, he forced himself to think, to reason, trying to forget Maria-Teresa in her tomb and bring his engineer’s knowledge to bear on the problem. Those stones could not be very heavy. Orellana and he could lift them easily if the three dwarfs could. They were evidently made light so that they could be readily removed by the priests at certain ceremonies. But what, was their secret? What was their secret?

Quelling the moral storm that would have sent him raging impotently against this rampart, he compelled ............