ame an interruption. This time it was from another
direction, but it was of the same character--an approaching band of
torch-bearers. They were Indians, too, but leading them were a number
of whites.

And at their head was no less personage than Professor Beecher himself.

For a moment, as the three parties stood together in the ancient
temple, in the glare of many torches, no one spoke. Then Professor
Bumper found his voice.

"We are glad to see you," he said to his rival. "That is glad to see
you alive, for we saw the landslide bury you. And we were coming to
dig you out. We thought this cave--the cave of the buried city--would
lead us to you easier than by digging through the slide. We have just
discovered this idol," and he put his hand on the grim golden image.

"Oh, you have discovered it, have you?" asked Professor Beecher, and
his voice was bitter.

"Yes, not ten minutes ago. The natives have kindly acknowledged my
right to it under the law of priority. I am sorry but----"

With a look of disgust and chagrined disappointment on his face,
Professor Beecher turned to the other scientists and said:

"Let us go. We are too late. He has what I came after."

"Well, it is the fortune of war--and discovery," put in Mr. Hardy, one
of the party who seemed the least ill-natured. "Your luck might have
been ours, Professor Bumper. I congratulate you."

"Thank you! Are you sure your party is all right--not in need of
assistance? How did you get out of the place you were buried?"

"Thank you! We do not require any help. It was good of you to think of
us. But we got out the way we came in. We did not enter the tunnel as
you did, but came in through another entrance which was not closed by
the landslide. Then we made a turn through a gateway in a tunnel
connecting with ours--a gateway which seems to have been opened by the
earthquake--and we came here, just now.

"Too late, I see, to claim the discovery of the idol of gold," went on
Mr. Hardy. "But I trust you will be generous, and allow us to make
observations of the buildings and other relics."

"As much as you please, and with the greatest pleasure in the world,"
was the prompt answer of Professor Bumper. "All I lay sole claim to is
the golden idol. You are at liberty to take whatever else you find in
Kurzon and to make what observations you like."

"That is generous of you, and quite in contrast to--er--to the conduct
of our leader. I tru