s that looked as though they had
served as coins. Never had he seen so much gold before.

"You are rich here, Lady," he said, gazing at the piles astonished.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Yes, as I have heard that some people count
wealth. These are the offerings brought to our gods from the beginning;
also all the gold found in the mountains belongs to the gods, and there
is much of it there. The gift I sent to you was taken from this heap,
but in truth it is but a poor gift, seeing that although this stuff is
bright and serves for cups and other things, it has no use at all and
is only offered to the gods because it is harder to come by than other
metals. Look, these are prettier than the gold," and from a stone table
she picked up at hazard a long necklace of large, uncut stones, red and
white in colour and set alternatively, that Alan judged to be crystals
and spinels.

"Take it," she said, "and examine it at your leisure. It is very old.
For hundreds of years no more of these necklaces have been made," and
with a careless movement she threw the chain over his head so that it
hung upon his shoulders.

Alan thanked her, then remembered that the man called Mungana, who was
the husband, real or official, of this priestess, had been somewhat
similarly adorned, and shivered a little as though at a presage of
advancing fate. Still he did not return the thing, fearing lest he
should give offence.

At this moment his attention was taken from the treasure by the sound
of a groan behind him. Turning round he perceived Jeekie, his great eyes
rolling as though in an extremity of fear.

"Oh my golly! Major," he ejaculated, pointing to the wall, "look there."

Alan looked, but at first in that dim light could only discover long
rows of gleaming objects which reached from the floor to the roof.

"Come and see," said the Asika, and taking a lamp from that table on
which lay the gems, she led him past the piles of gold to one side of
the vault or hall. Then he saw, and although he did not show it, like
Jeekie he was afraid.

For there, each in his own niche and standing one above the other, were
what looked like hundreds of golden men with gleaming eyes. At first
until the utter stillness undeceived him, he thought that they _must_ be
men. Then he understood that this was what they had been; now they were
corpses wrapped in sheets of thin gold and wearing golden masks with
eyes of crystal, each mask being beaten out to a h