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orrying uncle Phaeton, and already through his busy brain were flashing horrid pictures of punishment and sacrifice, of hideous scenes of torture, wherein the eldest son of his dead sister played a prominent role, perforce. He dared not trust his tongue to make answer, just then, and sent the aeromotor onward at top speed, leaning far forward to win the earliest glimpse of--what? He caught sight of blazing beacons fairly encircling the Lost City, forming a cordon through which no stranger could hope to pass unseen. He beheld hundreds of armed shapes rushing to and fro, plainly looking for some intruder or other enemy, yet almost as certainly failing as yet to make the longed-for discovery. Not until that moment had uncle Phaeton dared indulge in even the shadow of a hope. The awful alarm seemed proof conclusive that poor Bruno had been taken, through the treachery of Ixtli. Naturally enough, that was his first belief, but now, as the air-ship slackened pace to circle more deliberately above the valley, all eyes on the eager watch for either Bruno or something to hint at his fate, Professor Featherwit lost a portion of that conviction. If Bruno had indeed fallen victim to misplaced confidence, and had been craftily lured into this den of ravening wild beasts, why all this confusion and mad skurry? Why had not the traitor first made sure of his victim? Why such a general alarm? Although such haste in getting afloat had been made, some little time had been thus consumed, and, before the aerostat was fairly above the Lost City, Bruno and Ixtli had dropped by stages down the shadowed side of the Temple of the Sun God, to burrow underneath the ground as their surest method of eluding pursuit. Only for that, the end might have been different, for, once sighted, Gillespie would have been rescued by his friends, or those friends would surely have shared death with him. And so it came to pass that, circle though they might, calling ears to supplement their eyes, swooping perilously low down in their fierce eagerness to sight their imperilled one, never a glimpse of the young man could they obtain, nor even a definite hint as to where next to look for him. "Surely they cannot have captured Bruno, as yet?" huskily muttered uncle Phaeton, hungrily straining his eyes without reward. "If the poor boy had actually fallen into such evil hands, why such crazy confusion? Why--oh, why did I permit his coaxings to overpo
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