so in order that she may
not be discovered, and the moment that you lift a hand against us will
be the beginning of her doom. And now I must leave you for a while,
for something passes in the temple which I desire to see. If she awakes
before I return, be careful not to frighten her. Farewell!"

Then Soa went taking the priests with her, and the massive timber door
was closed upon them.

After he had restored his various belongings to his pockets, the
revolver and the knife which had been removed excepted, Leonard turned
down the rug and looked at Juanna, who appeared to be plunged in a deep
and happy sleep, for there was a smile upon her face. Next he examined
the place where they were confined. It had two doors, that by which they
had entered and a second of equal solidity. The only other opening was
the slit out of which Soa had dropped the poison. It was shaped like an
inverted loophole, the narrow end facing inward. This aperture attracted
Leonard's attention, both on account of its unusual form and because
of the sounds that reached him through it. Of these, the first and
most pervading was a noise of rushing water. Then after a while he
distinguished a roar as of a multitude shouting, that was repeated again
and again at intervals. Now he knew where they must be. They were hidden
away in the rock of the temple, somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood
of the raging pool that lay in front of the colossus, and these sounds
which he heard were the clamour of the people who watched the fate of
Otter and Francisco.

This conviction was terrible enough, but had he known that, as it
entered his mind, the body of his friend the priest was travelling on
its last journey within four feet of his eyes, Leonard might have been
even more prostrated than he was.

For an hour or more the shouting continued, then followed a silence
broken only by the everlasting murmur of the waters without.

When Soa departed she had left a fragment of dip made of goat-fat
burning upon the floor, but very soon this expired, leaving them in
darkness. Now, however, light began to flow into the dungeon through the
slit in the rock, and it seemed to Leonard that the character of this
light was clearer than that to which they had been accustomed in this
gloomy land.

After a while Leonard sat down upon a stool, which he placed close to
Juanna's bed, just where the beam of light pierced the shadows,
and groaned aloud in the bitterness of his he