d have to be destroyed--destroyed by him! It
was too hideous: it was unbelievable, unthinkable! If he had been
filled with apprehension before, he was doubly perturbed now.

"I don't believe I could do it, Bertha," he said.

"Not even to save me from something worse?" she asked.

He shook his head dismally. "I could never do it," he replied.

The street that they were following suddenly opened upon a wide
avenue, and before them spread a broad and beautiful lagoon, the
quiet surface of which mirrored the clear cerulean of the sky. Here
the aspect of all their surroundings changed. The buildings were
higher and much more pretentious in design and ornamentation.
The street itself was paved in mosaics of barbaric but stunningly
beautiful design. In the ornamentation of the buildings there was
considerable color and a great deal of what appeared to be gold
leaf. In all the decorations there was utilized in various ways the
conventional figure of the parrot, and, to a lesser extent, that
of the lion and the monkey.

Their captors led them along the pavement beside the lagoon for a
short distance and then through an arched doorway into one of the
buildings facing the avenue. Here, directly within the entrance
was a large room furnished with massive benches and tables, many of
which were elaborately hand carved with the figures of the inevitable
parrot, the lion, or the monkey, the parrot always predominating.

Behind one of the tables sat a man who differed in no way that the
captives could discover from those who accompanied them. Before
this person the party halted, and one of the men who had brought
them made what seemed to be an oral report. Whether they were
before a judge, a military officer, or a civil dignitary they could
not know, but evidently he was a man of authority, for, after
listening to whatever recital was being made to him the while
he closely scrutinized the two captives, he made a single futile
attempt to converse with them and then issued some curt orders to
him who had made the report.

Almost immediately two of the men approached Bertha Kircher and
signaled her to accompany them. Smith-Oldwick started to follow her
but was intercepted by one of their guards. The girl stopped then
and turned back, at the same time looking at the man at the table
and making signs with her hands, indicating, as best she could,
that she wished Smith-Oldwick to remain with her, but the fellow
only shook his head