a scarf across it, and back of the table three
steps leading up to a little platform on which were ranged two or
three mediocre statues of saints, once brilliant with blue and scarlet
and tinsel, but tarnished and dim from the years.

In the center was a painting, also dark and dim in which only a halo
was still discernible in the light of the candle, but the features of
the saint pictured there were shadowed and elusive.

For a moment she knelt on the lower step and bent her head because of
those remnants of a faith which was all she knew of earthly hope,--and
then she started to mount the steps.

"The curse of God shrivel you!" muttered Perez in cold fury--"come
down from there!"

Without heed to the threat, she moved the little statues to right or
left, and then lifted her hand, resting it on the wooden frame of the
painting.

"Call the Americano," she said without turning. "You will need a man,
but not a man of Altar. Another day may come when you, Ramon, may have
need of this house for hiding!"

Rotil strode to the door and motioned Kit to enter, then he closed
both doors and gave no heed to Perez, crouched there like a chained
coyote in a trap.

"Come down!" he said again. "You are in league with hell to know of
that. I never gave it to you! Come down! I meant to tell after he had
finished with Conrad--I mean to tell!"

"He waited too long, and spoke too much," she said to Rotil. "Keep
watch on him, and let the Americano give help here."

Kit mounted the step beside her, and at her gesture took hold of the
frame on one side. She found a wedge of wood at the other side and
drew it out. The loosened frame was lifted out by Kit and carried down
the three steps; it was a panel a little over two feet in width and
four in height.

"Set it aside, and watch Jose Perez while General Rotil looks within,"
she said evenly.

Rotil glanced at Perez scowling black hate at her, and then turned to
Jocasta who held out the candle.

"It is for you to see,--you and no other," she said. "You have saved a
woman he would have traded as a slave, and I give you more than a
slave's ransom."

He took the candle and his eyes suddenly flamed with exultation as her
meaning came to him.

"_Jocasta!_" he muttered as if scarce believing, and then he mounted
the step, halted an instant in the panel of shadow, and, holding the
candle over his head, he leaned forward and descended on the other
side of the wall.

"You damned sh