ide the large hallway, with guards
stunned by the shock, the way to the treasure chamber was absolutely
clear."

"There were sentries outside the building, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"Did they see any vehicle driving near the Treasury?"

"No, except the cab I spoke of, and the driver has accounted
satisfactorily for his time that night. The absence of any conveyance
is the strange part of it; and, moreover, the sentries, although pacing
outside the walls of this building, heard nothing of the concussion
beyond a low rumble, and those who thought of the matter at all imagined
an explosion had occurred in some distant part of the city."

"Then the outside doors in the large hall above were not blown open?"

"No; the officer reports that they were locked and bolted when he
examined them, which was some minutes, of course, after the disaster had
taken place; for he, the officer in charge, had been thrown down and
stunned, seemingly by the concussion of air which took place."

As Jennie walked down the corridor, she saw more and more of the
evidences of the convulsion. The thick iron-bound door lay where it had
fallen, and it had not been moved since it was lifted to get the two men
from under it. Its ponderous hinges were twisted as if they had been
made of glue, and its massive bolts were snapped across like bits of
glass. All along the corridor on the floor was a thick coating of dust
and _debris_, finely powdered, growing deeper and deeper until they came
to the entrance of the room. There was no window either in corridor or
chamber, and the way was lit by candles held by soldiers who accompanied
them. The scoria crunched under foot as they walked, and in the chamber
itself great heaps of dust, sand and plaster, all pulverized into minute
particles, lay in the corners of the room, piled up on one side higher
than a man's head. There seemed to be tons of this _debris_, and, as
Jennie looked up at the arched ceiling, resembling the roof of a vaulted
dungeon, she saw that the stone itself had been ground to fine dust with
the tremendous force of the blast.

"Where are the remnants of the treasure chest?" she asked.

The Director shook his head. "There are no remnants; not a vestige of it
is to be found."

"Of what was it made?"

"We used to have an old treasure chest here made of oak, bound with
iron; but some years ago, a new receptacle being needed, one was
especially built of hardened steel, constructed on the mod