the president muttered.

"Did you suppose you carried actual coin in those bags?"

"Yes--gold and some silver."

"Had you counted it?"

"I left the checking up to the cashier."

"Where do you think your cashier is, right now?"

Britt flapped his hands, helplessly confessing that he did not know.

In all the room there was a profound hush. The crowd had been straining
aural nerves, trying to hear what was being said by the men in
authority.

Nobody had been paying any attention to Prophet Elias, who had been
crawling like a torpid caterpillar. For some moments he had been rigidly
motionless in one spot. He was leaning against the front of the vault,
his ear closely pressed to the crevice at the base of the door.

He straightened up on his knees and shouted in such stentorian tones
that all in the room jerked their muscles in sudden fright. "Swine!
Fools!"

They gaped at him.

"Whilst you're shouting amongst your trash a man is dying on the other
side of the door!"

Vona leaped from her chair. She shrieked. She ran to the door and beat
her fists against the steel, futilely and furiously.

"In there lies your money-changer, I tell you, Pharaoh, lord of Egypt,"
the Prophet shouted. "I hear his groans!"

Britt and Starr rushed to the vault and both of them strove clumsily and
ineffectually with the mechanism, giving up their attempts after a few
moments.

"It's no use!" Britt gulped. "The time lock must be on."

"Oh, for the rod of Moses and the ancient faith that smote the rock in
twain!" pleaded the Prophet.

"We'd better use rendrock, seeing that we can't depend on a miracle,"
called a practical citizen from behind the grille.

"Get sledge hammers and chisels," shouted somebody else, and there
followed a surging of the throng, indicating that concerted action was
following the suggestion.

The face of the president was twisted by grimaces which resembled
spasms. "Wait! Wait a moment! There may be a way!" he called, chokingly.
"Let me out through there!"

Then Vona gave over her insane efforts to pry open the vault door with
her finger nails. She ran out past Starr, who stopped to lock the grille
door. The examiner was too much taken up by other matters to bother with
the Prophet, who held to his place at the vault door and was intently
scrutinizing something which he found of interest.

Vona forced herself through the press, in company with Starr, and was at
Britt's elbow when he unlocked his