ound among these instruments, manufactured I know not what number of
thousands of years ago--for on that point controversy rages among the
learned--many that with modifications are still in use to-day.

Of that strange and dreadful sepulchre there is little more to tell.
From monarch to monarch we marched on till at length we grew weary of
staring at bones and gold. Even Quick grew weary, who had passed his
early youth in assisting his father, the parish sexton, and therefore,
like myself, regarded these relics with professional interest, though of
a different degree. At any rate, he remarked that this family vault was
uncommonly hot, and perhaps, if it pleased her Majesty, as he called
Maqueda, we might take the rest of the deceased gentlemen as read, like
a recruit's attestation questions.

But just then we came to No. 25, according to my counting, and were
obliged to stop to wonder, for clearly this king had been the greatest
of them all, since round him lay about two or three times the average
number of dead, and an enormous quantity of wealth, some of it in the
form of little statues of men and women, or perhaps of gods. Yet, oddly
enough, he was hunchback with a huge skull, almost a monstrosity indeed.
Perhaps his mind partook of the abnormal qualities of his body, since no
less than eleven little children had been sacrificed at his obsequies,
two of whom, judging from their crooked bones, must have been his own.

One wonders what chanced in Mur and the surrounding territories which
then acknowledged its sway when King Hunchback ruled. Alas! history
writes no record.

CHAPTER X

QUICK LIGHTS A MATCH

"Here we begin to turn, for this cave is a great circle," said Maqueda
over her shoulder.

But Oliver, whom she addressed, had left her side and was engaged
in taking observations behind the hunchback's funeral chair with an
instrument which he had produced from his pocket.

She followed him and asked curiously what this thing might be, and why
he made use of it here.

"We call it a compass," he answered, "and it tells me that beyond us
lies the east, where the sun rises; also it shows at what height we
stand above the sea, that great water which you have never seen, O Child
of Kings. Say now, if we could walk through this rock, what should we
find out yonder?"

"The lion-headed idol of the Fung, I have been told," she answered.
"That which you saw before you blew up the gate of the city Harmac. But
h