ould make
them. When I found you were in Amapala and they said you had struck
'buried treasure'--the rest was easy."

Monica heard the voice of her brother answer with a laugh.

"Easy?" he mocked. "There's no extradition. You can't touch me.
You're lucky if you get out of here alive. I've only to raise my
voice--"

"And, I'll kill you!"

This was danger Monica could understand.

Freed from the nightmare of doubt, with a cry she ran forward. She saw
Peabody, his back against a wall, a levelled automatic in his hand; her
brother at the entrance to a tunnel like the one from which she had
just appeared. His arms were raised above his head. At his feet lay a
revolver. For an instant, with disbelief, he stared at Monica, and
then, as though assured that it was she, his eyes dilated. In them
were fear and horror. So genuine was the agony in the face of the
counterfeiter that Everett, who had followed, turned his own away. But
the eyes of the brother and sister remained fixed upon each other,
hers, appealingly; his, with despair. He tried to speak, but the words
did not come. When he did break the silence his tone was singularly
wistful, most tenderly kind.

"Did you hear?" he asked.

Monica slowly bowed her head. With the same note of gentleness her
brother persisted:

"Did you understand?"

Between them stretched the cobweb of strings hung with yellow
certificates; each calling for five hundred dollars, payable in gold.
Stirred by the night air from the open tunnels, they fluttered and
flaunted.

Against the sight of them, Monica closed her eyes. Heavily, as though
with a great physical effort, again she bowed her head.

The eyes of her brother searched about him wildly. They rested on the
mouth of the tunnel.

With his lowered arm he pointed.

"Who is that?" he cried.

Instinctively the others turned.

It was for an instant. The instant sufficed.

Monica saw her brother throw himself upon the floor, felt herself flung
aside as Everett and the detective leaped upon him; saw her brother
press his hands against his heart, the two men dragging at his arms.

The cavelike room was shaken with a report, an acrid smoke assailed her
nostrils. The men ceased struggling. Her brother lay still.

Monica sprang toward the body, but a black wave rose and submerged her.
As she fainted, to save herself she threw out her arms, and as she fell
she dragged down with her the buried treasure of Cobre.