“Courage!” I breathed.  “We are near the end.”

She stopped short and sank to the ground.

“It is useless,” she gasped.  “I hurt my ankle when I fell.  I can go no farther.  Leave me!”

Harry and I with one impulse stooped over to pick her up, and as we did so she fainted away in our arms.  We were then but a few hundred feet from our goal; the light from the urns could be plainly seen gleaming on the broad ledge by the lake.

Suddenly the sound of many footsteps came from behind.  I turned quickly, but the passage was too dark.  I could see nothing.  The sound came closer and closer; there seemed to be many of them, advancing swiftly.  I straightened and raised my spear.

Harry grasped my arm.

“Not yet!” he cried.  “One more try; we can make it.”

He thrust his spear into my hand, and in another instant had thrown Desiree’s unconscious body over his shoulder and was staggering forward toward the cavern.  I followed, while the sound of the footsteps behind grew louder and louder.

We neared the end of the passage; we reached it; we were on the ledge.  Even with Desiree for a burden, Harry moved so swiftly that I found it difficult to keep up with him.  The strength of a god was in him, which was but just, since he had his goddess in his arms.

On the ledge, near the edge of the water, stood two Incas.  They turned at our approach and rushed at us.  Unlucky for them, for Harry’s example had fired my brain and put the strength of a giant in me.

To this day I don’t know what followed—­whether I used my spear or my fists or my head.  I know only that I leaped at them in irresistible fury and left them stretched on the ground before they had reached Harry or halted him.

We crossed the ledge and made for the boulders to the left.  The crevice which led to our hiding-place was too narrow for Harry and his burden.  I sprang forward and grasped Desiree’s shoulders; he held her ankles, and we got her through to the ledge beyond.

Then I leaped back through the crevice, and barely in time.  As I looked out a black, rushing horde emerged from the passage and dashed across the ledge toward us.  I stood at the entrance to the narrow crevice, spear in hand.

They appeared to have no sense of the fact that my position was impregnable, but dashed blindly at me.  The crevice in which I stood and which was the only way through to the ledge where Harry had taken Desiree, was not more than two feet wide.  With unarmed savages for foes, one man could have held it against a million.

But they came and I met them.  I stood within the crevice, some three or four feet from its end, and when one appeared in the opening I let him have the spear.  Another rushed in and fell on top of the first.

As I say, they appeared to be deprived of the power to reason.  In five minutes the mouth of the crevice was completely choked with bodies, some, who were merely wounded, struggling and squirming to extricate themselves from the bloody tangle.