He
died," she said solemnly, flashing a glance at Craig from her
wonderful eyes to stamp the idea indelibly. "He was stabbed by one
of the members of the tribe. On the dagger, so I have heard, was
marked the secret of the treasure."
I felt that in a bygone age she might have made a great priestess
of the heathen gods. Now, was she more than a clever actress?
She paused, then added, "That is my tribe--my family."
Again she paused. "For centuries the big fish was a secret, is
still a secret--or, at least, was until some one got it from my
brother down in Peru. The tradition and the dagger had been
intrusted to him. I don't know how it happened. Somehow he seemed
to grow crazy--until he talked. The dagger was stolen from him.
How it happened, how it came into Professor Norton's hands, I do
not know.
"But, at any rate," she continued, in the same solemn tone, "the
curse has followed it. After my brother had told the secret of the
dagger and lost it, his mind left him. He threw himself one day
into Lake Titicaca."
Her voice broke dramatically in her passionate outpouring of the
tragedies that had followed the hidden treasure and the Inca
dagger.
"Now, here in New York, comes this awful death of Senor Mendoza,"
she cried.
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