Which way shall
we turn?"
Senora de Moche seemed to take a fiendish delight in the words as
she said them. It was as though she challenged our helplessness in
the face of a power that was greater than us all.
Lockwood flashed a look of suspicion in her direction. As for
myself, I had never been able to make the woman out. To-night she
seemed like a sort of dea ex machina, who sat apart, playing on
the passions of a group of puppet men whom she set against each
other until all should be involved in a common ruin.
It was impossible, in the silence of this far-off lonely place in
the country, not to feel the weirdness of it all.
Once I closed my eyes and was startled by the uncanny vividness of
a mind-picture that came unbidden. It was of a scrap of paper on
which, in rough capitals was printed:
BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE GODS.
XXIII
THE ACETYLENE TORCH
Do you suppose he really had the dagger, or was that a lie?" I
asked, with an effort shaking off the fateful feeling that had
come over me as if some one were casting a spell.
"There is one way to find out," returned Craig, as though glad of
the suggestion.
Though they hated him, they seemed forced to admit, for the time,
his leadership.
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