Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/298

284 There was a terrible straggle between the two, and Dick, triumphant, whirled the tool oyer his head at another tomb, while Orellana, by the last effort of his life, tore the second stone from its socket, drew the dead body of his daughter to him and covered it with kisses and tears. Old madman and dead girl fell to the floor together.

Orellana was dead, but he had found his daughter.

Dick saw and heard nothing. Another tomb open … and another dead Coya of long ago.… The gods of the Temple of Death were ready to give up their dead, but not the living bride….

Crying, calling, driving his nails into his bleeding palms; ready to offer himself up to the ferocious spirit that guarded those tombs, Dick staggered, fell, and got up again, dragging behind him the pick, which he no longer knew where to use, striving to reason and understand.

There was nothing here to help him! His eyes wandered hopelessly round the circular temple, trying to find a guiding point Nothing! Perhaps chance would give him what his reasoning had failed to secure…. Yes, that was it … why not try here?… It might be this tomb as well as any other…. He set to work again, but heavily … oh, so heavily … and the pick weighed down his hands terribly.…