Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/66

52 you have kissed it, it shall never leave me.... Good night"

She disappeared into her room, and the young engineer had turned toward his when a shriek was heard, and Maria-Teresa rushed to the landing, in a panic of fear. "They are in there! They are in there!" she gasped, her teeth chattering.

"What? What? ... what is the matter?"

"The three living skulls!"

"Maria-Teresa!"

"I tell you they are! All three of them, staring in through the window!... They looked at me with such eyes ... horrible, living eyes.... No, no!... Dick!... Don't go in!"

Taking the light from her trembling hand, Dick went into the room. There was nothing to be seen. He crossed to the balcony, and threw open the French windows: on one side was the sea, on the other a panorama over the flat country and the Inca burial-ground. Everything was perfectly normal.

"Come, dear.... You must have imagined...."

"Dick, I tell you I saw them!"

"What did you see?"

"There, on the balcony, staring through the panes.... Those three Inca chiefs with their hideous heads."