Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/227

Rh of the two wings. At the entrance to the north wing, the main stairs sprang upward in the graceful sweep of southern Colonial architecture; while, opposite, the hall of the south wing was blocked part way down by a heavy wall with but one flat-topped opening.

"A fire wall, Mr. Trant, and automatic closing fire doors," Pierce explained, as they passed through them. "This portion of the south wing, which we call the museum wing, is a late addition, absolutely fireproof."

"It was from the top of the main stairs, if I have understood you correctly," Trant glanced back as he passed through the doorway, "that the women heard the screams. But this stair," he pointed to a narrow flight of steps which wound upward from a little anteroom beyond the flat-topped opening, "this is certainly not what you called the back stairs. Where does this lead?"

"To the second floor of the museum wing, Mr. Trant."

"Ah! Where Miss Pierce, and," he paused reflectively, "the colored nurse have their bedrooms."

"Exactly."

They crossed the anteroom and entered the museum. A ceiling higher in the museum than in any other part of the house gave space for high, leaded, clear-glass windows. Under them, ranged on pedestals or fastened to the wall were original carvings or plaster casts of the grotesque gods of the Maya mythology; death's-heads symbolic of their cruel religion, and cabinets of stone and wooden implements and earthen vessels, though by far the greater number of the specimens were reproductions of hieroglyphic inscriptions,