into the heart of the place with the sound of falling water ever present. The way twisted to the left and then zigzagged. On the roof they marked the smut of ancient torches. It opened out at last into a chamber and there, standing about the walls, or piled up, as Lyman had said, "like cordwood," were hundreds of mummied bodies, shrunken, distorted, with wisps of black hair still clinging to their heads and teeth showing between shrivelled gums.
"Greetings, gents," said the irrepressible Larkin. "Which w'y to the treasure-chamber?"
There were three arched openings to this rudely vaulted morgue and Larkin, still in the lead, tried the centre one. But he backed out.
"Don't like the pattern of the linoleum they got in there," he said. "Skulls hall hover the bloomin' shop. I crunched 'em. Try hagain."
The opening to the right pitched sharply down and they followed it. It was getting distinctly hotter and the sweat began to pour off them.
"Oo was it said blankets?" queried Larkin who was the only one disposed to chatter. "We'll be needin' hice-bags soon." By now the noise of pouring water was so loud that they could barely hear him but there was no sign of it, no moisture on the rock.
"Look hout!" cried Larkin, suddenly. "We've come to the jumping-horf plyce."
The passage emerged on a ledge forming a gallery that seemed to run around a great space, the path vanishing in the darkness to left and right as they lined up by the side of Larkin and stood on the
