Another white object fluttered down from above with a chattering that floated away amid the tree-tops, and the girl shuddered as the skull struck the wall behind her and shivered rottenly.
"How—how if I refuse?"
"If you refuse, fräulein, the whip—and no promise."
He gestured with his hand toward Hammer. The girl flung the latter one helpless glance, and bowed her head as she turned.
"Come."
Krausz, with triumph beaming from his massive features, motioned the others to fall in line, and they went as at first, out across the fallen wall. To the American the place was shapeless, formless, but Krausz cast quick nodding glances about him, and Sara Helmuth did not hesitate.
Hammer felt his heart throbbing—the atmosphere of the jungle-hid ruins was oppressive, stultifying. The girl led them across fallen walls and past cleared spaces to a great heap of ruins overgrown thickly.
Through it led a hard-beaten path, and with half-darkness about them she paused at what seemed to be a square hole in the ground, perhaps a dozen feet across, with trees roofing all in overhead. Here the path ended.
"It is there," she said simply.
Krausz growled something at the askaris, and went forward. Hammer, watching, saw him stop suddenly as though listening. Then, at the edge of the hole, he laid down revolver and whip and went to his knees, and so flat on his belly, his hands gripping roots on either side of him.