Thirty paces they took, ere the passage elbowed as before, and, at the very end of the double-row of mummies, Henry brought his companions to a halt as he pointed and said:
"I don't know about Sir Henry, but there's Alvarez Torres."
Under a Spanish helmet, in decapitated medieval Spanish dress, a big Spanish sword in its brown and withered hand, stood a mummy whose lean brown face for all the world was the lean brown face of Alvarez Torres. Leoncia gasped, shrank back, and crossed herself at the sight.
Francis released her to Henry, advanced, and fingered the cheeks and lips and forehead of the thing, and laughed reassuringly:
"I only wish Alvarez Torres were as dead as this dead one is. I haven't the slightest doubt, however, but what Torres descended from him I mean before he came here to take up his final earthly residence as a member of the Maya Treasure Guard."
Leoncia passed the grim figure shudderingly. This time, the elbow passage was very dark, compelling Henry, who had changed into the lead, to light numerous matches.
"Hello!" he said, as he paused at the end of a couple of hundred feet. "Gaze on that for workmanship! Look at the dressing of that stone!"
From beyond, gray light streamed into the passage, making matches unnecessary to see. Half into a niche was thrust a stone the size of the passage. It was apparent that it had been used to block the passage. The dressing was equisite, the sides and edges of the block precisely aligned with the place in the wall into which it was made to dovetail.
"I'll wager here's where the old Maya's father died," Francis exclaimed. "He knew the secret of the balances and leverages that pivoted the stone, and it was only partly pivoted, as you'll observe-"
"Hell's bells!" Henry interrupted, pointing before him on the floor at a scattered skeleton. "It must be what's left of him. It's fairly recent, or he would have been mummified. Most likely he was the last visitor before us."