"Spy!" he hissed angrily, and in the fierce malevolent gleam of his snakelike eyes she read a wild temptation to grasp her fair white throat in his strong hands and throttle her to death.
"Spy! You have followed me here!" the old man hissed again savagely.
He shook her rudely until the breath had almost left her body, then flung her upon one of the chests, and, locking the little door, dropped the key into his pocket. She was at the mercy of this fiendish old man who had come into her life so strangely, and at so dark an hour.
"Release me, oh, release me!" she gasped faintly, pleadingly, but he looked at her with pitiless eyes, and answered:
"Once before a woman, filled with the greed for gold, followed me here to find out the secret of my hidden treasures. Well—her friends are searching for her yet, as perchance yours will be, too, for many a year."
"You murdered her!" gasped Nita, with a creeping thrill of utter horror.
"No," he replied, and after a moment's pause continued with a hideous leer:
"I simply left her locked in this room and went away, leaving her alone with the treasure she coveted. It was a long, long time before I came back, and then—I found her still here."
"Still here!" the startled captive repeated. He saw the shudder that crept over her frame, and laughed mockingly.
"Still here—waiting for me still," he sneered. "Always here, waiting for me when I come. Look!"