"I remember it," returned Matt; "it was in the court of Rigolette's house. I wonder what it can be, and how we are able to smell it here?"
Shielding the flaring candle with his hand, Matt stepped into the other room. In doing so he stumbled against something on the floor and stooped downward.
It was the form of Jurgens!
As Matt recoiled, startled cries came from Townsend and Dick.
"Three of 'em, or I'm a Hottentot!" exclaimed Dick. "Look, will you! And there's the head of Obboney!"
Dick's report was literally true. Lying sprawled about the floor, breathing heavily, was not only Jurgens, but Whistler and one other man, as well. They lay around the idol's head, and the head, face upward, offered a most diabolical spectacle in the candlelight.
The beady eyes gleamed and glittered, and the distorted face took on an expression it had not held in the broad light of day.
"Most remarkable!" murmured Townsend, stepping over the form of Jurgens and picking up the head. "What a monstrous thing!" he added, shuddering as he held the head up and looked into its face. "What heathen mind was ever able to conjure that out of a block of wood? The arch fiend himself must have had a hand in the work."
"But how do you account for all this layout?" queried Dick, waving his hand at the forms on the floor.
"Jurgens, after he took the head from the court of Rigolette's house," surmised Matt, "must finally have reached here with it. He arrived after you and I were thrown into the vault, Dick, and that unknown man, lying near Whistler, must have been the one who helped put us into the stone chamber. Jurgens, Whistler and the other man came into this room, and in due course they fell under the baneful spell of Obboney. I don't know what else to call it."