No time then for the decencies; we had work to do, and we crushed
and pounded their lives out against the stone floor. There had
not been a sound. They quivered and lay still; and then, looking
up at some slight sound in the doorway, we saw Desiree.
She stood in the doorway, regarding us with an expression of
terror that I did not at first understand; then suddenly I
realized that, having seen us disappear beneath the surface of
the take after our dive from the column, she had thought us dead.
"Bon Dieu!" she exclaimed in a hollow voice of horror. "This,
too! Do you come, messieurs?"
"For you," I answered. "We are flesh and bone, Desiree, though
in ill repair. We have come for you."
"Paul! Harry, is it really you?"
Belief crept into her eyes, but nothing more, and she stood
gazing at us curiously. Harry had sprung to her side; she did not
move as he embraced her.
"Are you alone?"
"Yes."
"Good. Here, Harry--quick! Help me. Stand aside, Desiree."
We carried the bodies of the two Incas within the room and
deposited them in a corner. Then I ran and brought the spears,
which we had dropped when we attacked the Incas.
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