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"See here, Allan!"

"Eh?"

"On the wall here--a painted stripe?"

He held the torch close and scrutinized the one by now--just a flake here and a daub there, but I guess it once was a broad band of white A guide?"

They ht once have been an inscription Here, there, a letter faintly showed, but not one word could now be hty important or they wouldn't have--"

"Here's a door, Allan!"

"So? That's right Now this looks like business at last!"

He examined the door by the unsteady flicker of the torch It was of iron, still intact, and fastened by a long iron bar dropped into massive metal staples

"Beat it in with the ax?" she queried

"No The concussioninside to dust Ah! Here's a padlock and a chain!"

Carefully he studied the chain beneath bent brows

"Here, Beta, you hold the torch, so That's right Now then--"

Already he had set the ax-blade between the padlock and the staple A quick jerk--the lock flew open raspingly Allan tried to lift the bar, but it resisted

A tap of the ax and it gave, swinging upward on a pivot Then a orous push

Together they entered the crypt of solid concrete, a cha by half as wide and vaulted overhead with arches, crowning perhaps twenty feet from the floor

"More skeletons, so help me!"

Allan pointed at two more on the pavement at the left of the entrance

"Why--how could that happen?" queried Beta, puzzled "The door was locked outside!"

"That's so Either there must be some other exit fro the party itself Or thesewhile the others ot back, or--I don't know! Frankly, it's too ure it out, but I'm not No matter, they're here, anyhow; that's all Here two of our own people died ten centuries ago, trying to preserve civilization and the world's history for future ages, if there were to be any such Two martyrs I salute them!"

In silence and awed sympathy they inspected the ood care not to touch theain a dimly painted line, this time upon the floor, all but invisible beneath the dust of centuries that had come from God knohere