Carefully they searched the littered place, all dust and horrible disarray, which made sad mockery of the gold-leaf sign still visible on the window: "Lange, Importer. All the Latest Novelties." On the floor Stern discovered three more of those little dust-middens which meant human bodies, pitiful remnants of an extinct race, of unknown people in the long ago. What had he now in common with them? The remains did not even inspire repugnance in him. All at once Beatrice uttered a cry of startled gladness. "Look here! A storage chest!" True enough, there stood a cedar box, all seamed and cracked and bulging, yet still retaining a semblance of its original shape. The copper bindings and the lock were still quite plainly to be seen, as the engineer held the torch close, though green and corroded with incredible age. One effort of Stern's powerful arms sufficed to tip the chest quite over. As it fell it burst. Down in a mass of pulverized, worm-eaten splinters it disintegrated. Out rolled furs, many and many of them, black, and yellow, and striped--the pelts of the grizzly, of the leopard, the chetah, the royal Bengal himself. "Hurray!" shouted the man, catching up first one, then another, and still a third. "Almost intact. A little imperfection here and there doesn't matter. Now we've got clothes and beds. "What's that? Yes, maybe they are a trifle warm for this season of the year, but this is no time to be particular. See, now, how do you like _that?_" Over the girl's shoulders, as he spoke, he flung the tiger-skin. "Magnificent!" he judged, standing back a pace or two and holding up the torch to see her better. "When I find you a big gold pin or clasp to fasten that with at the throat you'll make a picture of another and more splendid Boadicea!" He tried to laugh at his own words, but merriment sat ill there in that place, and with such a subject. For the woman, thus clad, had suddenly assumed a wild, barbaric beauty. Bright gleamed her gray eyes by the light of the flambeau; limpid, and deep, and earnest, they looked at Stern. Her wonderful hair, shaken out in bewildering masses over the striped, tawny savagery of the robe, made colorful contrasts, barbarous, seductive. Half hidden, the woman's perfect body, beautiful as that of a wood-nymph or a pagan dryad, roused atavistic passions in the engineer. He dared speak no other word for the moment, but bent beside the shattered chest again and fell to looking over the furs. A polar-bear skin attracted his attention, and this he chose. Then, with it slung across his shoulder, he stood up. "Come," said he, steadying his voice with an effort; "come, we must be going now. Our light won't hold out very much longer. We've got to find food and drink before the alcohol's all gone; got to look out for practical affairs, whatever happens. Let's be going." Fortune favored them.