Ted touched Stanley lightly on the shoulder. “We are through the line,” he whispered. Again they resumed their stealthy advance. From out of the blackness ahead of them came the murmur of flowing water; it must be the river. And then, without warning, a loud clangor broke upon their startled ears; it seemed to come from all around them at the same time, and bewildered them by its suddenness. Before they fully realized what had happened, a dozen soldiers with flaming torches came running from various directions, shouting as they ran. The two sprang to their feet and started away as fast as they could, but other guards headed them off and, tripping them, pinned them to the ground. Before long they had been taken back to their tents, bruised from the rough treatment they had received, but leaving several of the soldiers sprawled on the ground from the mauling they had given in return. “We travel in circles,” Stanley panted. “Here we are, back again in the place we started from. But that was a clever plan of theirs; we have to give them credit for that. And we fell for it like a couple of chumps.” “What caused all the racket?” Ted, too, was breathing hard. “I don’t know yet what happened, unless some one saw us and gave the alarm.” “Nothing of the kind. We gave the alarm ourselves, or at least I did. The place is surrounded with a rope fence with bells attached to it. I was all tangled up in it.” “Well,” Ted tried to console his companion, at the same time paying him a graceful compliment, “you could not help it. You got into it only because you were in the lead; if I had been first I should have done the same thing.” The end of that night, wretched as it was, came all too soon. As day was breaking the journey began to the City of Gold, where stood the great Temple of the Sun, for it was in the court of this sacred edifice that the sentence was to be pronounced. The procession was already formed when the prisoners joined it. Every one of the numerous host was in his proper place in the line that reached far into the distance, excepting only a small detachment of soldiers that remained behind to look after the encampment. Quizquiz truly travelled in all the barbaric splendor and luxury at his command. Riding aloft in his golden litter, borne on the shoulders of his uncomplaining nobles, he looked down haughtily upon the throng that formed his escort; he even gazed defiantly or with a superior air at the snow-capped mountains in the distance marking the confines of his empire, as if they, too, were subject to his wishes. Occasionally he amused himself by striking those nearest him with his whip, or in admiring the flashing jewels on his fingers and around his neck. The march was interrupted frequently while the monarch took long draughts of corn beer from golden goblets served by the numerous attendants.