Somewhere close at hand, the Thing--whatever it was--was roaring, howling like a lost soul. What was it, where was it? I glanced fearfully about, half expecting to see some fantastic, horrible, ghastly, nightmarish creature spring from some secret hidden door. Then common sense came to my rescue. Whatever it was, wherever it might be, it was not probable that it was within reach of the priest’s sanctum. He was no man to take chances. No doubt it was securely caged. If it devoured human beings, it was not the sort of beast to be kept as a pet. Reassuring the prince, calming his fears by such arguments, we again fell to searching the chamber while, in the back of my mind, was a determination to destroy the ghastly monster as soon as I had finished with Kinchi Haman. In fact I had a half-formed idea of throwing the priest to the monster and, so maddened was I at the priest’s escape and at the loss of Itza, that, had I been able to lay hands upon him, I would have gloated upon seeing him torn to shreds and devoured by the Thing. A shout from Azcopil brought me to his side at a bound. He had pushed aside a huge golden idol, and as he had done so, a dark opening in the wall was revealed. Without hesitation we entered. From somewhere far overhead a glimmer of light entered. By the faint illumination we saw a flight of steep, narrow stairs leading downwards in a spiral. Down, down, down we went. I felt as if we were descending to the very bowels of the earth. And each moment, as we descended, the horrible banshee-like wailing, the howling of the Monster, increased. The earth seemed actually to tremble at its roar. What terrible, unimaginable thing _could_ it be? I could think of nothing but some stupendous, gigantic, prehistoric creature. And was Itza here, near this Thing, crazed with terror of its infernal din? I ground my teeth in inexpressible rage at Kinchi Haman at the thought. I imagined him gloating over her screams and shrieks, driving her mad by pretending to feed her to the ravenous beast. Let me at him! Let me get my grip upon his twisted body and I would show _him_ what terror was! And then suddenly we came into bright light and halted in our tracks, staring dumbfounded at what we saw. We were in a vast circular chamber of polished black rock. From far above light streamed down. Before us in the centre of the floor was a round hole or shaft, its rim raised a few feet and glistening with red, yellow and green crystals.