At sight of the hideous priest responsible for all my sufferings and troubles, insane fury swept over me. All caution, all sense fled from my mind. With a savage jerk I tore the hanging aside and sprang into the room with the prince beside me. Instantly all was confusion. Had we materialized from thin air, the occupants of the room could not have been more amazed. Deathly fear distorted the face of the Kinchi Haman; the terrified priests screamed, crowded back, struggled and fought to retreat. Springing from his seat, Kinchi Haman sheltered himself behind the milling, close-packed men. Furious, all my senses focussed on reaching him, I rushed on them. Two guards sprang forward with upraised weapons. One fell to a savage thrust from Azcopil, the other hurled himself at me. I swung my heavy-bladed sword, but before I could strike, an amazing thing happened. The golden cuirass of the guard seemed to burst into flame. With a shriek of agony, he staggered back. His weapon dropped from his hand, and with a crash, he sank lifeless to the floor! A nauseating odor of burning flesh filled the room. Where the golden breastplate had been, a horrible, scorched, blackened cavity showed on the dead man’s breast. Shapeless blobs of molten gold smoked upon the flagging. Screams, shrieks, cries of horror and deadly fear came from the struggling, retreating priests. The guards dropped their weapons and fled. Here was magic--death instantaneous, terrible, invisible. Solid metal burst into flame and ran like water at my approach! No wonder old Nohul Voh had said the bamboo tube with its contents would serve me well as a weapon! It was deadly, hellish. Its mysterious, invisible rays falling upon metal--at least upon gold--fused the metal instantly, burned the flesh beneath it to a crisp. I shuddered as I glanced at the terrible thing in my hand, at the seared, ghastly, contorted body of the dead guard at my feet. But my mind was centered upon Kinchi Haman. Nothing else seemed to matter. Springing over the smoking body, hurling the struggling priests aside, striking to right and left, I forced myself through the huddled, fear-maddened throng. I was conscious that the prince was with me, from sounds in the rear I knew our men were close behind. A narrow door was packed, jammed with the priests in their stampede, and when at last--literally treading them underfoot--we gained the farther side of the room, Kinchi Haman had disappeared. There was only the one exit visible. Seizing the priests by hair, by garments, we dragged them aside, cleared a passage, and raced down the corridor beyond.