"Who knows?" he replied. "It is a haunted place." "And are you afraid?" "I am not afraid, for I have passed a night in the Valley of the Just many years ago, and I live." "You were alone?" "With two others, Mem Sahib." "And the others?" "One was bitten by a snake an hour before dawn, and the other, who was an upright man, lives to-day." Moreen shuddered. "Do you know"--she still hesitated to broach this subject with the man--"do you know where--Major Fayne has gone?" "It is said, Mem Sahib, that a stream runs through the jungle close beside the old temple, a stream which bubbles up from a cavern and which is supposed to come underground from the Ruby Mine plateau. He goes early in the morning to look for rubies--so I think." Moreen tapped the ground with her foot. "Do you think"--again she hesitated--"that Major Fayne is afraid of something? Of something--where we have come from?" Ramsa Lal bowed low. "I cannot tell," he replied, "but we shall know ere sunrise." For a moment Moreen scarcely grasped the significance of his words; then their inner meaning became apparent to her. "Make me some coffee, Ramsa Lal," she said; "I am cold--very cold." She re-entered the tent, lighting the lamp. The Valley of the Just! What irony, that her husband should have selected that spot to camp in! She sat deep in thought, when presently Ramsa Lal entered with coffee. He had just set down the tray when the sound of a distant cry brought him rigidly upright. He stood listening intently. The sound was repeated--nearer it seemed--a sort of hoarse scream, terrible to hear--impossible to describe. Moreen rose to her feet and followed the man out of the tent. Some one--some one who kept crying out--was plunging heavily through the jungle towards the camp. The men about the fire were on their feet now. Obviously they would have fled, but the prospect of flight into the haunted darkness was one more terrible than that of remaining where they were. It ceased, that strange cry; but whoever was approaching could be heard alternately groaning and laughing madly. Then out from the thicket on the west, into the red light of the fire, burst a fearful figure. It was that of Major Fayne, wild eyed, and with face which seemed to be of a dull grey. He staggered and almost fell, but kept on for a few more paces and then collapsed in a heap almost at Moreen's feet, amid the clatter of the strange loot wherewith he was laden. This consisted in a number of golden vessels heavily encrusted with gems, a huge golden salver, and a dozen or more ropes of gigantic rubies! Amid these treasures, the ransom of a Sultan, the price of a throne, he lay writhing convulsively.