Captain Carossa deigned to be pleased again with himself, and, taking the lantern from the man in the red serape, he led the way. He entered the large building by means of a narrow passageway in one of the angles, passed through an unroofed room, and then came to a door at which both Ned and Obed gazed with the most intense curiosity. The doorway was made of only three stones, two huge monolithic door jambs, each seven feet high, nearly as wide and more than two feet thick. Upon them rested a lintel also monolithic, but at least twenty feet in length, with a width of five feet and a thickness of three feet. It was evident to Ned that mighty workmen had once toiled here. "Is not that an entrance fit for a king?" said the brigand captain, again making a dramatic gesture. "It is fit for Captain Juan Carossa, which is more," said Obed White with suave courtesy. Captain Carossa bowed. Once more he deigned to be pleased with himself. Then he led through the doorway and Ned uttered a little cry of admiration. They stood in a great room with a magnificent row of monolithic pillars running down the center. A stone roof had once covered the room, but it had long since fallen in. The interior of the walls was plain, made of stones and mortar, once covered with cement, deep blood red in color, of which a few fragments remained. But the walls on the outside were covered with splendid panels of mosaic work varied now and then by sculptured stones. The stone used on the outside was of a light cream color. But the boy did not see the mosaic panels until later. Silent and studious, these vast ruins of a mysterious race made a great appeal to Ned. He forgot the rough brigands for a moment, and stood there looking at the walls and great columns, upon which the moon was pouring a flood of beams. What were these outlaws to those mighty builders whom the past had swallowed up so completely? The brigands were already lighting a fire beside one of the huge monoliths, and Carossa lay down on a serape. The fire blazed up, but it did not detract from the weird effect of the Hall of Pillars. One of the men warmed food which he brought from another of the ruined houses, and Carossa told his prisoners to eat. "What I give you to-night, and what I shall give you to-morrow morning may be the last food that you will have for some time," he said, "so enjoy it as best you may." He smiled, his lips drawing back from his white teeth, and in some singular way he made Ned think of the black jaguar and his black lips writhing back from his great fangs. Why had Obed spoken of coming with them? Better to have been stripped in the path, and to have gone on alone. But he ate the food, as the long marching had made him hungry, and lay down within the rim of the firelight.