"And our fingers will scratch the ground beneath your feet," interrupted Roldan, who between mortification and rage felt equal himself to murder, but determined as ever to hold his own. "Our skulls will grin at you from every corner as you work--" "I don't care!" shouted the priest. "I don't care! Here you rot. This gold is mine. No man shall touch it but myself." "But if we promise never to return, and to tell no man of what we know," interposed Rafael, feebly. The priest laughed. "With the glitter of gold in your brains? You could not keep an oath on the cross." He turned swiftly and strode down the passage. "What will he do?" gasped Adan. "Roll a stone over the entrance and secure it with others," said Roldan. "There are plenty nigh. If we follow, he will beat us back with those fists, and one blow would crack our skulls in two." "Then what shall we do? Rot here? Starve to death? Madre de dios!" "We have been between the teeth of death before, have we not? We shall have many more adventures, my friends." But although he spoke confidently he was profoundly disturbed. This was no ordinary predicament. He knew that unless the priest relented they stood small chance of seeing sun and stars again. Would he relent? Roldan's own indomitable will and growing ambitions responded to the awful forces in the man, overgrown and abnormal as they had become. That the priest had some great end in view to which this gold was the means, and that the gold itself had roused in him a controlling passion, he could not doubt. The priest himself had told him something, the gold the rest. With a sudden impulse of hatred Roldan emptied his pockets of the metal and stamped upon it. He quieted suddenly, then stamped again, with added vigour. Then he dropped and laid his ear to the ground. "Stamp, Adan," he said, "and hard." Adan shook his blood through his veins, and obeyed. Roldan sprang to his feet. "We are above the tunnel of the Mission," he said. "And we have a pickaxe. All we have to do is to dig." XIX It was three hours later that a mass of loosened earth caved suddenly, carrying Adan with it. A wild yell came back. It stopped abruptly, the tag end of it shot forth like the quick last blast from a trumpet. "Hi, Adan!" called Roldan, excitedly, peering down into the dark. "Are you hurt?" "I know not! I know not! It is darker than a dungeon of a Mission." The voice was quite distinct. It came from no great depth. "Get out of the way," called Roldan. "I am coming." He waited a moment, then dropped, falling on a mass of soft earth. Adan had prudently retreated a few steps. He ran forward and helped Roldan to his feet, just as Rafael came flying down. "Now for the other end," said Roldan. "This air is not too good. And that devil may return any moment."