CHAPTER XIII.
Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One "You'd better have this handy, Doc." O'Keefe paused at the head of the stairway and handed me one of the automatics he had taken from Marakinoff.
"Shall I not have one also ?" rather anxiously asked the latter.
"When you need it you'll get it," answered O'Keefe.

"I'll tell you frankly, though, Professor, that you'll have to show me before I trust you with a gun.

You shoot too straight--from cover." The flash of anger in the Russian's eyes turned to a cold consideration.
"You say always just what is in your mind, Lieutenant O'Keefe," he mused.

"Da--that I shall remember!" Later I was to recall this odd observation--and Marakinoff was to remember indeed.
In single file, O'Keefe at the head and Olaf bringing up the rear, we passed through the portal.

Before us dropped a circular shaft, into which the light from the chamber of the oval streamed liquidly; set in its sides the steps spiralled, and down them we went, cautiously.