scaping bird.

"Snappy work, Rador!" It was Larry speaking. "But they cut the end
off your bus all right!"

A full quarter of the hindward whorl was gone, sliced off cleanly.
Rador noted it with anxious eyes.

"That is bad," he said, "but not too bad perhaps. All depends upon
how closely Lugur and his men can follow us."

He raised a hand to O'Keefe in salute.

"But to you, _Larree_, I owe my life--not even the _Keth_ could have
been as swift to save me as that death flame of yours--friend!"

The Irishman waved an airy hand.

"Serku"--the green dwarf drew from his girdle the bloodstained
poniard--"Serku I was forced to slay. Even as he raised the Shadow the
globe gave the alarm. Lugur follows with twice ten times ten of his
best--" He hesitated. "Though we have escaped the Shadow it has taken
toll of our swiftness. May we reach the Portal before it closes upon
Lakla--but if we do not--" He paused again. "Well--I know a way--but
it is not one I am gay to follow--no!"

He snapped open the aperture that held the ball flaming within the
dark crystal; peered at it anxiously. I crept to the torn end of the
_corial_. The edges were crumbling, disintegrated. They powdered in my
fingers like dust. Mystified still, I crept back where Larry, sheer
happiness pouring from him, was whistling softly and polishing up his
automatic. His gaze fell upon Olaf's grim, sad face and softened.

"Buck up, Olaf!" he said. "We've got a good fighting chance. Once we
link up with Lakla and her crowd I'm betting that we get your
wife--never doubt it! The baby--" he hesitated awkwardly. The
Norseman's eyes filled; he stretched a hand to the O'Keefe.

"The _Yndling_--she is of the _de Dode_," he half whispered, "of the
blessed dead. For her I have no fear and for her vengeance will be
given me. _Ja!_ But my Helma--she is of the dead-alive--like those we
saw whirling like leaves in the light of the Shining Devil--and I
would that she too were of _de Dode_--and at rest. I do not know how
to fight the Shining Devil--no!"

His bitter despair welled up in his voice.

"Olaf," Larry's voice was gentle. "We'll come out on top--I know it.
Remember one thing. All this stuff that seems so strange and--and,
well, sort of supernatural, is just a lot of tricks we're not hep to
as yet. Why, Olaf, suppose you took a Fijian when the war was on and
set him suddenly down in London with autos rushing past, sirens
blowing, Archies popping, a dozen enem