t sound came to
him through the opening above. His quick ears caught and translated
it--it was the dance of death that preceded a sacrifice, and the
singsong ritual of the high priestess. He could even recognize the
woman's voice. Could it be that the ceremony marked the very thing he
had so hastened to prevent? A wave of horror swept over him. Was he,
after all, to be just a moment too late? Like a frightened deer he
leaped across the narrow chasm to the continuation of the passage
beyond. At the false wall he tore like one possessed to demolish the
barrier that confronted him--with giant muscles he forced the opening,
thrusting his head and shoulders through the first small hole he made,
and carrying the balance of the wall with him, to clatter resoundingly
upon the cement floor of the dungeon.

With a single leap he cleared the length of the chamber and threw
himself against the ancient door. But here he stopped. The mighty
bars upon the other side were proof even against such muscles as his.
It needed but a moment's effort to convince him of the futility of
endeavoring to force that impregnable barrier. There was but one other
way, and that led back through the long tunnels to the bowlder a mile
beyond the city's walls, and then back across the open as he had come
to the city first with his Waziri.

He realized that to retrace his steps and enter the city from above
ground would mean that he would be too late to save the girl, if it
were indeed she who lay upon the sacrificial altar above him. But
there seemed no other way, and so he turned and ran swiftly back into
the passageway beyond the broken wall. At the well he heard again the
monotonous voice of the high priestess, and, as he glanced aloft, the
opening, twenty feet above, seemed so near that he was tempted to leap
for it in a mad endeavor to reach the inner courtyard that lay so near.

If he could but get one end of his grass rope caught upon some
projection at the top of that tantalizing aperture! In the instant's
pause and thought an idea occurred to him. He would attempt it.
Turning back to the tumbled wall, he seized one of the large, flat
slabs that had composed it. Hastily making one end of his rope fast to
the piece of granite, he returned to the shaft, and, coiling the
balance of the rope on the floor beside him, the ape-man took the heavy
slab in both hands, and, swinging it several times to get the distance
and the direction fixe