red dwarfs as had his
fists to their bodies.

Nazu, unbound and walking proudly erect, was being marched to the edge
of a smoking fissure by two of the savages. No others of the red men
were in sight.

Carr shuddered. It was the place of sacrifice they had seen in the
rulden, and the natives were in hiding as before. Nazu would be first to
go; then Ora, most likely. He strained desperately at his bonds when he
realized the awful significance of their position. It was incredible
that Ora was here and in the hands of these unspeakable monsters. Why,
she'd be thrown into the incandescent folds of the flapping
fire-god, along with the rest of them! He groaned in an agony of
self-recrimination; he should not have allowed her to come on this mad
voyage.

Then came that roaring column of flame from out the crater, and the
weird fluttering thing whose intense heat radiated across the
intervening space like the breath of a blast furnace. The rumble of
drums commenced, and thousands of the red men dashed over the rocky area
to worship at the shrine of their pitiless god.

As their monotonous chant rose high, Nazu was rushed to the edge of the
pit. The ghastly, shimmering heat-ghost drifted hungrily to await the
flinging of the slight form into its consuming embrace. Carr was glad to
see that Ora had turned her head.

* * * * *

And then there came a sucking noise from the depths of the crater, and
the pillar of blue flame vanished abruptly, the incandescent ghost-shape
flapping disconsolately in its wake. The chant of the savages trailed
off into a chorus of disgruntled murmurings and the booming of the drums
died down in disappointment. The worshippers had been cheated of their
sadistic pleasure. There was something wrong with the timing of the
rite; their mysterious fire-god had granted the captives a reprieve.

But the prisoners were not deceived by the solicitous treatment accorded
them by their captors when they were returned to the cave and their
bonds were severed. For well they knew that at the next appearance of
the phenomenon of the pit they would be dragged off to the sacrifice.
Sooner or later all of them were to meet the fate of those given into
the embrace of the heat-demon.

A guard of fifty or more of the savages, armed with blow-guns and stone
hatchets, paraded continuously before the mouth of the cave as one of
their number returned with a huge woven container of fruits