ck shuddered. The Buddha was completely the opposite of every
other Buddha he had seen. Instead of the bland, quiet look of peace,
this thing had its mouth open, showing sharp ebony teeth. It leered over
a nose like a pig's, and its body was gross and misshapen. It was, Rick
thought, toad-like. It quite frankly gave him the willies. His
imagination gave it life, so that the obscene lips smirked, and almost
seemed to drool.

Something white at the base caught the light beams. In a moment they
stood before a pile of bones, heaped against the statue's left side.

Zircon's light swept them. "Human," he said.

Rick's scalp tightened.

Next to him, Chahda let out his breath in a sigh that was nearly a moan.

In the second that they stood silently looking at the pile of bones,
there came a slight sound from somewhere behind the Black Buddha.
Instantly their lights swept in the direction of the sound, until Scotty
hissed, "Put 'em out!"

Blackness flooded in on them. Rick strained his eyes to see, his ears to
hear. He tried to control his breathing, sure that its sound could be
heard forty feet away.

Then he saw a horizontal thread of light about three feet long against
the wall behind the statue. It spread upward slowly, forming a
rectangle. Rick watched it, his palms wet on the rifle as he tucked the
flashlight away and gripped the weapon tightly.

It was yellow light, eerie as a will-o'-the-wisp and scarcely stronger.
Then, as Rick watched, a shadow rose up in a black narrow path from the
bottom of the rectangle. It rose and rose until it almost filled the
frame, and the blackness was in the form of a man, almost, except that
it was too long, too thin.

The four stood as though hypnotized for a dozen heartbeats, then Zircon
came to life. He jumped forward with a great roar.

"Long Shadow!"

The light vanished and again blackness closed around them.

CHAPTER XIV

The Caves of Fear

Instantly all lights were directed at the back of the cave. Zircon
rushed around the statue and stopped short as his light found only rock
walls.

"He has to be here somewhere," the scientist bellowed. "Hunt for him!"

Rick stood for a moment estimating the direction from which the light
had come. He walked to the part of the wall on which they had seen the
shadow, and stood with his back to it. He flashed his light straight
ahead, and it fell on the broad back of the Black Buddha.

The others had followed his line of