ng footsteps were near, where the passage mouth loomed black.
The light of a distant Earth, struck slantingly across to leave this
face of the pyramid in half-darkness. From that far and peaceful world
the light poured floodingly down; it shone in under the projecting
capstone; it struck upon the raised altar and revealed in ghastliest
detail the gruesome offering there. And surely the strangest sight of
all that that Earth-light disclosed was when it shone golden upon a
black and hairy body of a beast that was half man, half ape. The
creature moved slowly forward, walking erect, with its furry arms
stretched gropingly ahead. In the full light it went shuffling on like
one who is blind or who walks in the dark, until it stopped before the
altar stone and stood rigidly waiting.

* * * * *

Waiting for what? Chet was making demands upon his reason that was
already taxed beyond its capacity. He heard nothing, and he knew with
entire certainty that there was no audible call, yet he sensed the
message at the instant the ape-man moved.

"Flesh!" said the message. "Bring flesh! Bring it now!"

And, with glazed, wide-open eyes which plainly saw, but could not
comprehend, the ape-thing stared at the altar-stone. It bent forward,
took the fresh-killed body by the throat, and slung it across one
shoulder as easily as a child might handle a doll; then it turned and
vanished once more into the waiting dark.

"God!" breathed Chet when the vision had passed. "God help us! What does
it mean?"

He took one backward step, then another, and made his way in silence
along the path he had come. He must get back to the others to tell them
of what he had seen; to help them to flee from this place of horror that
was more terrible for its qualities of the unknown.

* * * * *

He gave his companions the story in staccato sentences. "And the ape-man
was unconscious," he concluded; "he was an automaton only, directed by
another brain. I know it. I got that message, I tell you; it was radioed
by someone or by something--sent direct to that big ape's brain.

"Now let's get out of here. Diane had it right when she said that the
place was evil. But she didn't make it strong enough. It's foul with
evil! It's damned! Come on, I'm leaving now!"

Chet's whispered words were uttered with all the emphasis that horror
could instill. He knew that he spoke truth. But he could not know how