mistaken was his last positive assertion.

"I'm leaving now!" Chet had said, and how desperately he wanted to put
this place behind him only he himself could know. He took one step
toward the place where they could descend; then Harkness' hand pulled
him roughly to his knees.

"Down!" Harkness was commanding; "get down, Chet! They're coming--a
swarm of them--through the gate!"

The pilot heard them before he saw them. They began a chant as they
poured through the entrance, a weird, wailing note like the cry of a
stricken animal that cries on and on. Then he saw the swarm.

They came in a cataract of black bodies that spilled through that stone
portal and down the long slope. They formed a ragged column on the
ground and came on toward the pyramid, where, unseen, three men and a
girl from another world were crouching.

"Back!" Chet ordered in a whisper. "Keep low--in the shadow! Get around
in back of the pyramid. We can make a run for it!"

* * * * *

They crept swiftly along the rocky step where the deep angle was in
shadow. They reached the rear slope where Chet had climbed. And each one
knew without the speaking of a word that retreat was not to be
considered. The open arena!--the high bank of great steps in their bold
markings of black and white! They could never hope to scale them; they
would never even reach them alive, for the savage horde would overwhelm
them before they had crossed the Earth-lit ground.

"All right," said Chet in acceptance of their unspoken thoughts, "up it
is! Here's a hand, Diane--up you go! Now watch your step, and climb as
if a thousand devils were after you, for there's all of that!"

The wave of bodies was washing against the pyramid's base when Chet drew
Kreiss, the last of the four, into the shadow of the huge capstone. The
noise of their climbing had been covered by the wailing cry that came
piercing shrilly from the throng far below. And they had been unseen,
Chet was sure; unless the one furtive shadow that he had seen draw away
from the crowd and slip around toward the rear of the pyramid meant that
some one of the tribe had found their trail.

From the front of the shadowed top came the shuffling of heavy, dragging
feet on the stone. It was the same as before. Chet had held some vague
idea of fighting off the horde from the top of the steps, for here was
the only place where they could ascend. He had forgotten this other one
for the moment