l there was no change in the cry from below.

"Let them all go in," Harkness whispered. "Then follow them into the
shadow. There will no more come up here, I imagine. We will make our
escape after a bit."

The black mouth of the passage had swallowed the ape-men by solid
scores, and now only some stragglers were left. Harkness was speaking in
quick, whispered orders:

"Follow the last ones. Keep stooped over so they won't spot us from
below. Wait in the darkness of the entrance."

Chet saw him crouch low as he crept from the stone. Diane followed, then
Kreiss; and Chet next, close behind a shambling ape-figure that slunk
into the darkness of the passageway.

* * * * *

That it was a passage Chet had not the least doubt. It had taken in
these scores of savage figures, taken them somewhere; but where it led
or why these poor stunned creatures had been chosen he could not know.
Yet he remembered the one message he had caught: "Flesh! Bring flesh!"
It had meant only one thing: it was food that was wanted--human food!
And the fetid stench that was wafted from the darkness of this place of
mystery and horror, that made him reel back and put a hand to his
revolted lips, would not have encouraged him, even had he had any desire
to learn the answer to the puzzle.

Diane was half-crouching; she was choking with the foul air. Harkness
spoke gaspingly as he took her by the arm:

"Outside, for God's sake!... Horrible!... Get Diane outside--try lying
down--we may be out of sight!"

But this time he did not follow his own instructions. He rose erect,
instead, and stood swaying as if dazed; and Chet saw that before him,
outlined against the lighted opening in the rock, was the messenger he
had seen.

Black against the bright Earth-light, his features were lost; no
expression could be seen. But his eyes, that were dead and white like
the upturned belly of a fish, came suddenly to life. They glared from
the dark face with a light that came almost visibly from them to the
staring eyes of Walt Harkness. Chet saw Harkness stiffen, one upraised
hand falling woodenly to his side; a cry of warning was strangled in his
throat, and then the glaring eyes passed on to the face of Diane.

Chet had forgotten this messenger from the pyramid's hidden horror. If
he had thought of him at all he had assumed that he had passed in with
the other crowding ape-men; he was one like them, undistinguishable from
the