ure which sprang as if from nowhere, squat, savage and
ape-like, but hairless. Its arms were upraised; the hands held a bow;
and the twang of the bowstring came as one with the ripping thud of a
shaft that was tearing through flesh.

The savage fell in mid-turn; and it seemed as if the blazing light of
the terrible eyes must have flicked out before the breath of Death. And,
protruding from the thick neck, was the shaft of a crude arrow.... There
were others that flashed, thudding and quivering, into the body that
jerked with each impact, then lay still, a darker blot on the floor of a
dark cave.

Chet was breathless; it was an instant before he realized that he was
free, that the hypnotic bonds that had bound him were loosed. It was
another instant before he sensed that his companions were still
marching--trudging stiffly, woodenly off through the dark. He bounded
after, heedless of bruising walls; he followed where the sound of their
scuffling feet marked their progress to a sure doom.

There were stairs; how he sensed them Chet could not have told. But he
paused, hesitated a moment, then found the first step and half ran, half
fell, through the utter darkness of the pit into which they had gone.

* * * * *

The odors that had seemed the utmost of vileness now came to him a
hundred times worse. They tore at his throat with a strangling grip, and
he was weak with nausea when he crashed upon a figure that he knew, was
Kreiss. Then on, to grasp at Diane and Harkness; to drag them to a
standstill in the darkness that pressed upon them smotheringly, while he
shook them, beat at them, shouted their names.

"Diane! Walt! Wake up! Wake up, I tell you! We're going back!"

He swung them around; forced them to face about.

"Walt, for God's sake, wake up! Diane! Kreiss!" The deep, sobbing breath
of Diane was the first encouraging response.

Then: "Free!" she gasped. "I'm free!" And Harkness and Kreiss both
mumbled incoherently as they came from their hypnotic stupor.

"How--" began Harkness, "how did you--" But Chet waited for no
explanation of the seeming miracle that had just taken place.

"Go back," he told them, "--back up the steps!" And a babble of cries
that were terrifying in their inhuman savagery welled up from the depths
of the pyramid to urge them on.

The body of their captor was prone on the floor above: they stepped over
it to reach the entrance. No figure showed there now