e feet of pulsing lavender and rose and flashing crimson
that was more horrible by reason of its beauty.

Chet stumbled to his feet and raced after Towahg. The ape-man moved in
swift silence, Chet close at his back. And other luminous horrors
dropped on ropes of translucent silver behind them, until the ghostly
white of friendly trees became visible, and they stood at last,
breathless and shaken, as far as Chet was concerned, in the familiar
jungle of the lower valleys.

And Towahg, to whom poison vines and writhing, horrible worms of death
that had failed to make him their prey were things of a forgotten past,
curled up in the shelter of an outflung snarl of great roots, grunted
once, and went calmly to sleep.

But Chet Bullard, accustomed only to man-made dangers that would have
held Towahg petrified with fear, lay long, staring into the dark.

CHAPTER XVI

_Through Air and Water_

It was midday when they approached the heights they had reached on their
flight from Fire Valley. Off to one side must lie the arena with the
pyramid within. And within the pyramid--! Chet took his thoughts quickly
away from that. Or perhaps it was the shrieking chatter from ahead that
gave him other things to think of.

Towahg had heard them before, but Chet had not understood his signs. And
now the chorus of an approaching pack of ape-men was louder with each
passing minute. That they were coming along the same trail seemed
certain.

Towahg sprang into the air; his gnarled hands closed on a heavy vine: he
went up this hand over hand, ready to move off to one side through the
leafy roof with never a sign of his going. He waited impatiently for
Chet to join him, and the pilot, regarding the incredible leap of that
squat ape-man body, shook his head in despair.

"Grab a loose end," he told Towahg. "Lower a rope--a vine. Get it down
where I can reach it!" And he raved inwardly at the blank look on the
savage face while he held himself in check and made signs over and over
in an effort to get the idea across.

Towahg got it at last. He lowered a vine and hauled Chet up with jerks
that almost tore the pilot's hands from their hold on the rough bark.
Then off to one side! And they waited in the shelter of concealing
leaves while the yelling pack drew near and a hundred or more of them
raced by along the trail below.

Invisible to Chet was the marked trail where Kreiss had gone, but these
savage things ran at top speed and r