corridor to the branch.

As the last utan was filing past us the waters had risen until they
surged about our necks, but we clasped hands and stood our ground until
the last man had passed to the comparative safety of the new
passageway. Here we found an immediate and steep ascent, so that
within a hundred yards we had reached a point above the waters.

For a few minutes we continued rapidly up the steep grade, which I
hoped would soon bring us quickly to the upper pits that let into the
Temple of Issus. But I was to meet with a cruel disappointment.

Suddenly I heard a cry of "fire" far ahead, followed almost at once by
cries of terror and the loud commands of dwars and padwars who were
evidently attempting to direct their men away from some grave danger.
At last the report came back to us. "They have fired the pits ahead."
"We are hemmed in by flames in front and flood behind." "Help, John
Carter; we are suffocating," and then there swept back upon us at the
rear a wave of dense smoke that sent us, stumbling and blinded, into a
choking retreat.

There was naught to do other than seek a new avenue of escape. The
fire and smoke were to be feared a thousand times over the water, and
so I seized upon the first gallery which led out of and up from the
suffocating smoke that was engulfing us.

Again I stood to one side while the soldiers hastened through on the
new way. Some two thousand must have passed at a rapid run, when the
stream ceased, but I was not sure that all had been rescued who had not
passed the point of origin of the flames, and so to assure myself that
no poor devil was left behind to die a horrible death, unsuccoured, I
ran quickly up the gallery in the direction of the flames which I could
now see burning with a dull glow far ahead.

It was hot and stifling work, but at last I reached a point where the
fire lit up the corridor sufficiently for me to see that no soldier of
Helium lay between me and the conflagration--what was in it or upon the
far side I could not know, nor could any man have passed through that
seething hell of chemicals and lived to learn.

Having satisfied my sense of duty, I turned and ran rapidly back to the
corridor through which my men had passed. To my horror, however, I
found that my retreat in this direction had been blocked--across the
mouth of the corridor stood a massive steel grating that had evidently
been lowered from its resting-place above for the purpose of