d so, the hooded
hordes of the Brotherhood recovered from their paralysis of horror and
surged madly toward the dais.

"The Door is closed! Death to the blasphemers!" cried the chief priest
as he plunged forward.

"Death to the blasphemers!" shrieked the crazed horde below.

Ennis' pistol roared and the chief priest went down. The light in the
cavern died completely at that moment.

In the dark a torrent of bodies catapulted against Ennis, screaming
vengeance. He struck out with his pistol-barrel in the mad melee,
holding Ruth's stiff form close with his other hand. He heard the other
drugged, helpless victims crushed down and trampled under foot by the
surging horde of vengeance-mad members.

* * * * *

Clinging to the girl, Ennis fought like a madman through a darkness in
which none could distinguish friend or foe, toward the door at the side
from which Campbell had fired. He smashed down the pistol-barrel on all
before him, as hands sought to grab him in the dark. He knew sickeningly
that he was lost in the combat, with no sense of the direction of the
door.

Then a voice roared loud across the wild din, "Ennis, this way! This
way, Ennis!" yelled Inspector Campbell, again and again.

Ennis plunged through the whirl of unseen bodies in the direction of the
detective's shouting voice. He smashed through, half dragging and half
carrying the girl, until Campbell's voice was close ahead in the dark.
He fumbled at the rock wall, found the door opening, and then Campbell's
hands grasped him to pull him inside.

Hands grabbed him from behind, striving to tear Ruth from him, to jerk
him back. Voices shrieked for help.

Campbell's pistol blazed in the dark and the hands released their grip.
Ennis stumbled with the girl through the door into a dark tunnel. He
heard Campbell slam a door shut, and heard a bar fall with a clang.

"Quick, for God's sake!" panted Campbell in the dark. "They'll follow
us--we've got to get up through the tunnels to the water-cavern!"

They raced along the pitch-dark tunnel, Campbell now carrying the girl,
Ennis reeling drunkenly along.

They heard a mounting roar behind them, and as they burst into the main
tunnel, no longer lighted but dark like the others, they looked back and
saw a flickering of light coming up the passage.

"They're after us and they've got lights!" Campbell cried. "Hurry!"

It was nightmare, this mad flight on stumbling feet up thr