ungle.

Behind them, in front, on all sides, rose screams so horrible that he
wondered even then if he would ever forget. As he started to run, he
realized that when Naida had finally landed in his arms, the nearest
squirming loop of the Serpent had been no more than four yards away, and
that, right now, if their luck failed, a single unfortunate twist of the
incredible hundreds of feet of white muscle could still end things for
them.

* * * * *

But luck was not going to fail. Somehow Kirby knew it as they sprinted
side by side, and the sheltering jungle loomed closer every second. And
a moment later, something beside his own inner faith made him know it,
too.

"Look, Naida! Look!" he screeched all at once.

At the upper end of the clearing, where an unthinkable slaughter was
going on, there leaped out from amongst a surging mass of apes, leaped
out from almost directly beneath a downward smashing blur of white snake
folds, a figure which Kirby had not seen or thought about for many
seconds.

The Duca's robe hung in tatters from his body. Blood had smeared his
white hair. His eyes were those of a man gone mad from fear. And as he
escaped the tons of muscle which so nearly had engulfed him, he began to
run even as Kirby felt himself running.

Straight toward him and Naida, Kirby saw the man spurt, but whether the
mad eyes recognized them or not, he could not tell, nor did he care. All
at once his feeling that they would escape the clearing, became
conviction.

For suddenly the same single twitch of Quetzalcoatl's vast folds which
might have finished them, if luck had not held, put an end to the Duca's
retreat. At one moment the man's path was clear. The next--

Kirby, running for dear life, gasped, and heard Naida cry out beside
him.

The great loops flashed, twisted, and where had been an open way for
the Duca, loomed a wall of scaly white flesh. The living wall twitched,
closed in; and as the Duca dodged and leaped to no avail, a cry shrilled
across the night--a cry that cut like a knife.

* * * * *

Kirby saw no more. But it was likely that most, if not all, of the
caciques had gone with the Duca.

Somehow, anyhow, in but a few seconds more, Kirby dove into the spot
from which he had left the jungle to enter the clearing. As Naida
pressed against him, winded but still strong, he found his best hopes
for immediate retreat realized, for Gor