more of the red
fighters, and again, though their hissing green flames were held
ready, they did not descend.

A priest, copper-colored, shining resplendently in the weird glow,
detached himself from the group and stepped forward under the
protection of their weapons. Loah's hand was depressing the muzzle of
Rawson's rifle. "Wait!" she said. "He wishes to speak."

* * * * *

The priest stopped and addressed them. Loah answered; and to Rawson it
seemed horrible that her lips and throat should be called upon to form
those whistling words. Then she turned toward him.

"He says they will not harm you now if you surrender. Later, when they
select a new ruler, he may order you set free."

Rawson was doing some quick thinking. The priest was lying, clumsily,
childishly, but it might be he could bargain with them.

"Tell them this," he ordered Loah: "they are to let you go free--let
you go right now! If they do that, I'll lay down my gun. If they
don't, that priest will die before they get me. I don't think you can
make it," he added, "but go back to the _jana_. Don't stop for
anything. Drive it as fast as you can; you may still get there before
Gor does his stuff. And take the flame-thrower in case you are
followed--" He stopped; Loah was laughing.

"Did you really think, Dean-San, that I would desert you?" Again she
laughed softly--laughing squarely in the face of that waiting death, a
laugh that was half a sob, that caught suddenly in her throat as she
stared at Dean.

He could not read the look in her eyes as their expression changed.
"Yes," she said slowly, "yes, you are right. If I stay we both die,
quickly."

Again her voice made whistling sounds; the priest replied. Then Loah
threw her arms around Dean and kissed him. He was gripping his rifle;
before he could take her in his arms, she was gone. She walked
swiftly, the flame-thrower in her hands, toward the dark cleft in the
rocks, through which she disappeared. And Dean, though she had done
what he really wished, felt that all of his life and strength had
gone with him with that fleeing figure.

He placed his rifle on the floor and, straightening, held out his
empty hands; the priest's talons were upon his flesh.

"But I got Phee-e-al, anyhow," he was thinking dully.

CHAPTER XXV

_Smithy_

Scarcely more than a vault in the solid rock, the room where Rawson
lay. He had seen it for an instant when the priest, af