is name as
they all tried to touch him at once, and there was adoration in their
welcome as they pulled and hauled at him.

At length he managed to free himself of their embraces, and as he stood
apart, he asked: "What happened? Did I manage to warn enough of our
men?"

"Warn us and knock their ambush into a cocked hat. They fell to pieces
and ran like scared rabbits when we hit them from all sides. But Mark
Smith saw you fall, and he said that the sword which was thrust into you
went all the way in to the hilt," one of them said.

"I guess Mark was looking from the wrong angle," Stanton explained. "For
sure I'm all in one piece. Got a bloody knock on the head, though. Well,
let's get back to quarters. I've got a piece I want to talk over with
you all."

A hundred torches made a smoky light of the pitch which otherwise would
have been in the vast cavern-like room. Three hundred and ten men stood
about in various attitudes of attention, all listening to the tall man
perched on a flat piece of concrete, facing them.

"I cannot explain why I feel this way," Bly Stanton was saying. "But
this I know, and for sure! No more killing for me. No more hiding in
stinking places like this, waiting for the sun to go down so a man can
venture out and be a man. No, sirs! Bly Stanton is going out, and in
broad daylight. Bly Stanton is going out and bloody well away from this
place, out to where the sun hits hills and trees and open spaces. And
Bly Stanton is going alone if he has to...."

It was an ultimatum, they knew.

* * * * *

Mark Smith, a short, swarthy-faced man in breeches clipped short at the
knees and a leather jerkin for a shirt, stepped forward and waved a
casual hand to get his leader's attention.

"I take it, Bly," he said, "that you are bound to leave. Well, that part
may be all right. Surely you have a right to leave if you want to. But
by the same token you must grant us the right to ask why. We have been
together too long for so abrupt a leave-taking."

"And right you are, Mark," Bly replied. "I owe that and more to each and
every one of you. Three hundred odd of us, all who are left of millions.
And against us, as they have been for a hundred years, the Himlo. And
how many of them are left, would you say? A thousand? Not many more,
surely. Think, men, some thirteen hundred men, perhaps a few more. No
children, no women, just men.

"I don't have to tell you what happened th