Jerry was saving his ammunition, but once more he fired as a sword was
falling over Winslow's head. He drove strongly with his left and beat
at the white skulls with the butt of the gun gripped in his other
hand.

The passage was suddenly behind them. One last stand against the
screaming, frothing faces, and they backed, panting, into the
sheltering dark. Jerry stopped and took Winslow by the arm.

"Are you hurt?" he demanded. The inventor was too breathless for
reply.

"Nothing much," he panted, after a moment. "One got me along the
cheek--you shot him just in time. How about you?"

"O.K.," was the assurance. "But, man, I've been hammered!"

"What a peach of a fight," he added. "But now what?"

Winslow laughed mirthlessly in the dark. "This looks like a one-way
street," he said. "We can't go back.

"Say," he demanded, with sudden, dim recollection. "I remember
something of a dream--a ghastly sort of thing. I was ... I was ...
where was I when you collared me? Where was I headed?"

"For something too damnable for us to imagine," Jerry stated
emphatically.

They were walking as rapidly as they dared through the dark passage.
There were high-pitched voices from the rear. From somewhere ahead
came the sound of running water.

"Too damnable to imagine!" he repeated. "But we'll hunt the vile thing
out if we get a chance, and we'll slaughter--"

The words ended in a startled exclamation as the ground fell beneath
their feet. They pitched headlong into nothingness--

* * * * *

There was water in Jerry's face as he fell. A torrent engulfed him as
he struck into it, pouring in from a lower passageway to plunge
straight down the shaft. The roaring crash of water tore madly at his
body; his arm was shot through with stabbing pain as Winslow's falling
body was torn from his grasp.

He was conscious only of his bursting lungs when he came to the
surface from the depths into which he plunged. With one arm he swam
weakly, the other trailing at his side, while he gulped greedily at
the air.

A voice came hoarsely from a distance. "Foster," it called.
"Jerry--where are you, Jerry?"

Ah, the good air in his lungs--he could swim more strongly now. He
managed to gasp an answer: "Here, Winslow, over here!" There was a
splashing in response to his voice. He heard it over the noise of the
waters he had been swept away from the cataract.

A hand was upon him in the dark. "Hurt?" asked the