he top.

He was fighting blindly as they came on in endless succession, the
figures of frenzied priests leaping grotesquely beyond. Only the
strategic position he had taken allowed him to turn the wild assault
again and again. They could only reach him by ones and twos, but the
end must come soon. There were priests tearing at the foot of the
barricade.... The cold winds that came down from above revived him,
but it helped the figures ripping at the fiber cords. The dry fungus
fragments whirled gaily away and down the passage in the wind.

The wind! The draft was blowing from him, directly upon his attackers.
Jerry struggled and clinched with another that bounded beside him, and
knew as he fought that a weapon was at hand. His knife found the lower
edge of copper, and the figure screamed as he rolled it down the
slope. He slipped the knife into his left hand as he fumbled with his
right.

* * * * *

His precious matches! He struck one on the rock; it broke in his
trembling fingers. Another--there were so few left. He drew it with
infinite care on the surface of rock. The figures below tore in frenzy
at the weakening barricade, while yet others stood waiting at this
sign of some new form of magic.

They shouted again, as they had when, those long days ago, he had
lighted a cigarette before their horrified gaze. Jerry shielded the
tiny blaze in his hand to bring it beneath a papery leaf beside him.

The flame flashed and dwindled. He dared not drop back to set fire to
the base of the heap. But even in the exhaustion and strain of the
moment Jerry Foster still knew the value of the showman's tricks in
reaching the fears of these white-faced fighters.

With grandiloquent gesture he raised another of the tindery fragments
and ignited it from the first. Another, and he had the beginning of a
fire. He lit another piece, and, when he had it blazing, dropped it
behind him and kept on with the show.

A large piece became a flaming torch, and he waved it before him and
laughed to see the warriors cringe. A cloud of smoke was billowing
about him--he leaped to safety through a rising wall of flame.

The rear slope of the barricade became a furnace; the wind behind him
swept the smoke clouds down the passage. He heard, and sank back
weakly on the ground as it came to him, the screaming riot where a mob
of terrified warriors fought and struck to turn the horde that
clamored behind them and pus