f they had beds in those insulated
dwellings.

He could not sleep. All through the night he sat with bowed head,
alternately planning rescue attempts and cursing himself for bringing
Ora to this horrible end. Detis was dead; the _Nomad_ was hopelessly
beyond repair for many days, even if they could make their escape and
locate it; Nazu had saved his own skin, and they were left to the mercy
of these vibration-crazed brutes who waited there in the flickering red
twilight all around him. It was a revolting ending for an adventure that
had started so auspiciously.

* * * * *

With the first faint light of dawn came the roaring of the pillar of
flame from out the crater. Instantly there rose the hollow booming of
the drums and the chanting of thousands of the barbarous worshippers.
The place was swarming with them almost instantly, and Carr's guards
closed in on him with evil glee.

Ora was brought out into the open, her arms held fast by two of the red
devils who yanked her roughly along between them. Carr roared out in
blind rage and in awful fear for the girl. He struck out viciously into
the first grinning face that pressed near. Something in his brain seemed
to snap then, and he became a snarling, fighting animal, battling
against overwhelming odds in defence of his mate. A dart buried itself
in his arm and a stone hatchet bit into his shoulder, but he scarcely
felt the hurts. All that mattered now was Ora; they were taking her
away--taking her to the folds of that incredible hot thing that flapped
there at the crater's rim. An arm snapped like a pipestem in his fingers
and he heard the squeal of pain from somewhere in the tangled mass of
savages around him.

And then they were falling back; easing up on him. The din was
increasing, but it seemed that a note of fear had crept in to replace
the exultant frenzy of those chanting voices. The drums were stilled.

Wiping the blood from his eyes with the back of his hand, he saw the
barbarians running everywhere; they were screaming in superstitious
terror and fighting one another in their desperate anxiety to escape the
vicinity of their precious fire-god. A tremendous voice boomed out over
the hubbub, a voice that came from the crater in vast commanding
gutturals that struck terror into the souls of the panicky barbarians.
Yet somehow that mightily sonorous voice carried a familiar ring.

Carr raised astonished eyes to the pillar of b