oused to sacrifice you to the Canal Gods, like the others who
survived."

"Canal gods!" croaked Charlie. "This can't be right! Aren't you
civilized here? I can't be the only Earthman they've seen!"

"It is true that Earthmen are perfectly safe at most times."

"But the laws! The earth consul--"

Kho snapped the tip of a tentacle at him.

"The canals are low. You can feel the heat and dryness for yourself.
The crowds are inflamed by temple prophecies. And then, your ship,
flaming down from the skies--"

He snapped all this tentacle tips at once.

* * * * *

From somewhere outside, a threatening murmur became audible. It was an
unholy blend of rasping shouts and shriller chanting, punctuated by
notes of a brassy gong. As Charlie listened, the volume rose
noticeably.

Kho reached out with one tentacle and wrapped six inches about the
Earthman's wrist. When he plunged through the doorway, Charlie
perforce went right with him.

Whipping around a corner of the hut, he had time for a quick squint at
the chanters. Kho alone had looked weirdly alien. Two hundred like
him--!

Led by a dozen bulgy figures in streaming robes, masked and decorated
in brass, the natives were swarming over the sand toward the
fugitives. They had evidently been busy. Above a distant cluster of
low buildings, a column of smoke spiraled upward suggestively.

Kho led the way at a flowing gallop over a sandstone ridge and down a
long slope toward what looked like the junction of two gullies.

"The canal," he wheezed. "With luck, we may find a boat."

A frenzied screech went up as the mob topped the ridge and regained
sight of them. Charlie, having all he could do to breathe in the thin
air, tried to shake his wrist loose. Now that they were descending the
slope, he saw where the water was. They slid down a four-foot drop in
a cloud of fine, choking dust, and were faced by several puntlike
craft stranded on the mudflat beyond. The water was fifty feet
further.

"We should have gone down-stream," said Kho, "but we can wade."

Their momentum carried them several steps into the mud before Charlie
realized how wrong that was. Then, as they floundered about to regain
the solid bank, it became apparent that they would never reach it in
time.

"They are catching us," rasped Kho.

The howling crowd was scarcely a hundred yards away. The heat waves
shimmered above the reddish desert sand until the Martians were