e
reason for this, as with the narrowing expanse of Omean as the waters
rose toward the apex of its dome, the rapidity of its rise would
increase in inverse ratio to the ever-lessening space to be filled.

Long ere the last of the column could hope to reach the upper pits
which lay above the danger point I was convinced that the waters would
surge after us in overwhelming volume, and that fully half the
expedition would be snuffed out.

As I cast about for some means of saving as many as possible of the
doomed men, I saw a diverging corridor which seemed to rise at a steep
angle at my right. The waters were now swirling about my waist. The
men directly before me were quickly becoming panic-stricken. Something
must be done at once or they would rush forward upon their fellows in a
mad stampede that would result in trampling down hundreds beneath the
flood and eventually clogging the passage beyond any hope of retreat
for those in advance.

Raising my voice to its utmost, I shouted my command to the dwars ahead
of me.

"Call back the last twenty-five utans," I shouted. "Here seems a way
of escape. Turn back and follow me."

My orders were obeyed by nearer thirty utans, so that some three
thousand men came about and hastened into the teeth of the flood to
reach the corridor up which I directed them.

As the first dwar passed in with his utan I cautioned him to listen
closely for my commands, and under no circumstances to venture into the
open, or leave the pits for the temple proper until I should have come
up with him, "or you know that I died before I could reach you."

The officer saluted and left me. The men filed rapidly past me and
entered the diverging corridor which I hoped would lead to safety. The
water rose breast high. Men stumbled, floundered, and went down. Many
I grasped and set upon their feet again, but alone the work was greater
than I could cope with. Soldiers were being swept beneath the boiling
torrent, never to rise. At length the dwar of the 10th utan took a
stand beside me. He was a valorous soldier, Gur Tus by name, and
together we kept the now thoroughly frightened troops in the semblance
of order and rescued many that would have drowned otherwise.

Djor Kantos, son of Kantos Kan, and a padwar of the fifth utan joined
us when his utan reached the opening through which the men were
fleeing. Thereafter not a man was lost of all the hundreds that
remained to pass from the main