ound a sharp
edge of rock, and sawed frantically upon it to cut the soft gold of
the cords at his wrists. The one above them paid no heed; his eyes
were held in horror of this silent death that swept across the world.

The hand that Garry extended was steady and cautious; his arm crept
about the body of white and gold to draw the amazed and wondering girl
silently into the open cave.

"Follow!" he ordered, and dashed headlong down the darkened way where
an automatic was waiting for his eager fingers.

The pack was there, and he tore at it with frenzied hands to grip at
the pistol within. And there was also an open chest whose contents
glittered in the green light, and whose weight was not too great for
him to carry....

He had both chest and gun when he returned. The stumbling falls in his
mad rush had not served to allay the hurts of his tortured body, nor
still his raging fury. He called to Luhra as he ran--and realized that
Luhra was gone. The chest fell forgotten at his feet as he rushed out;
he shouted her name and cursed himself for leaving her.

* * * * *

Had the fascination of the outer world drawn her back? Had she trusted
too greatly in the power of his Tao to shield her from harm? Connell
could not know. He knew only that he saw her struggling in the grip of
the long arms where the black one held her on an outthrust rock.

They were a hundred feet away, yet the black face beneath its pointed
skull showed plainly its bestial fury as Garry sprang forward. With
one motion the tall figure dashed the girl to the stone at his feet
and raised his spear. He paused to laugh harshly at the man who rushed
toward him--who could never reach him to stop the fatal thrust.

A threat, it might have been, to hold the attacker off, or a murderous
intent to end now and forever this one captive's life: Garry did not
wait to learn. And the hundred-foot distance that meant a hundred feet
of safety to the savage was spanned by a stream of lead from a gun
whose stabbing flashes cracked sharply upon the still air. The ringing
clatter of a spear that fell among granite stones came thinly to Garry
as he saw the black form of Horab, king of another day, spin dizzily
from the rock on which he stood.

He had hit him--wounded him at least--and the firing of that wild
fusillade might have emptied the magazine! Gary waited for nothing
more, but gathered the limp body of the girl within his outstretche