d
arms and carried her stumblingly across the welter of rocks on the
boulder-strewn slope. Nor did he stop until he had gained the safety
of open ground beyond the marks of the great slide.

* * * * *

The earth was shivering and weaving as he laid her down; a rock
crashed sharply in the distance. Garry turned to retrace his steps and
leap wildly from rock to rock toward the mouth of the cave in a
granite cliff. And the metal chest was in his arms when he returned
where Luhra waited.

The ground was alive with sickening motion, he was nauseated with
earthquake sickness, but he gave thought only to his gun and the one
cartridge that he found in the chamber. He steadied his arm upon a
rock to take aim at a figure on a distant slope.

Horab had climbed back upon the rock. A lean figure and black, he was
sharply outlined in the last rays of the setting sun; the target was
clear beyond the pistol's sights. But the fingers of the grim-faced
man refused to tighten upon the trigger.

Savage and cruel--a relic of a bygone age! He stood there, ludicrous
and unreal in his stark black nakedness, his frayed robes of crimson
whipping to tatters in the breeze. Yet he had forgotten his
wounds--Horab was standing upright--and Garry's hand that held the
pistol fell loosely at his side. The hate melted from his heart as he
watched where Horab drew himself painfully erect.

A barbarous figure was Horab, and evil beyond redemption, yet there
were not lacking the attributes of a king in the grotesque form whose
head was still held high. The sun made flashing brilliance of the
jewels on that distorted head, while he stared with hopeless, savage
eyes across the changed world where he could have no part. His _Tao_
had failed him; his enemy had struck him down; and now--

The rock that bad been a rest for Garry's arm was swaying, and to his
ears came a rumble and groan. Sentinel Mountain, that had watched the
ages pass, that had seen the oceans truly change to sand, protested
again at this disturbance of its own long sleep.

Garry heard the coming of the masses from above; the crashing din was
deadening to his ears. They were safe--and his eyes were upon a savage
figure, black and tall, that stared and stared, silently, across a sea
of yellow sand. He watched it, clear-cut, motionless--until it
vanished beneath the roaring flood of rocks.

* * * * *

And close in his arms