e-men swung in their tracks and began to charge!

There was no time to guess by what power the Duca had turned the tables.
There was not even time for orders. Kirby fired twice, knowing that the
ape-men had been infused with some spirit which would bring them on in
spite of rifle fire.

Naida, unarmed, cried out behind him, and he shoved his gun at her.

"Take it!"

He had just inserted a new clip. He handed her others.

"Fire for your lives!" he shouted to the girls.

"But you!" Naida gasped. "You are unarmed!"

"I'll be all right."

On the floor lay a jagged, hand-chipped knife of obsidion which had
fallen as some ape died. Kirby grabbed it.

* * * * *

In another second the flood of ape-men had burst in all its fury over
him. Crashing, thundering shots were dinning in his ears, animal death
screams and the Valkyrie battle cries of the girls filled the temple. He
could not tell how many of the apes were fighting him. As a cave-man's
club whizzed past his head, he drove his knife once, and yanked it
dripping from hairy, yielding flesh to plunge it again. A sudden
side-step carried him away from another assailant. He dropped the knife
to snatch the gigantic club of one of the creatures he had killed.

Quicker in every movement than the ape-men, he laid on, right and left,
with such power that blood spurted in a dozen places, and heads were
split open on every side. And because of his speed, the frantic, clumsy
blows and knife thrusts which were directed at him proved harmless.

A terrific drive which smashed a snarling face into pulp, left Kirby
free for a second, and he emerged from the first round of battle ready
to cut in and help the girls. But then he saw that he had gotten
separated from the main body.

"Naida!" he called. "Naida!"

A series of shots answered him, and as several apes fell, a gap was
opened through which he saw her conducting a well ordered retreat of all
the girls toward the dark corridors surrounding the temple. Again Kirby
fell to with his club, swinging, hacking, fighting with his whole
strength to catch up. He made headway, and hope began to come again. The
ape-men would not kill, or even harm, the girls. What they wanted was to
carry them off. If he and Naida together could get their party rounded
up in the corridors, the chances were good.

"Naida!" he shouted again. "Coming!"

Battering down an ape in front of him, he jumped up on the corpse