, and
saw that already the vanguard of girls had reached the first sheltering
corridor. Naida had been cut off from the others by eight or ten apes.
But even so her fire made her mistress of the situation, and she seemed
all right.

It was just as Kirby started to jump down from the corpse that he saw
something which put another complexion on the matter, and left him
frozen where he was.

* * * * *

Behind Naida, directly in the path in which her slavering aggressors
were slowly forcing her, a huge stone slab in the temple floor had begun
to tilt up as if it were a trapdoor raised by an invisible hand. Within
the yawning opening, Kirby caught a glimpse of stone steps winding down
into blackness.

In a flash he saw that it was Naida, and her alone, that the ape-men
were after. The Duca's determination was to capture her, and it was the
presence of this trapdoor, making capture possible, which had brought on
the second charge of the apes.

A scream, high and wild, from Naida released Kirby from his trance of
horror. He leaped off the corpse, and smashed a suddenly presented skull
like an egg shell. Momentarily he saw Naida, too terrified to fire,
staring at the open trapdoor. Kirby felled two apes and felt their blood
on his arms.

"Ivana!" he yelled. "Help Naida, for God's sake!"

An answering shout, not from Ivana alone but from many girls, encouraged
him, and he swung his club with a speed and force which would let
nothing stand before him. But then another scream from Naida rang in his
ears.

"Naida!" he shouted. "It's all right! We're coming!"

He knew, though, that it _wasn't_ all right. Fighting like a maniac, he
opened another lane down which he glimpsed her. Fighting still, in a
last terrific effort to force his way down the lane to her side, he saw
the black opening gape at her feet; and, as Naida screamed again, a
dozen hairy arms reached it at once, twisted the empty rifle out of her
hands, and lifted her shining body as if it had been a feather.

Shouts and murderous fire were coming from the other girls, and Kirby
swung his club as never before. But even as he fell upon the last two or
three apes which kept him away from Naida, those who had snatched her,
bolted down the steps.

Kirby was left with the memory of Naida's great eyes fixed upon his,
fear-filled, beseeching his protection. In a second, the ponderous
trapdoor crashed into place, and she was gone.