i, Nini, and Ivana, down from
their tree, ran toward them.

"She is all right," he said with a gesture which cut short the outbursts
ready to come. "But we've got to keep going. Ivana, tell Gori that her
people are gone, wiped out, but that if she will cast her lot with us,
we will not forget what she has done. Come on!"

With Gori leading them they ran, stumbling, recovering themselves,
stumbling again. To breathe became an agony. But not until many minutes
later, when they plowed into the cover of a fern belt whose blackness
not even the moonlight had pierced, did Kirby call a halt.

Here he swept a final glance behind him, listened long for sounds of
pursuit, and relaxed a little only when none came to disturb the night
stillness. However, that relaxation, now that he permitted it at last,
meant something.

The complete silence gave him final conviction that what he had said
about the whole ape-people being destroyed was true. As for the
Serpent--well, perhaps he was destroyed even as they were. Perhaps not.
In any case the grip which Quetzalcoatl held upon the imagination of the
People of the Temple had been destroyed by this night's work, and that
was what counted most. The Serpent would be worshipped no longer.

* * * * *

Kirby reached out in the darkness and found Naida's hand.

"Come along," he said to all of the party. "I think the past is--the
past. And with Gori to guide us out of the jungle, and our own brains to
guide us through the jungle of self-government after that, I think the
future ought to be bright enough."

Ivana and Nini both chuckled as they moved again, and Gori, hearing her
name spoken in a kindly voice, twitched her ears appreciatively. Naida
drew very close to Kirby.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked presently.

"The--temple," he answered.

"About the crown which probably is still lying on the altar there?"

Kirby looked up in surprise.

"Why, I had forgotten about that!"

"What was it, then?"

"But what could I have been thinking about except how you looked when we
came together in that gloomy place, and walked forward, side by side?
_Now_ have I told you enough?"

Naida laughed.

"There is so much to be done!" Kirby exclaimed then. "As soon as
possible, we must climb to the Valley of the Geyser, go on into the
outer world, and there seek carefully for men who are willing, and fit,
to come here. And that is only one task. Others