He knew that he fell stiffly where he stood. He was blinded by light
and deafened by sound and his nostrils were filled with the nauseating
fetor of jungle and decay. These sensations lasted for what seemed
years.

Then all the sensations ended abruptly. But he still could not see;
his eyes were still dazzled by the lights that closing his eyelids had
not changed. He still could not hear. He'd been deafened by the sounds
that had dazed and numbed him. He moved, and he knew it, but he could
not feel anything. His hands and body felt numb.

Then he sensed that the positions of his arms and legs were changed.
He struggled, blind and deaf and without feeling anywhere. He knew
that he was confined. His arms were fastened somehow so that he could
not move them.

And then gradually--very gradually--his senses returned. He heard
squeakings. At first they were faint as the exhausted nerve ends in
his ears only began to regain their function. He began to regain the
sense of touch, though he felt only furriness everywhere.

He was raised up. It seemed to him that claws rather than fingers
grasped him. He stood erect, swaying. His sense of balance had been
lost without his realizing it. It came back, very slowly. But he saw
nothing. Clawlike hands--or handlike claws--pulled at him. He felt
himself turned and pushed. He staggered. He took steps out of the need
to stay erect. The pushings and pullings continued. He found himself
urged somewhere. He realized that his arms were useless because they
were wrapped with something like cord or rope.

Stumbling, he responded to the urging. There was nothing else to do.
He found himself descending. He was being led somewhere which could
only be downward. He was guided, not gently, but not brutally either.

He waited for sight to return to him. It did not come.

It was then he realized that he could not see because he was
blindfolded.

There were whistling squeaks very near him. He began helplessly to
descend the mountain, surrounded and guided and sometimes pulled by
unseen creatures.

CHAPTER 3

It was a long descent, made longer by the blindfold and clumsier by
his inability to move his arms. More than once Lockley stumbled. Twice
he fell. The clawlike hands or handlike claws lifted him and thrust
him on the way that was being chosen for him. There were whistling
squeaks. Presently he realized that some of them were directed at him.
A squeak or whistle in a warning to