er even with the characteristics of rock, or even metal.
Here, as Rawson had sensed, was new material to form the core of a
world. It would have been red in an ordinary light. It was transformed
to orange, strangely terrifying in the blazing flood of yellow
brilliance that came from the tunnel's end.

Rawson's brain was not working clearly. An unendurable weight seemed
pressing upon him--the air pressure, he thought, to which he had not
yet become accustomed. And the air, itself, hot--hot!

A breeze blew steadily past toward that place of yellow horror at the
tunnel's end. Yellow, that reflected light; but its source was a
searing, dazzling white in the one brief instant when Rawson dared
turn his eyes.

Hands held him erect, red, gripping hands. One, whose body seemed
molten copper in that fierce glare, approached. His hand described a
circle over Rawson's bare chest. Straight lines radiated out from the
circle, lines of stabbing pain for the helpless man. He had seen the
same emblem in the temple of fire, again in the big room where
Phee-e-al had stood.

* * * * *

The living sacrifice was prepared. Burned into his bare flesh was the
emblem of their legendary sun-god. The priests, their bodies coated
with a flashing coppery film that must somehow be heat-resistant, had
him in their grasp.

The red warriors had fallen back. Then Phee-e-al appeared; he joined
the march of death of which Dean Rawson formed the head. Voices were
chanting--somewhere a trumpet blared. Then Rawson, moving like one in
a dream, knew the priests were guiding him toward that waiting,
incredible heat.

The tunnel's end was near. About him was an inferno where heat and hot
colors blended. The whole world seemed aflame, but beyond the tunnel's
end was a seething pit upon which no human eyes could look and live.

One glimpse only of the unbearable whiteness beneath which was the
lake of fire, then the chains of his stupor broke and Dean Rawson
struggled frenziedly in the grip of two copper giants.

They had been chanting a shrill monotonous refrain. They ceased now as
they fought to throw the man out past that last ten paces where even
they dared not go.

Rawson was beyond conscious thought. Eyes closed against the
unendurable heat, he fought blindly, desperately, then knew his last
strength was going from him. Still struggling he opened his eyes; some
thought of meeting death face to face compelled him.