ely he sensed behind
them a conflict of emotions.

"I must think," she said. "I will walk by myself for a time; then I
will return."

Rawson reached for her hand. "You're a good sport," he said huskily.
Then he felt the trembling of that hand in his; and, as if it had been
an electric current, his own body responded.

Shaken in every nerve, his poise deserted him. He could not think
clearly. He knew only that that horrible loneliness was somehow gone.
By force of will alone he kept his arms from reaching out toward that
radiant figure. Instead, he raised her hand toward his lips.

She withdrew it sharply. "No," she said, "our Wise Ones were mistaken.
For years they have listened to the mountain; they have written down
its words. Slowly they have learned their meaning. A kiss, they said,
was a symbol of love in your world. They were mistaken--as was I. Now
I will walk alone for a time."

* * * * *

Rawson let her go. She seemed hardly looking where she went; her eyes
were downcast. She moved slowly around the sheltering rock and on
toward the level ground and the rushing winds of the shaft.

His own thoughts were in a whirl, too confused with emotion for clear
thinking. "A symbol of love!" And back there in that cave world she
had pressed her lips to his hand. Then they had come here, and he had
been transformed to a god, a being who could never have more than an
impersonal affection for one as humble as she.

The rising flood of happiness within him was abruptly frozen, changed
to something which filled his veins with ice. For, from beyond the
crystal barrier that hid Loah from his view, her voice had come in one
single cry of terror. Then, "Dean!" she called. "Dean San!" But by
then, Rawson was throwing himself madly around the barricade of rocks.

Like a sensitized plate when the camera's shutter is opened a merest
fraction of a second, Rawson's brain took the imprint of every detail
that was there. The black mouth of the shaft, and, on the rock beside
it, something metallic, brilliantly gleaming--a flame-thrower! Beyond
the pit was Loah, half crouching, her slim body tense as if checked in
mid-flight. She had been running toward him, coming to warn him. And
between her and the shaft, his back turned squarely toward Rawson, was
the hideous figure of a mole-man, one of the Reds! His grotesque,
pointed head was bent forward toward the girl; his arms were reaching,
the long finge