cks; if not--but we'll never know the
difference anyway."

He took the flame-thrower from the car in sudden haste. "Quick,
dear," he told Loah. "God knows when the end will come. Quick, show me
the way."

Loah knew every step of the route that took them on and upward through
a maze of twisting passages, and Rawson marveled at her sense of
direction. She flashed her light at times--the little bar of metal
that had in one hollow end a substance which absorbed the light-energy
of the Central Sun. Rawson knew how it worked. Even the lights in the
mountain room were taken out from time to time and exposed to the
sunlight that brought them back into glowing life. He had seen similar
phenomena on earth. But, for the most part, Loah kept the little metal
cap in place on the end of her torch, and they moved cautiously
through the dark.

* * * * *

Sounds of the Red Ones came to them at times. And once they hid in a
narrow branching cleft that came abruptly to a dead end, while a force
of red warriors marched hurriedly through the passage they had just
left. Back in their hiding place Rawson stood tense and ready, with
his weapon till the last of the enemy was gone.

Always he was frantic at thought of the time that was slipping
past--until, at last, the narrow passage that they followed cut
transversely through another large runway that glowed faintly from
some distant light.

With that first gleam of light there came over Dean Rawson an odd
change. Something within him had been cold with fear. Fear of the
flying minutes. Fear that Loah might have lost her way in this tangled
labyrinth of winding ways. And now, suddenly, he was care-free, filled
with an absurd joy. Nothing mattered. They were to die, but what of
that? Loah had chosen death; he would see that when it came to her,
it would be quickly and without pain. And as for himself, if before he
died he could remove this ruler of an enemy race....

So when Loah leaned close and whispered, "The light--it shines from
the council room of Phee-e-al," Dean replied almost gaily; "I've got
to hand it to you--you sure do know all the back alleys." Then he
stuck his head cautiously out into the dimly-lighted corridor.

It was broad. He saw where their own little passageway went on from
the opposite side. But the light--the light! At his left, not a
hundred steps away, was a room, brilliantly lighted. And across it, in
gleaming splendor, stretc