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more of the red fighters, and again, though their hissing green flames were held ready, they did not descend. A priest, copper-colored, shining resplendently in the weird glow, detached himself from the group and stepped forward under the protection of their weapons. Loah's hand was depressing the muzzle of Rawson's rifle. "Wait!" she said. "He wishes to speak." * * * * * The priest stopped and addressed them. Loah answered; and to Rawson it seemed horrible that her lips and throat should be called upon to form those whistling words. Then she turned toward him. "He says they will not harm you now if you surrender. Later, when they select a new ruler, he may order you set free." Rawson was doing some quick thinking. The priest was lying, clumsily, childishly, but it might be he could bargain with them. "Tell them this," he ordered Loah: "they are to let you go free--let you go right now! If they do that, I'll lay down my gun. If they don't, that priest will die before they get me. I don't think you can make it," he added, "but go back to the _jana_. Don't stop for anything. Drive it as fast as you can; you may still get there before Gor does his stuff. And take the flame-thrower in case you are followed--" He stopped; Loah was laughing. "Did you really think, Dean-San, that I would desert you?" Again she laughed softly--laughing squarely in the face of that waiting death, a laugh that was half a sob, that caught suddenly in her throat as she stared at Dean. He could not read the look in her eyes as their expression changed. "Yes," she said slowly, "yes, you are right. If I stay we both die, quickly." Again her voice made whistling sounds; the priest replied. Then Loah threw her arms around Dean and kissed him. He was gripping his rifle; before he could take her in his arms, she was gone. She walked swiftly, the flame-thrower in her hands, toward the dark cleft in the rocks, through which she disappeared. And Dean, though she had done what he really wished, felt that all of his life and strength had gone with him with that fleeing figure. He placed his rifle on the floor and, straightening, held out his empty hands; the priest's talons were upon his flesh. "But I got Phee-e-al, anyhow," he was thinking dully. CHAPTER XXV _Smithy_ Scarcely more than a vault in the solid rock, the room where Rawson lay. He had seen it for an instant when the priest, af
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