ar-distant past, he himself had been confined.

The flame-thrower lighted the way. It showed him the metal plate and
the smooth, glassy rock that had been melted around its edge. He
pounded on the metal and shouted Smithy's name.

Voices answered from within--voices almost unintelligible for the
wonder and unbelief and joy that made them a confusion of wordless
shouts. Then he stepped back and turned the blast of his weapon upon
the rock at the edge of the plate.

The metal sheet moved at last, its top swinging slowly outward. Its
base was held by the gummy, hardening rock. Then it broke free and
crashed to the floor, and the light of Dean's weapon showed through
the black opening upon the blanched faces of men, where eyes were
still wide in disbelief.

Though they were looking at one of their own kind, it must have taken
then a moment to realize that the naked body, clad only in a golden
loin cloth, and the hands that held one of the fearful, green-flamed
weapons, were those of a human. Then one of them broke from the
others, sprang heedlessly across the still-glowing plate, and threw
his arms about the barbaric figure.

"Dean!" he choked. "Dean, it's really you! You're alive!"

And Rawson's voice, too, was husky as he said: "Smithy, I thought you
were gone. The radio said they had got you, old man."

Then other khaki-clad bodies, a dozen of them, were crowding through
the hot portal, and Rawson came suddenly to himself.

"Quick!" he shouted. "They'll be after us in a second. Follow me."

Loah was waiting. Her own flame-thrower spat a little jet of green; it
was the only light. Rawson saw here she had gathered up the other
weapons and had turned them off so that even their little light would
not blind her as she kept watch down the dark passage.

"Do we want them?" Dean shouted to the others. And Smithy echoed the
question:

"Do we want them, Colonel?"

Colonel Culver, his face almost unrecognizable under its smears of
powder stains and blood, snapped a quick answer: "No. We outrange them
with our rifles. They're only flame-throwers, not ray projectors. Beat
it! Run like the devil!"

Rawson snatched Loah's weapon and threw it with the others. It would
be hard going, ahead--she must not be uselessly burdened. But he kept
his own. Then with his one free hand he swept her up till she was
racing beside him as they led the way.

"I should have kept the fire weapon," the girl protested; "I, too, can
fight."