CHAPTER XII
_In the Shadow of the Pyramid_
They waited, unbreathing, listening to the occasional stealthy sounds.The pistol was still in Chet's belt; the three men were crouched beforeDiane, in their hands the crude weapons that they had made.
And then the sounds ceased. The menace seemed to have passed, or to bewithheld; the men had been tensely prepared for some minutes when Dianespoke softly.
"Look below," she whispered; "the savages! That big one seems to bechoosing them--selecting some from among them."
Chet forced himself to look away from that corner of the rocky stepwhere he had been expecting an unknown enemy to appear, and he staredbelow them where the Earth-light from the fully risen globe swept acrossthe arena.
He was amazed at the numbers of the savages that the full lightdisclosed. There were hundreds--yes, thousands--of them, he estimated.And they were standing in black, clotted masses, standing awed andsilent in a world that was all black and white in a dazzling contrast,while there passed among them one with outstretched arms.
The black, hairy hands would hover over a cowering head; the eyes, Chetknew, were staring widely, blindly, at the shivering creature beforehim. And if Chet's surmise was correct, there was another--a hidden,mysterious something--who was taking the message of those eyes as theape-man's brain transmitted it; taking it and sending back instructionsas to which victims should be selected.
Often the hands passed on; but soon they would descend to touch thesavage face of another in the assemblage. At the touch the selected onejerked sharply erect, then walked stiffly from the ranks to join a groupthat was waiting.
At last there were nearly a hundred savage figures in that group, allgrown men, young and in the full flood of their savage strength. Nowomen were chosen, nor children, though there were countless littleblack bodies huddled with the others.
* * * * *
A prolific race, indeed, Chet thought, and this human automaton downthere was leaving the women to produce more victims; leaving thechildren till they were fully grown, taking only the best and strongestof the pack--for what?
His question was answered in part in the next instant. While the wailingcry quivered again upon the air, the chosen hundred took up theirsomnambulistic walk. The messenger from the pyramid came after like aherdsman driving cattle to the slaughter. They passed from Chet's viewas they rounded the rear of the pyramid, and then he heard the scuff andclatter of their ascent.
No need to explain to the others; each of the four saw all too clearlytheir predicament. From the rear, coming steadily on, was the savagethrong; before them, plainly visible from below, was the lighted edgewhere the altar rock stood. To step out there in full view would bringthe whole pack upon them; to drop down to another level would exposethem as plainly. Only in the dark shelter of the projecting capstonewere they hidden from the upturned faces now massed solidly about.
Their problem was solved for them by the sight of a savage body, black,ragged with unkempt tufts of hair--another!--a score of them! They wererounding the corner of the pyramid and walking stiffly toward them,pressing upon them.
And the arrow on the drawn bow in Chet's hand was never loosed, for eachsavage face was wide-eyed and devoid of expression; the ape-men neithersaw nor felt them. They were hypnotized, as Chet was suddenly aware;they knew only that they must follow the mental instructions that wereguiding them on.
The black, animal bodies were upon them. Chet came from the stupefyingwonder that had claimed them all and sprang to shield the group from thesteady advance. Harkness was beside him, and an instant later, Kreiss;Diane was at their backs. And the weight of the advancing bodies sweptthem irresistibly backward, out into the light, along the wide steptoward the passage that yawned darkly under the projecting cap.
* * * * *
There was no checking the avalanche of bodies--no resisting them: themen were carried along; it was all they could do to keep their footing.Harkness sprang backward to take Diane in his arms and retreat with herbefore the advancing horde. Chet was waiting for an outcry from below,for some indication that despite the mass of bodies that smothered them,their presence had been observed. But only the wailing cry persisted.
There was another advancing column that had circled the other side, andnow both groups were meeting at the passageway. Chet gripped at thefigure of Kreiss who was being swept helpless toward the dark vault andhe dragged him back. The two fought their way out toward the front andsaw Harkness doing the same.
"The altar," gasped Chet; "up on the altar!" And he saw Harkness swingDiane up on the stone, then turn and extend a helping hand toward thetwo men.
Safe in the sanctuary of this altar dedicated to some deity that theycould never imagine, they crouched close to its blood-clotted surface,and still there was no change in the cry from below.
"Let them all go in," Harkness whispered. "Then follow them into theshadow. There will no more come up here, I imagine. We will make ourescape after a bit."
The black mouth of the passage had swallowed the ape-men by solidscores, and now only some stragglers were left. Harkness was speaking inquick, whispered orders:
"Follow the last ones. Keep stooped over so they won't spot us frombelow. Wait in the darkness of the entrance."
Chet saw him crouch low as he crept from the stone. Diane followed, thenKreiss; and Chet next, close behind a shambling ape-figure that slunkinto the darkness of the passageway.
* * * * *
That it was a passage Chet had not the least doubt. It had taken inthese scores of savage figures, taken them somewhere; but where it ledor why these poor stunned creatures had been chosen he could not know.Yet he remembered the one message he had caught: "Flesh! Bring flesh!"It had meant only one thing: it was food that was wanted--human food!And the fetid stench that was wafted from the darkness of this place ofmystery and horror, that made him reel back and put a hand to hisrevolted lips, would not have encouraged him, even had he had any desireto learn the answer to the puzzle.
Diane was half-crouching; she was choking with the foul air. Harknessspoke gaspingly as he took her by the arm:
"Outside, for God's sake!... Horrible!... Get Diane outside--try lyingdown--we may be out of sight!"
But this time he did not follow his own instructions. He rose erect,instead, and stood swaying as if dazed; and Chet saw that before him,outlined against the lighted opening in the rock, was the messenger hehad seen.
Black against the bright Earth-light, his features were lost; noexpression could be seen. But his eyes, that were dead and white likethe upturned belly of a fish, came suddenly to life. They glared fromthe dark face with a light that came almost visibly from them to thestaring eyes of Walt Harkness. Chet saw Harkness stiffen, one upraisedhand falling woodenly to his side; a cry of warning was strangled in histhroat, and then the glaring eyes passed on to the face of Diane.
Chet had forgotten this messenger from the pyramid's hidden horror. Ifhe had thought of him at all he had assumed that he had passed in withthe other crowding ape-men; he was one like them, undistinguishable fromthe rest. And now the savage figure was before them in terrifyingreality.
* * * * *
The eyes passed on to Kreiss. Then the ugly face swung toward Chet, and,as their eyes met, it seemed to Chet that a blow had crashed stunninglyupon his brain. He tried to move--he knew that he must move. He mustreach for his bow, must leap upon this hulking brute and beat at theglaring eyes with his bare fists. And his muscles that he tried to rouseto action might have changed to stone, so unresponsive were they, andunmoving.
The hairy hands reached out and touched Harkness. They passed on andlingered upon the blanched features of the girl, and Chet raged inwardlyat his inability to resist and her utter helplessness to draw away. ThenKreiss; and again Chet's turn. And, with the touching of those roughanimal hands, he felt that a contact had b
een established with somedistant force--a something that communicated with him, that sentthoughts which his brain phrased in words.
"Curious!" said those thoughts. "How exceedingly curious! We shall beinterested in learning more. We shall learn all we can in one way andanother of this new race. We shall dismember them slowly, all but thewoman: we find her strangely attractive.... You will bring them to us atonce."
And Chet knew that the instructions were for the messenger whose handscame stiffly upward to point the way; while, with a portion of his mindthat was functioning freely, Chet raged as he saw Diane take the firststiff, involuntary step forward. Then Harkness and Kreiss! and he knewthat he too must follow, knew himself to be as helpless as the drivenbrutes he had seen herded down below. And then, with the same mind thatwas still able to comprehend the messages of his own eyes and ears, heknew that from behind the savage figure there had come a sound.
* * * * *
His senses were alert, sharpened to an abnormal degree; the almostsilent footfall otherwise could never have been heard.
The raised hand swung toward him; he knew that he must turn and followthe others to whatever awaited.... But the hand paused! Then swiftly thesavage figure swung to face toward the entrance, and those blazing eyes,as Chet knew, were a match for any opponent.
But the eyes never found what they looked for and the quick swing of thebig ape-body was never completed. In the portal of light there wasframed a naked figure which sprang as if from nowhere, squat, savage andape-like, but hairless. Its arms were upraised; the hands held a bow;and the twang of the bowstring came as one with the ripping thud of ashaft that was tearing through flesh.
The savage fell in mid-turn; and it seemed as if the blazing light ofthe terrible eyes must have flicked out before the breath of Death. And,protruding from the thick neck, was the shaft of a crude arrow.... Therewere others that flashed, thudding and quivering, into the body thatjerked with each impact, then lay still, a darker blot on the floor of adark cave.
Chet was breathless; it was an instant before he realized that he wasfree, that the hypnotic bonds that had bound him were loosed. It wasanother instant before he sensed that his companions were stillmarching--trudging stiffly, woodenly off through the dark. He boundedafter, heedless of bruising walls; he followed where the sound of theirscuffling feet marked their progress to a sure doom.
There were stairs; how he sensed them Chet could not have told. But hepaused, hesitated a moment, then found the first step and half ran, halffell, through the utter darkness of the pit into which they had gone.
* * * * *
The odors that had seemed the utmost of vileness now came to him ahundred times worse. They tore at his throat with a strangling grip, andhe was weak with nausea when he crashed upon a figure that he knew, wasKreiss. Then on, to grasp at Diane and Harkness; to drag them to astandstill in the darkness that pressed upon them smotheringly, while heshook them, beat at them, shouted their names.
"Diane! Walt! Wake up! Wake up, I tell you! We're going back!"
He swung them around; forced them to face about.
"Walt, for God's sake, wake up! Diane! Kreiss!" The deep, sobbing breathof Diane was the first encouraging response.
Then: "Free!" she gasped. "I'm free!" And Harkness and Kreiss bothmumbled incoherently as they came from their hypnotic stupor.
"How--" began Harkness, "how did you--" But Chet waited for noexplanation of the seeming miracle that had just taken place.
"Go back," he told them, "--back up the steps!" And a babble of criesthat were terrifying in their inhuman savagery welled up from the depthsof the pyramid to urge them on.
The body of their captor was prone on the floor above: they stepped overit to reach the entrance. No figure showed there now; Chet stooped lowand stepped forth cautiously that the surging horde on the ground mightnot see him. The others followed. He felt Harkness' hand in a suddenwarning grip upon him.
"Chet!" said Harkness, "there is something there in the shadow--there!"And Chet saw, even before Walt pointed, a wriggling figure that crepttoward them.
He struck down the bow that Kreiss had raised, and a ray of light camethrough a jagged niche in the rock above to fall upon the face of theone who drew near.
Abjectly, in utmost humility, the naked figure crept toward their feet,and the savage face that was raised to theirs was wreathed in adistorted smile.
Beside him, Chet felt Harkness struggling to speak. In wondering tonesthat were almost unbelieving, Harkness choked out one word.
"Towahg!" he said. "Towahg!"
And the thick lips in that upraised face echoed proudly:
"Towahg! Me come!"