Front matter (continued 2)

Weary from the hours on the time-car, and half-nauseated by the bloodshed I had seen and taken part in, I sank down onto a step and watched without interest the remaining two combats. When these were finished, another order was given and we were hurried back down the stairs up which we had come. Conducting us down a different corridor, the guards separated us, thrusting us in pairs into small cells along the corridor.

I had hoped to be placed in the same cell as Denham, for I wanted much to speak further with him, but luck was against me and I was paired off with the blond giant who had killed the Arab in the first combat. A vicious shove sent us reeling into the little room, and behind me I heard the thick metal door clang shut.

CHAPTER 9

PRISONED

For ten days I lay in that little cell, prisoned with the big Northman. At my first inspection of the place, I saw that there was no possibility of escape, for the walls were of smooth stone, and the only opening in them was that of a two-inch pipe that served to ventilate the cell. There was no window, as we think of it, yet the room was light enough in the daytime, for as the sun rose, the side of the cell facing on the building's outer wall became invisible, allowing plenty of light to enter. This explained a fact that had puzzled me, the absence of windows on the exteriors of the cylindrical buildings of the city. Evidently the people of the city treated the outside walls of their buildings in such a manner that in daylight they were invisible from the inside, while perfectly opaque when viewed from without.

I had other evidence of the scientific attainments of these people in the food that was furnished us twice each day. That food was nothing but a clear golden liquid, with a slight oily flavor but otherwise tasteless. Yet I found that it contained all the food-elements necessary for the human body, since in all my time in this strange city I had no other food, and never felt need of any other.

I found my cell-mate a dull enough companion. He was morose and fierce in disposition, and very suspicious of me. I think that he considered me a spy. I found that he knew a little English, a strange, archaic English, but enough for us to carry on a broken conversation. To all my eager questions, though, the fellow replied with a cold stare. By this time I felt convinced that Lantin and I had found in this city the home of the Raider, since the fact of Denham's presence and that of these other men of many times and races admitted of no other explanation. Yet when I asked the Norseman how he had come here, or if he had ever seen the Raider, he kept to a gloomy silence, and I cursed my luck in being confined with such a suspicious companion.

One service, though, he did do for me, and that was to teach me the strange language used by the guards and masters of the city around me. That tongue, I learned, was the Kanlar tongue, while the bright-haired master-race of the city were Kanlars. The language itself was not hard to learn, and in the long hours I lay imprisoned I acquired considerable facility in expressing myself in it.

Sometimes, too, the Norseman would break his silence, and growing excited with his own words, would tell me long, interminable stories of the wild adventures he had taken part in, the shield-ringed ships that he had sailed in, to leave fire and death along peaceful coasts, the long list of men he had slaughtered. His cold eyes burned as he related tales of butchery that appalled me, but when I ventured to interject a single question he would regard me stonily and then relapse into silence again.

The days went by, and through the transparent wall I watched night give way to dawn, dawn to noon, and noon to dusk and night. Much I thought of Lantin in those days. I wondered what fate had been his in the gigantic central building, whether he was alive or dead. Wondered, too, if I would ever find that out, for it was evident that we were being reserved for another gladiatorial battle, and I was not confident of coming through again unscathed.

One thing occurred, in those days of imprisonment, which still makes me shudder, sometimes, at the memory of it. The transparent side of our cell faced a smooth expanse of green lawn, with gardens beyond it, and most of my time I spent lounging against it, looking out. Very few people passed by there, now and then a few slaves, but scarcely ever any of the Kanlar people. So on the eighth day of my confinement, when I saw a slave approaching from a distance, I moved over to the invisible wall and watched him.

He was carrying a tool that looked much like a common garden-hoe, and walked toward me with that stiff, rigid movement that marked the white-robed slaves. He came closer, I glanced at his face, then reeled back against the side of the cell. For it was Talerri!

It was the Italian I had killed eight days before, garbed as a slave and walking with the same inhuman, puppetlike motion that all these strange servants used. He came closer toward me, so that I could see his staring eyes, then, with an angular movement, he turned aside and passed from view along the building's side.

For hours I puzzled over it, rejecting with a certain panic fear the one explanation that came to mind. I knew that I had killed the Italian that night, for my sword had pierced clean through his heart. Yet here he was, working as a slave for the Kanlars. And what of the other slaves, then, these rigid, staring-eyed figures? Were they too—?

For hours I speculated on the thing, but could find no rational explanation for it, nor would the Norseman enlighten me. Finally I gave it up as a mystery beyond me, and strove to banish it from my mind.

Two more days dragged out, days that were like weeks to me. I felt that I must soon go mad, if I were longer imprisoned. And then, sharply ending the monotony of dreary hours, there came a summons, a summons that in the end proved to be a call to an adventure utterly undreamed of by Lantin or myself.

CHAPTER 10

THE TEMPLE OF THE RAIDER

All that day I had sensed a tense activity outside, and many times there was the tramp of feet down the corridor outside our cell, as companies of the guards came and went. As sunset came, I stood beside the transparent wall and watched its brilliant colors fade from the sky.

Overhead, now, the aircraft of the Kanlars were flickering continuously past, all heading toward the giant cylinder that stood at the city's center, and when I scrambled up a little higher against the wall, to get a glimpse of the street, I saw that that street was crowded with masses of the armored guards and the staring-eyed slaves, all pressing on toward the same building.

Darkness came, and the noise of activity outside died away, so that it seemed that all the city around us was deserted, nor was there any sound from the building above us. For all of two hours after the darkness, we sat there, listening, waiting. Once I thought I heard a distant ringing music, but decided that my ears had been deceived. Then, abruptly, there was the stamp of sandals on the floor of the corridor, and we heard the doors of the cells along it being opened.

Our own was flung wide, as we rose, and I saw that a score of the guards waited outside, their leader ordering us to come out, which we were glad enough to do. Once in the corridor, I found Denham and the others of the group I had met before, shackled to each other, wrist to wrist, in a single file. The Northman and myself were fettered to the end of the line, and then we set out, a long file of guards on each side of us, marching us down the corridor and outside the building.

The big street up which I had come before was utterly deserted, as we turned into it. I looked back along its length, lit with the crimson bulbs, a winding serpent of red light that stretched away out into the country beyond the city, out to where our time-car lay hidden in the hills. At the thought of it, so fierce a desire seized me to win back to it, and my own time, that had I not been shackled I would have made a break for freedom down the empty street. But as it was, I had no choice, and followed the others in our fettered line down the wide street toward the gigantic cylindrical building at its end.

That great pile seemed to loom higher and higher as we drew near it. Brilliant, winking lights along its sides outlined it against the gloom of night, a huge, erect cylinder of smooth stone, its flat top all of a thousand feet in width, and nearly a half-mile above the ground. Obscured as the immense edifice was by the darkness, yet the vague glimpses I got of its sky-flung walls staggered me. And we were being marched directly toward it.

A quarter-mile from the building, the flat street we followed ended, changed to a wide, smooth ramp that led up toward the giant edifice in a slight upward slant. We went up that ramp, the guards still on either side, till we stood under the very shadow of the gigantic, perpendicular walls, and now I saw that the ramp led up to and through a wide, high-arched entrance cut in the building's side, much like the entrance of the cylindrical building where I had been prisoned.

We passed up and through that arched entrance, and were in a long tunnel, similarly arched, and cut through solid, seamless stone. It was a hundred feet in length, and as we passed on down its length it came to me that this must be the thickness of the great building's sides. The idea was too prodigious for speculation, even, and I shook it off, peering ahead toward the tunnel's end, where a ruddy light flooding down from above marked that end.

A few moments, and we had reached the tunnel's mouth, and emerged from it into the vast cylinder's interior. I swept one startled glance around that interior, then felt myself staggering, reeling, falling. The immensity of the place was soul-shaking, bearing down on me with a weight that seemed physical, crushing my thoughts down into nothing but dazed awe and terror.

I had imagined the building's interior to be divided, partitioned into apartments, but instead, the whole interior was one titanic room, shaped by the outside walls and roof, its sides looming up, dimly and vaguely, into a hazy darkness that hid their upper parts from view. Along the sides were many of the light-emitting bulbs, but these merely burned red holes in the dimness that surrounded the building's interior, rather than illuminated it.

Starting at the wall, and extending twenty feet out toward the center of the room, the floor was of black stone, a flat, continuous ring of smooth material that circled the whole room. Inside of this ring was the real floor, a single, huge disk of burnished metal, smooth as ice and as seamless, over nine hundred feet in diameter. And except for ourselves, who stood on the black ring near the entrance, there was nothing whatever on black circle or burnished floor, no people, tables, altar, nothing but the immense expanse of smooth metal and the comparatively thin black circle that surrounded it.

I looked up, and saw for the first time the people of the city. Cut in the thickness of the prodigious walls of the building were broad balconies, one above the other, ringing the building's interior as far up as I could see in the haze that hung above, and in these balconies were the dwellers of the city, Kanlars, guards and slaves. The lowest balcony, which was only a few feet above the floor, jutted forth in a smaller square gallery, a little away from where I stood, and in this projecting square sat three of the bright-haired Kanlars, the oldest-appearing men I had yet seen among them, two garbed in long robes of solid crimson while the other's garment was of deepest black. They sat there calmly, looking away across the big floor toward the great hall's other side. This lowest gallery, and the three directly above it, were filled with the Kanlars, while in the unnumbered galleries above these were the armored guards and the slaves. The only entrance to these galleries that I could see was a single narrow, winding stairway, a spiral stairway that began on the black circle of stone near the wall and slanted up from balcony to balcony, circling the building's sides several times as it spiraled up, and evidently leading up to the very roof of the place.

While I surveyed the scene, other ragged groups like our own had entered, escorted by guards, until a considerable number of us had been collected there near the entrance. Now one of the crimson-robed figures who sat in the gallery that jutted out from the lowest balcony, rose and uttered an order. My knowledge of the Kanlar language was too rudimentary for me to understand him, but when he had finished and resumed his seat, a delighted murmur swept over the massed crowds in the balconies.

Before I had time to speculate, the captain of the guards who watched us snapped out brief orders, and immediately eight of our number ran out of the center of the metal floor, where they at once drew their weapons and faced each other, in four individual combats.

In a few minutes, the four duels were over, but only three of the contestants came back from the floor's center. To my surprize, then, instead of being re-shackled to the rest of us, the three were handed armor and weapons like that of the other guards, which they donned at once. I began to understand now the purpose of these combats. Evidently the bravest fighters were weeded out in preliminary duels, such as I had taken part in, and the survivors of these first battles were then pitted against each other, the victors being adjudged worthy to enter the company of the guards. But where were these ragged fighters brought from?

The combats went on, always eight men battling at once, and I saw that our number was growing smaller very rapidly. Neither Denham nor I had yet been called on to fight, but my heart was beating rapidly, for I expected each time to be among the next eight. The blades clashed on, at the floor's center, and group after group went out from us, either to return and don the armor of the guards or to be dragged off the floor by slaves, dead or dying. The Kanlars in the lower balconies laughed and chatted as the ragged fighters on the floor slew each other, the massed guards above shouted their approval at each shrewd blow, and the fighting continued until finally but ten of our number were left, and by a freak of chance, both Denham and I were of that ten.

The fights on the floor ended, one by one, and swiftly the guards unshackled eight of our number and thrust them out onto the floor. I stood appalled. For the two who were left were myself and the Englishman!

While the swords clicked and flashed out on the floor, I stood in a daze, dismayed at the ironical trick which fate had played me. Of all the men in the city, I must fight the one whom alone I knew and liked. In a space of seconds, it seemed, the four fights on the floor had ended, and the fetters on my wrists were loosed. Together, hesitantly, Denham and I walked out onto the floor. Shouts of applause and encouragement came down from the balconies, for ours was the last fight, and the spectators wanted an exciting one.

Standing there at the very center of the huge building, Denham and I faced each other. Simultaneously we grasped the hilts of our rapiers, half drew them, and then, with a common impulse, slammed the blades back down into their sheaths. Without speaking, my companion stepped over and flung an arm across my shoulders, then tilted up his head and favored the spectators in the balconies with an insolent stare.

A howl of rage went up as it became evident that we would not fight each other. A torrent of taunts and execrations poured down on us from above, but we continued to lounge, arm in arm, as nonchalantly as possible.

Out from the black edge of the floor rushed a half-dozen of the guards, who seized us and hurried us off the floor, amid a storm of abuse from above. Instead of returning with us to the entrance, the guards led us toward the bottom of the spiraling stair and there stationed themselves beside us.

The angry cries in the balconies silenced, now, and a strange stillness filled the great hall. Music began, single, thrilling notes, like dropping peals of sound. Swiftly the lights began to dim, the glowing bulbs in the walls waning until all things in the vast room were wrapped in shadowy dusk.

The chiming music ceased, and over all that mighty fane was absolute silence, with no sound from Kanlars, guards or slaves. Then, in the little projecting gallery where he sat, the black-robed oldster rose and spoke.

His deep, heavy voice rolled out over the vast room with awesome effect, breaking as it did the unearthly silence. He was chanting, uttering an invocation or prayer. The words came to my ears, thick and blurred, so that I understood few of them. But the effect was one of utter solemnity—the darkness, the massed, silent crowds above, and that one deep voice speaking on, rising and falling.

For minutes the voice rumbled on, then abruptly ceased. There was another full minute of the strange silence, and a tremendous ringing note sounded. Even after it had died, the echoes of it beat in my ears like ghostly carillons of tiny, elfin chimes. And as it died away, there was a heavy, grating sound and the whole vast metal floor abruptly sank down some six feet into what appeared to be a gigantic smooth-walled shaft, then slid sidewise with another grating jar, vanishing into some aperture prepared for it. And where the floor had been was now a tremendous circular abyss, a straight-sided pit of such titanic depth that, looking down into it, I fell weakly to my knees and was seized with sudden nausea.

I stood on the very edge of the abyss, on the ring of black flooring that was its rim. And down from that rim, the stone sides of the great shaft fell smoothly to an unguessed depth. Far, far below, I seemed to see glimmering lights that winked faintly. And I saw, too, that the spiral staircase which circled the great room's interior from floor to roof continued on down beneath the floor and circled around and around this circular chasm in the same way, winding down into the unguessed depths below.

I felt Denham pulling me back from the edge of the shaft, beside which I lay. Dimly I realized that all in the great building were now chanting, rolling forth the same invocation as the black-robed leader. Far above, now, at the very ceiling or roof of the cylinder, a light burgeoned out, a burning purple beam that clove its light down through the dim haze and shadows around it. A moment it hung there, then there was a faint sigh of wind, a puff of icy air, and down, straight down from the vast hall's roof, there raced like a misty plummet—the Raider!

It flashed down until it hung on a level with myself, in midair, poised at the very center of the circular abyss and floating there effortlessly. It hung there, its gray mass changing, fluxing, interlacing, while at its center hung the three little orbs of purple light, steady and unwinking. From all the massed thousands on the balconies a sigh of worship went up.

The chant rolled out, louder, fiercer, and through it sounded another single ringing note. There was another whistle of wind, and the three purple orbs of the Raider flashed to green, while the solid but fluxing mass of it changed to a spinning cloud of gray vapor, that swirled rapidly around the central lights. Another fierce gust of wind smote me, and abruptly the Raider had vanished.

Up in the balconies the chant went on, repeated again and again. I saw a sea of white faces above, all turned down toward the spot where the Raider had disappeared. Minutes passed. The chanting went on, low, vast and deep-toned.

Came another buffeting breeze, a tempest of shrill wind-sounds, and with startling suddenness the Raider reappeared, flashing back into being at the same spot where it had vanished, above the center of the abyss. Again the green orbs changed to purple, and its cloudy mass contracted to the shifting but solid form it had occupied before. But now, held in its shapeless self, were men, who hung helpless in its grasp. It drifted over to the marble edge of the abyss, and loosed the men it held, then moved back to the pit's center.

The chanting swelled out, exultant, and I saw the men thus loosed struggle to their feet and look around with utter awe and terror. They were five in number, three in short white tunics who looked like men of ancient Greece, the other two wizened little figures with dark skin and long, wispy mustaches, either Huns or Tartars.

Again a ringing note cut through the chanting, and as if in obedience the Raider rose, floated up toward the vast hall's roof, whence it had come. It disappeared there, the purple light burned for a moment and vanished, and the chanting finally ceased.

The bulbs glowed out, at once, and light filled the place. The crowds in the balconies began to leave, streaming down the narrow staircase toward the floor. Before they reached it, however, guards had reached and fettered the five men the Raider had left on the pit's edge, and they now brought them over and shackled them also to Denham and me.

Our little group stood now on the very edge of the abysmal shaft. Some twenty feet below us there was a little landing, from which the stair started, spiraling down and around the shaft, into the darkness below. I wondered momentarily how the landing was reached, but my wonder ceased as a guard touched a lever in the wall, causing a little metal stair to unfold swiftly from the side of the shaft itself, a light little series of steps that connected the black marble ring of flooring with the landing below.

At an order from the guards we stepped onto it, down it to the landing and on down the spiral stair, which was cut in the solid rock of the great shaft's sides. Looking back, I saw the steps down which we had come fold back into the wall, and a moment later the light from above was shut out as the great metal floor of the temple swung back into position above us with a grating clash.

Our only light now was from bulbs set in the smooth wall along the down-winding stair, and these gave hardly enough light to show us the next steps. A low wall about a yard in height, pierced with an ornamental design of openings, was our only protection from the abyss on our left. Yet the guards still marched us on, around and around the great shaft, in a tremendous, falling spiral, down, down....

CHAPTER 11

THE CITY OF THE PIT

Soon a dim pearly light began to show far below us, a light that puzzled me. In the world above, I knew, it must be dawn, but how this was connected with the growing light below, if it was so connected, baffled me.

And now we reached the end of the shaft down whose sides we had come. It ended abruptly, and below on each side lay a great open space, obscured by drifting clouds of mist. But the stair did not end with the shaft. It dropped straight on down, a free, unsupported spiral of gleaming metal, winding down into the obscuring mists that hid its lower length. It was an eery thing to see, that gigantic twisted stairway, like a great corkscrew, vanishing down into the mists, like some pathway of the gods from heaven to earth. And it could hardly have been hung there by less than gods, I thought. No metal or material ever known to me would have been able thus to hold its unsupported weight in the form of this stair, yet there it was, seemingly tossed there in godlike indifference to the laws of mechanics. In its way, it was as great a wonder as the great building above. As that thought came to me, the light around us began to grow, to redden like the sunrise, and the mists cleared, drifted away in masses, vanished. And there, beneath me, lay the pit.

I can only describe that pit by saying that it was like the inside of a round, squat bottle, the neck of the bottle being the shaft down which I had come. This great cavern below me was roughly circular in shape, all of four miles in diameter, and a mile from its level floor to its glowing roof. For that roof was glowing. Looking up at it as we marched on down, I saw that set in it were scores of brilliant globes of glass, from which a flood of growing light, golden light, sunlight, daylight, was pouring down.

I saw now that the spiral stair down which we marched reached down to the pit's floor, and touched it near its center. And I saw, too, that all of the great cavern's floor, from one towering side to another, was covered with mass on mass of white, roofless buildings, of all shapes, covering the floor of the pit and huddling closely beneath the perpendicular walls of smooth rock.

At the center of this great mass of buildings, directly below us, was a great open clearing, or plaza, and it was there that the stairway touched the pit's floor. And from this plaza, clear to the circling walls, nine streets branched out, radiating in every direction like the spokes of a wheel. Along those streets moved great masses of men, and these were the dwellers in the city, the people of the pit.

So it was that I looked first on the city of the pit, the city of the Raider, and its people, over whom his shadow had been cast. And, looking, I wondered if there in the massed crowds below were Lantin and Cannell, and if it were possible to find them, here.

Again our guards ordered us forward, and we marched on. But now only a low wall on each side protected us from the abyss, and there was no wall on the right side against which to cling. But our guards seemed to mind this not at all, and I judged that they had made many trips up and down the stair, to be thus hardened to its dangers.

As we descended, Denham explained to me in a low voice the origin of the lights on the roof. These were merely lenses of a kind, he said, which diffused into the cavern real sunlight brought from above. I had already seen and puzzled at the glass globes set on pedestals through the city of cylinders above, but now saw their purpose. Those globes received the sunlight, transmitted it in some unknown fashion down to the globes on the roof, which gave it forth again. Thus it was that day and night in the pit were the same as in the world above, and the light there waxed and waned in accordance with the rising and setting of the sun which these people never saw.

We drew closer and closer toward the ground, and now I saw that at the stair's end, where it touched and debouched on the pit's floor, it was closed by a high, heavy gate of metal, barred and spiked, and that on our own side of this gate was a force of some fifty of the guards, armed with long spears and also with curious little cylinders of shining metal which they carried in their belts, and which I guessed were weapons of a kind unknown to myself.

As we came down toward them, these guards drew aside and unlocked the big gate. Our own captors unshackled us, and then pushed us through it unceremoniously, so that we stood in the clearing or plaza. And the gate was quickly shut and locked behind us.

Standing there, I forgot all else in the fascination of the scene around me. Across the open plaza, which was smoothly floored with stone, a great multitude of people were coming and going, and it was that shifting throng that held my gaze. For in it were men of every race and land and time, men of the far past and men of my own time, all seized and brought here by the Raider to mix and mingle in one vast, variegated throng. Even that first glance showed me that there must be thousands, tens of thousands of men prisoned in this gigantic under-city, and it showed me, too, that even as among the guards and slaves above, there were no women. All were comparatively young men, few being over middle age, and nearly all had the appearance of warriors.

Men of a thousand different centuries passed and repassed there before my eyes, men who had been flashed through the ages and brought there by the same alien being that had seized Cannell before my eyes, and that had seized, only a few hours before, the five newcomers who had come down the great stair with Denham and me.

For these, these crowds and masses of men that choked the streets and squares and buildings of this city of hell, these were the spoils of the Raider, gathered together for some unholy purpose of his own, and prisoned here in the pit, far beneath the city of the Kanlars. In a living panorama of the past, they streamed by me, a brilliant, barbaric throng.

Many of them were unknown in race to me, but many others I could recognize by their dress or features. There were Egyptians, shaven-headed men in long white robes, strangely aloof and silent in that noisy gathering. They carried short swords and bows, and I noticed that every one of the figures that passed before me wore weapons of some sort. I saw Assyrians, here and there, ravagers of the ancient world, wolf-faced, black-bearded men with burning eyes, clad in strange armor.

Three courtly, spade-bearded Spaniards sauntered by, carrying themselves as proudly as on the day when their galleons ruled the seas. A hulking, shock-headed savage clad in evil-smelling skins shambled by, with a giant gnarled club in his hand, his receding brow and jutting jaw proclaiming him a troglodyte, a man of the world's dawn. And right behind him came two stern-faced men in medieval armor, with the cross of the Crusaders blazoned on their battered shields.

Indians passed, with bow and tomahawk, hawk-faced and alert. Clear-skinned Greeks, laughing at some jest of their own. Chinese, quiet and inscrutable, whose eyes narrowed even further as they caught sight of the two wizened Tartars who had come down the stair with us. A tall frontiersman in suit of buckskin, with bowie knife in his belt, strode past, conversing with a helmed Phoenician sea-captain. And everywhere, clustering always together in little groups, were Romans, legionaries in tunic, breastplate and helmet, with bronze short-swords, who looked contemptuously on all other races in the passing throng.

A hand descended on my shoulder, and I turned, startled, to find that I had completely forgotten the Englishman, Denham, who stood behind me.

"Deuced strange, at first, isn't it?" he asked, smilingly, gesturing toward the moving pageant of the past, around us. Before I could answer, he went on, "You'd best come with me, now."

"Where?" I asked.

"Why, to my own barracks," he answered. "That's what these buildings are for, you know, but as a newcomer, you'd be in trouble here in a minute, without someone to answer for you. And, too, I want you to meet my own friends."

He looked at me more sharply. "I take it that you're no great friend of—" and he stopped, raising his eyes eloquently upward.

"The Raider?" I asked, and when he nodded I said, "Not I! I'm here to find a man—two men."

"Find a single man here?" asked Denham, sweeping his hand around the crowded streets in a hopeless gesture. "It's impossible! And what would you do when you found him? Escape? That, too, is impossible. How would you get up the stair, through the city of the Kanlars? And even if you achieved the impossible and did get through, there would be no place to go, for all around the city above is nothing but wild, uninhabited country where they would easily hunt you down."

"No matter," I told him; "once I got clear of the city above, I could make good my escape."

He looked at me with sudden interest. "So," he murmured; "and perhaps if my friends and I could help you—," but then he checked himself. "I must see them," he said, "before saying more."

I nodded, a new line of thought opening up to me, and then with Denham leading, we went on down one of the branching streets. In that street was a replica of the noisy, motley throng that filled the plaza, and their cries filled the air with a babel of a thousand different tongues. I noted, though, that many spoke in the language of the Kanlars, and guessed that it was that tongue which served more or less as a means of communication between the thousands gathered here, a supposition I later found to be correct.

Most of the buildings along the street seemed to be the barracks Denham had spoken of, housing the city's occupants, though some of them appeared to be wine-shops of a sort, judging from the drunken men who reeled out of them. An inquiry to my companion elicited the information that the only food of the city was the same golden liquid which had been furnished me above, and which I learned was made artificially directly from the soil itself. Thus the cycle of foodstuffs in my own time, where a plant draws its substance from the soil and is then eaten, or where an animal feeds on the plants sprung from the soil, to be eaten by us in turn, was entirely eliminated by the Kanlars, who manufactured their food directly from the soil itself, recasting the chemical composition of it to produce the yellow fluid. This yellow liquid, I learned, was made by slaves in the city above and was piped down to the city below and dispensed to the hordes there in the little buildings which I had assumed to be wine-shops. It seemed that while the stuff was a perfect food when taken in small quantities, yet when an excess was drunk it produced a violent intoxication. And as it was dispensed freely, it was not wonderful that there were great debauches of drunkenness in this under-metropolis.

One result of that we saw, for all along the street there was fighting, deadly battles between men of far-differing times and races. There was no interference in these combats, for there were none of the guards or Kanlars through all the city, the occupants being left to fight their own battles on the principle of the survival of the fittest. An excited ring of spectators was gathered round each combat, shouting at and cheering the opponents, not dispersing until the fighting was over. As we passed the scene of one such duel, I saw the victor dragging away the body of his late enemy.

"Where is he taking it?" I asked of Denham, motioning toward the receding figure.

"To the bottom of the stair," was his answer. "There is an iron rule that in any battle where a man is killed, the victor must carry the body of his opponent to the stair and hand it over to the guards there."

"But why?" I asked. "For burial above?"

Denham smiled grimly. "You saw the slaves in the city above," he said, "but did you notice how strange they were, how glassy-eyed and stiff-moving?"

When I nodded, he said, "Well, the slaves of the city above are men who have been killed here in the under-city."

At my exclamation of horror, he repeated his statement. "Man," he exclaimed, "you do not know the power of the Kanlars. With the wisdom that is theirs, such an accomplishment is child's-play."

"But how done?" I asked.

"Ask them," he answered darkly. "In some way they are able to bring back the breath of life into the dead men, to repair the wounds that killed them. They can make them live again, but not even the Kanlars can bring back their souls. They are just living, walking bodies, whom the Kanlars are able to control and to force to work their will in all things. Dead-alive, and slaves to the Kanlars!"

I shuddered deeply, for the idea was soul-sickening. Yet I knew now that Denham spoke truth, for I remembered how from my cell in the city above I had seen Talerri, garbed as a slave, Talerri, whom I had killed myself. It was an invention that would have aroused pride in the fiends of lowest hell, thus to raise dead men back to life and use them as servants. And I knew that this was but one of the dark evils that lay concealed under the rule of the laughing, bright-haired Kanlars.

While we talked we had been moving along the crowded street toward the distant wall of the pit. Finally, very near that wall, Denham turned in at a low, long building that was of white stone, and roofless, like most others in the city. I followed him inside, and looked around curiously.

The building's interior was a single large room, shaded from the light above by a suspended awning of green cloth. Ranged along the walls was a triple tier of metal bunks, in some of which lay cloth and fur robes. There was a long metal table at the room's center, and lounging in chairs around it, and in the bunks, were a score of men who looked up without interest as we entered.

Denham greeted them, and in reply they grunted lazily, looking at me incuriously. I followed my companion to the farther end of the room, where he seated himself in one of the bunks and motioned me to join him.

"My friends aren't here now," he said, "but they'll return before long."

A sudden curiosity prompted my next question. "How did you get here, Denham?" I asked. "Was it—the Raider?"

"Naturally," he answered. "It was the Raider, as you call it, that brought us all here, curse him. It was in the Colonial rebellion he got me."

"The American rebellion?" I asked, striving to understand his Eighteenth Century allusions.

"Of course," he answered. "We were quartered in Philadelphia, under that old fool, Howe. He liked the city, y'know, the bottle and the ladies. But the rest of us were itching for fight, and since we couldn't fight the rebels, we soon took to fighting one another.

"There was a ball one night, and toward the end of it I began to have a few words with a Hessian attached to our staff. We were both a little scrambled, by then. Curse me if there weren't some fine cellars there! But as to the German, he and I got hotter and hotter, until he finally made the assertion that our commander was a fool. Personally, that was my opinion also, but I couldn't allow the Dutchman to say so, and the upshot of it was that we left the ball together and adjourned to an open field near by to resume the argument, with our swords.

"Before we had made a half-dozen passes, there was a hellish sound of wind, a big, gray cloud with burning green eyes seemed to drop down on us from above, and then the bottom dropped out of the world. When we came to our senses, we were standing up there in the big temple, with a dozen others. Of course, we didn't know then that we had been brought on through time, but we knew it was a damned strange place.

"They brought us down here, down the stair, and as soon as we were turned loose here, we resumed our dispute, borrowing swords from two bystanders. By luck, I pinked him. There was a big crowd around, cheering us on, and it was then that I met D'Alord, who is one of the friends I mentioned."

As Denham finished his story, I began to feel a sudden, utter weariness, for I had not slept for many hours. I yawned and rubbed my eyes, and at once Denham jumped up.

"Why, take the bunk, man," he ordered me. "Go ahead and sleep."

"But what of Lantin," I asked, "my friend? He's somewhere in the city here, I'm sure, and I must find him."

Denham shook his head doubtfully. "What does he look like?" he asked.

When I had described Lantin to him, his face cleared a little, I thought. "An elderly man, you said?" he questioned, and when I nodded, he continued, "That should make it easier to find him, then. There are hardly any but young men here, so your friend would be more conspicuous and easily located. But you go ahead and sleep, and I'll find my friends and look for your companion. If anyone can find him, we can."

I tried to thank him, but he waved my words aside with a smile and walked out of the room. I sank back in the bunk and closed my eyes. As drowsiness overcame me, there came to my ears the dull sound of voices of the men in the room, with now and then a shout or bellow of laughter. And even these faded from hearing as I sank, contentedly enough, down into the green depths of sleep.

CHAPTER 12

PLANS FOR ESCAPE

Golden light again streamed through the windows when I finally woke, and I realized that in my utter weariness I must have slept the clock twice round. I swung out of the bunk and stood up, stretching.

There was only one man in the long room besides myself, a man who sat at the table, some distance away from me. As I looked at him he turned, saw me, and jumped up and hurried over toward me.

"Lantin!" I cried, extending my hands. He gripped them, his eyes sparkling.

"Where have you been?" I asked eagerly. "Were you in the city here all the time?"

"All the time since I left you," he affirmed. "They brought me directly here, Wheeler, and of course when I got here I knew at once that we had found the Raider's lair. Your friend Denham found me, a few hours ago, and told me where you were, but when I came here I saw that you were sleeping and didn't waken you."

"You should have," I told him. "But where is Denham now?"

"He'll be here soon," replied my friend. "He said he would go after his friends, who were helping him to look for me, and bring them here."

"But what of Cannell, Lantin?" I asked. "You have seen nothing of him in your stay here?"

His face clouded. "Nothing," he admitted. "I have searched for him, but how is one to find a single man in this city of thousands? And we do not even know that he is here, Wheeler. For all we know, he may have been killed long ago in some brawl here."

"Don't give up hope," I told him. "With Denham to help us, we have a far better chance to find him."

Lantin shook his head doubtfully, but before he could answer, our conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Denham and his three friends. As they came up to us, I gazed with mounting interest at the trio of strange companions who accompanied the Englishman.

One of them was patently a Roman, a short, sturdy man with swarthy, stern-set features, attired in armor and helmet. The man beside him was brown-skinned and long-haired, with eagle black eyes, dressed in spotted skins, quilted cotton armor, and head-dress of feathers. He carried a curious long sword, or weapon, whose edges were serrated, or saw-toothed, and the weapon gave me the clue to his identity. I had seen swords exactly like it brought out of the Aztec ruins in Mexico.

But it was the third man who caught and held my gaze. He was a figure of romance, a slouch-hatted, wide-booted trooper, long sword rattling at his heels, laughing, dare-devil eyes, and white teeth gleaming behind a fierce black mustache. As I surveyed him, rather rudely I think, he smiled at me and exclaimed, in execrable English: "Mordieu, is this the lad who killed that pig, Talerri?"

When Denham nodded, he thrust forth his hand impulsively, and I was glad to take it. And then Denham made introduction. "The Chevalier Raoul D'Alord," he said, indicating the laughing trooper, who swept me a grand bow. "One time captain in the armies of Henry Quatre, King of Navarre and France, but now a lodger in our pleasant city," and he laughed at the wry face the Frenchman made.

"This is Ixtil, Cacique of Tlacopan," he went on, indicating the wild brown figure in the middle, and I looked at him with renewed interest, now that my surmise had proved correct. An Aztec! One of the fierce hordes who had swept away Maya and Toltec forever, only to be crushed in turn by ruthless, steel-shod Cortez. The chieftain bowed to me, gravely and silently, but did not speak.

Denham turned to the remaining figure. "Fabrius Arminius," he said, "formerly centurion in the legions of Tiberius Cæsar," and the Roman stiffly inclined his head. Then, at Denham's suggestion, we seated ourselves around the end of the long table.

"D'Alord speaks English as well as I do," said Denham, "and between us we taught it to Ixtil and Fabrius, so you can speak freely. I have told my friends that you are, like ourselves, ready for an attempt at escaping. Naturally, though, they would like to hear it from your own lips."

"It is so," I assured them. "Lantin and I came here to find a certain man, and if we can find him, we'll take him out of here in spite of the Raider."

"The Raider?" queried D'Alord, and Denham interjected a brief explanation. "He means—him," he told the Frenchman, jerking a thumb upward.

The trooper laughed. "Sacré, that's a name for the beast! Eh, Fabrius?"

The Roman nodded, silently, and Denham came back to the subject. "For some time," he went on, "we four have considered different plans for escaping, but none has been practical. There are so many obstacles. It will be necessary to get up the stair, avoiding the guards at bottom and top. Once up, it will be necessary to pass through the city of the cylinders, though that should not be too difficult. But once out of the city, what then? How cross the ice?"

"We are talking at cross purposes," I said. "You must remember, Denham, that I know next to nothing about this place. Why have all these men been collected in this under-city? Does anyone know, except the Raider? What is the purpose of it all?"

"You do not know?" asked Denham, in surprize. "I thought you would, by now. These men, these thousands of warriors in the city here around you, have been gathered here by the Raider to act as his armies, his mercenaries, to pour down in hordes upon the cities of the enemies of the Kanlars, and destroy those enemies utterly, which the Kanlars are too few in number to do."

I gasped with astonishment. Denham went on. "You tell him, Fabrius," he said, addressing the Roman. "You have been here longer than any of us."

The centurion spoke, in a slurred, accented English. "Some things I have heard," he said, "but whether true or not, I can not say. There was a man here I knew when first I was brought here, a Persian. Before he was killed (for he was killed in a drunken brawl) he told me that once, in the city above, one of the Kanlars had become drunk and had babbled to him the story of his race.

"As you know, endless fields of ice lie around this land where is the Kanlar's city. Well, the Persian said that these fields of ice were not endless, that far to the south there were other green lands and in them a mighty people and a mighty city, named Kom. He said that long ago the Kanlars lived in this city, and were of its people, but that trouble had risen between them and the other people of Kom, because of the Raider. More than this he did not know, but said that because of this trouble, the Kanlars had fled from the city, with the Raider leading them, and coming north in their air-boats over the ice-fields, had found this green, uninhabited land, set in the ice. Its existence had never been suspected by those in Kom, who thought that the ice extended clear north to the very edge of earth.

"So the Kanlars had settled here and had built the city of cylinders, which lies above us. But still they planned to sweep back on Kom, and annihilate all there. But this they could not do, being too few in number. So the Raider, who is their god and their king, spoke to them and said that he would bring them men from every age of earth's past to be their servants, to fight for them at will. The Raider could travel at will through time—ask me not how!—and he swept back through the centuries and brought men by the thousands to the Kanlars, young warriors to fight their battles for them.

"There was a great cavern far beneath the city of the Kanlars, a great hollow space formed by inside shiftings of the young earth, and in this the Kanlars prisoned the men brought by the Raider, piercing a shaft down to it from their temple above, and placing in that shaft the stairway down which you came, under the direction of the Raider. They chose from among their prisoners some to be guards of the others, and those killed in battle here they brought back to seeming life by their arts of hell, and used as slaves.

"So, steadily, the hordes here in the pit have grown in number, until scarcely more could be contained here. Soon there will be enough to suit the purpose of the Raider and then they will be loosed and hurled south to carry fire and death to the cities beyond the ice, to Kom and the people of Kom, who can have no knowledge whatever of the peril that hangs over them. Up on the great roof of the temple, which is the home of the Raider, there are scores of great flying-platforms which the Kanlars have been constructing. They have made strange weapons, too, and so when their hour strikes, they will open the gates here and allow the hordes to pour up the stair, up to the roof of the temple, where they will crowd into the flying-platforms, under the leadership of the Kanlars, and race south over the ice to rain down death and destruction on Kom. And thus will the Raider and the Kanlars be revenged upon the people who cast them out."

Fabrius stopped, and I looked at Lantin, then back toward the Roman. Was this the true secret of the Raider's activity?

"But will the hordes here do this?" I asked. "Will they follow the Kanlars, and obey them?"

Fabrius laughed shortly, and D'Alord replied for him. "Ha, friend," he said to me, "you are new here, and do not know these men. They are evil, I tell you. They boast always of what they will do when they are loosed on Kom, for they know that soon they are to be thus loosed. Some subtle poison from the Raider's self has entered into them, I think. They are like tigers waiting to be freed upon a helpless prey."

"It is so," said Lantin, "for short a time as I have been here, I have found that this is so. There is no hope from the hordes here in the pit, for they will follow the Raider to a man."

There was a silence after that. Suddenly Denham spoke. "I think it would be possible for some of us, at least, to get out of the pit here," he said, "for I have a plan that would effect that much. But what then? Do you suppose it would be possible to get up to the roof of the temple and steal one of the flying-platforms you speak of? Or steal one of the Kanlars' air-boats? If we could do that, we could fly south over the ice-fields and warn the cities there of their peril, get their aid and come back and crush the Raider and these damned Kanlars."

For the first time, the Aztec spoke, shaking his head. "It can not be done," he said, speaking in precise, queerly clipped English. "I was to the roof of the temple once, and know. The only way to get to that roof is by the narrow stairway that spirals up the inside of the temple. And that stairway leads directly through the lair of the Raider!"

"But what can we do, then?" asked the Englishman. "It would be folly to try to steal one of the Kanlars' air-boats, for they always rise from and alight on the roofs of buildings, and we could never get to them unobserved."

Lantin broke into the silence that ensued. "But suppose there was an air-boat hidden back in the hills, outside the city," he said; "that would make things easier, wouldn't it?"

When they assented, he went on quickly, "Wheeler and I have such a machine hidden," he said, "and it was on it that we came here from our own time."

They looked up eagerly, incredulously. "Do you mean that you came into this age from your own time on a machine?" asked Denham. "That you came yourselves, and were not brought here by the Raider, like all the rest of us?"

Lantin nodded affirmation, and then went on to describe briefly the seizure of Cannell, our pursuit through time, and our subsequent capture outside the city by the guards. They listened, fascinated, and when he had finished, D'Alord asked, with something of awe in his voice, "And you made this machine yourselves? You found the secret of the Raider's time-traveling?"

"It is so," Lantin told them; "we made the time-car and then came after Cannell."

"God!" exclaimed the trooper, "what a chance for freedom! If we could all win free of this pit, escape from the city to your car, we could get back to our own times in it. Back to France!"

"No!" said Denham, decisively. "In the first place not all of us can escape from the pit. I have a plan by which some of us can, but the rest must stay here. And another thing, even if we each got back to our own time, D'Alord, who knows but that the Raider would come back and recapture us, as he did this Cannell they tell of? For all we know, the Raider may have placed on us some sign or mark by means of which he could track us down through the ages again. And until he is destroyed, it will be of no use to return to our own times."

"But what to do, then?" asked the Frenchman.

"This," said Denham. "We four will help Lantin and Wheeler to escape from the pit. Only two can succeed in escaping, by my plan, for more would be noticed in the city above, and we four will be needed to give them their start up the stair, how, I will explain later. And since only one or two can escape, Lantin and Wheeler must be the ones to make the attempt, since they alone know how to operate their machine, and know where it is hidden.

"If they can reach their car, they will speed south across the ice, warn the people of Kom of the plans of the Kanlars, and come back with a force sufficient to crush the Raider and the Kanlars forever, and then they can rescue us four from the pit."

"The plan is good," approved the Roman. "We four must stay while they go. When do you plan to make the attempt?" he asked Denham.

"We must wait until the night will be moonless," he said, "for the darkness will favor the attempt. The eighth night from today would be best."

"But your plan," asked the impatient Frenchman; "how do you plan to get up the stair?"

"In this manner," explained the Englishman; "we must make a grappling-hook of heavy metal, and a long, strong rope. On the night we select for the attempt, we four will assemble at the lower gate of the stair, while Lantin and Wheeler take up a position at the plaza's edge, directly under the lowest curve of the spiral stair. Then, by shouting or fighting, we four shall create a riot around the gate, to draw the attention of the guards inside. When the excitement is at its highest, and when the people around the position of Lantin and Wheeler have run toward the riot, as they always do here, then Wheeler will fling up the grappling-hook toward the curving stair above him. If fortune favors us, the hook will catch, he can ascend the rope and pull up Lantin, and the two can then proceed on up the stair, being above the gate and its guards."

"But the guards above?" D'Alord objected. "How pass them? And what of the metal floor of the temple, which covers the shaft? It will be closed, and how will they get through it?"

"No," said Denham, "for if we start a sufficiently large riot at the gate of the stair, the guards behind it will become alarmed and call for help from above. They have a system of signaling with those above and if they think the hordes here are going to attack the gate, those above will open the shaft by swinging aside the temple floor, and will send guards down to repel the attack on the gates. The shaft being open, and the guards gone, Lantin and Wheeler should have no trouble getting out and through the city, to their car."

"But we will meet the guards coming down the stair!" I cried.

"Not so," Denham assured me, "for when there is a call for aid from their fellows below, the guards above don't descend by the stair, since it would take them too long. They unreel great ropes or cables, drop them over the shaft's edge so that they hang clear to the stair's bottom, and then attach a sort of harness to themselves, join that harness to the cables with special pulleys, and slide down to the stair's bottom in a few minutes. Twice, since I have been here, there have been riots around the gate, and each time the guards above came whizzing down in that way, to repel the riot."

"Whatever else they are," added D'Alord, "there are no cowards among the guards. No one ever called me craven yet, but ventre-de-biche, I'd look twice before sliding down a rope into this hell."

"Yet what if some of the guards did come down the stair?" I asked.

Denham shook his head. "I do not think they will do so," he said.

"Yet if they did?" I insisted.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Why, then you would meet them on the stair."

We looked at each other, a little grimly, I think, and then there was a shattering roar of laughter from D'Alord. "Why borrow trouble?" he cried. "Take your sword with you, lad, and if you meet anyone on the stair, have at him. If you are the stronger, you will kill your enemies, and if your enemies are the stronger, they will kill you. What more is there to it?"

I could not help laughing, ruefully, as did the rest, but Lantin suddenly sobered.

"But Cannell?" he asked. "What of my friend? We came here to rescue him, you know, and can't leave without him."

"There are eight days yet in which to find him," Denham pointed out, "and if you can not find him in that time, we four will try to locate him after you and Wheeler have escaped. If he's here in the pit, we'll have him with us by the time you come back."

Our conversation was abruptly broken off by the entrance of a number of the room's occupants, who regarded our little group with suspicious stares.

"We'd best break up," Denham whispered, "for we don't want it to get abroad that we're planning something."

So, rising, we sauntered out of the room into the street. Outside a hot sunlight was pouring down from the glass globes in the roof, so strongly that one could not look up at that roof directly, any more than one can look directly at the sun. Whatever method the Kanlars had devised to collect and bring so far underground the light and heat of the sun, it was a wonderfully efficient one.

Behind us loomed the gray-rock wall of the pit, and before us, stretching away for miles to the opposite wall, were the masses of white buildings that housed the city's teeming thousands. And at the central plaza, the titanic, gleaming spiral of the metal stairway rose vastly up toward the black, round shaft that pierced the cavern's roof, its winding turn on turn glinting in the light like a huge, upraised serpent of metal.

In the shifting, noisy throng that pressed by us along the street, that swirled aimlessly through streets and buildings, I sensed a quality of expectation, of eager, restless waiting. Even I, new to the city as I was, could feel the unwonted excitement that pulsed from the passing crowds. And I saw that my companions felt it likewise.

A grizzled seaman in stained, shapeless clothes, who might have sailed with Drake or Hawkins, stopped in front of us.

"Ho, comrade!" he cried to Denham; "hast heard the news?"

"News! What news?" asked Denham, his brows drawing together.

"An hour ago," said the other, "the guards sent word through the city to sharpen all swords, to get all weapons ready. I tell thee, lad, it's soon we'll be dropping down on Kom, to loot it from end to end. Split me, they're going to loose us ere long," and with an anticipatory, gloating chuckle, the seaman passed on.

Denham turned to us, his face suddenly white. "You heard?" he asked. "That means that we have little time left for action. We dare not wait now until the moonless nights. We'll have to take our chance on the first night that it's cloudy above, for then it will be darker here. And if we fail in our attempt, it means these hordes of devils here flashing down to make a hell of an unwarned, unprotected city. For the Raider is getting ready to strike!"

CHAPTER 13

IN THE PIT

The hours, the days, that followed, I remember now as one remembers a particularly vivid dream, for even at the time, I seemed to see all in the city around me through the haze of assured impossibility that surrounds a dream. And, although I can well understand how the city in the pit was a very hell on earth to those long confined in it, yet to me during the next few days it was a city of wonder.

There was little to do but wander through it. Each day we waited tensely for night, but always when night came there came with it a flood of soft light that poured down revealingly from the roof, the moonlight of the earth above brought down to us by the glass globes above and in the roof. Had it been cloudy above, it would have been dark enough here in the pit to chance an attempt, but to do so in the brilliant light was out of the question. And we dared take no more chances than necessary, since if discovered, we should doubtless never live to make another attempt.

So in the eight days that followed, while Denham and his friends fretted impatiently at the delay, I spent the time roaming through the city, usually with one or all of the four friends as guide. When possible, we preferred to keep together, since thus we made up a strong little company whose five swords deterred many truculent souls from attacking us.

Even so, we were twice involved in combats, from both of which we managed to emerge victorious, though not unscathed. It was a bloody enough society, there in the city of the pit, a wilder life almost than that of roaming wolves, yet it had a fierce, free charm that stirred me, at times. A product of civilization, myself, I was thrown now into a life where strength and skill with weapons were the measure of a man, and where all disputes were settled with swords. Cooped as we were in the crowded pit, yet we were untrammeled by any form of law or etiquette, and I soon learned to swagger as boldly and scowl as ferociously as any fire-eater in the pit. And, too, in constant practise with my friends, I learned sword-play well.

I came to love my four new-found friends, in those days. Four men, out of four different centuries, and different in temperament as they were, yet strong bonds of friendship sprang up between them and myself, and Lantin also.

From the beginning, I had felt attracted to Denham, for he was more of my own time and way of thinking than the rest. Fastidious, elegant even, in manner, and of an indolent disposition naturally, yet he was terribly quick in battle, his slim rapier flashing out resistlessly even while he yawned in his opponent's face. He was a good bit of a fop, and it was a source of constant mirth to us to watch him cleaning and patching his ragged suit, and anxiously assuring himself of the fit of the torn coat. But at all our jests, he would smile quietly, and go on with his work.

A great deal different was D'Alord, though he attracted me as much. Swearing, laughing, shouting, he was never quiet, never still, and even in the cramped pit lived with a magnificent gusto that was enviable. He was very quick to take offense, and the rest of us had trouble always in keeping him from embroiling us in some senseless quarrel, but he was as quick to forget the cause of offense, and was incapable of holding a grudge. More than the rest of us, he loved fighting for its own sake, and was so much in his element in the pit that he sometimes declared that if it were not for the lack of wine and women, he would be content to stay in the pit forever.

Some few years older than the rest of us was the Roman, who had followed the insignia of his legion over all the distant frontiers of the Empire, from Parthia to Britain. He was never excited, and never unprepared, a calm, fearless veteran, who made me understand something of the greatness of his people, who reared up the greatest empire in history, and stamped their language and their customs on half the world.

Strangest of the four, perhaps, was the Aztec. Quiet, even gentle, when not provoked; yet I have never seen such tigerish fury as he exhibited in battle. He had a great name as a fighter, even in that city of warriors, and was feared by the most fearless. He could handle his saw-toothed sword with wonderful skill and quickness, and I shuddered at the gashing wounds he inflicted with it. As staunch and faithful a friend as I have ever had or seen, yet to those he hated he was a terrible enemy.

Always, while we five roamed through the city, we searched for Cannell, but found him not. I began to think that, after all, Cannell was not in the pit, for though it was possible we had missed him in the swirling hordes, it was equally possible that he had been killed in some combat here or above, and that he now walked dead-alive through the city of the Kanlars as one of the ghastly, white-robed slaves.

But Lantin would not believe that. He searched from dawn to darkness of each day, and was not discouraged when he failed to find his friend. He did not accompany us five in our rambles through the city, preferring to search alone, and though we were fearful for his safety, he was never molested. His obvious elderliness, and the gentleness and inoffensiveness of his nature, served to protect him from the constant bullying and fighting that went on in the pit.

The days dragged past, and working in odd hours when we were not noticed, we managed to make a metal grappling-hook and a long rope. The hook was much like a triple fishing-hook, large enough to catch on the wall of the stair, and was hammered out from pieces wrenched from metal chairs. The rope, a long and very strong one, was braided from long strips of torn cloth, and was knotted to make easier an ascent along its length. Both rope and hook lay concealed beneath the bunk of D'Alord, in a cunningly contrived little hiding place there.

So we came at last to the eighth day, the night of which would be moonless on the earth above, with consequent darkness below. As the day wore on, we grew increasingly nervous, with the exception of Fabrius, who appeared as imperturbable as ever. Finally the light from the roof waned and died, and a thick darkness settled down on the city, a darkness relieved only by one or two of the glowing red bulbs that were set around the gate of the stair, and along the nine streets.

An hour passed, and another, and another. Then Denham rose from his bunk and sauntered leisurely out of the room, followed in a few minutes by D'Alord and the Aztec. By now the bunks were filled with snoring sleepers, but as the two went across the room to the door, none of these stirred, so Lantin, Fabrius and I followed, the Roman carrying the hook and rope concealed under his cloak.

We stepped from the dark room into a street almost equally dark, the ruddy bulbs set sparsely along its length accentuating rather than dispersing the blackness. A few drunken stragglers were wandering along the street, but most of the city's thousands were slumbering in the many buildings, for few were abroad in the pit at night.

Denham, D'Alord and Ixtil were awaiting us outside, and without speaking, our entire little party moved rapidly down the dark street, toward the plaza and the great stair.

CHAPTER 14

UP THE STAIR

When we entered the broad clearing of the plaza, we found it almost entirely deserted. Above us loomed the winding, spiral stair, and where that stair touched the pit's floor, we saw the blaze of ruddy light that illuminated the high, barred gate of the stair. Keeping well within the shadows, we passed toward the farther edge of the plaza, and in the darkness there, Lantin and I took up our position directly beneath the lowest curve of the spiral stairway, which hung in the air some thirty feet above our heads. Even where we stood, we could hear the tramp of feet around the stair's curve, as guards came and went, constantly patrolling the lower part of the airy pathway. And, too, we heard the chatter and broken laughter of the other guards massed inside the gate.

Speaking in whispers, Denham said, "Be ready to make your attempt at any moment now. But be sure that all the guards on the stair have come down to the gateway before you try it."

"If we get out and come back with aid," I said, rapidly, "where will we find you?"

He reflected for a moment, then said, "You know that tall barracks building at the northern edge of the pit, right under the wall?"

"The one that is roofed?" I asked, and he nodded. "Yes, that's the one. Well, we four will spend all our nights on that roof from now on. You could come straight down the shaft, in your flying-car, and pick us up from that roof in the darkness without the knowledge of any here in the pit. But first, go and get aid from the people of Kom, as we planned."

"And Cannell?" said Lantin. "You will look for him?"

"Never fear," answered D'Alord, "we'll find him for you."

The calm voice of Fabrius broke into our speech. "It is time to do our part at the gate," he said to Denham, and the Englishman nodded. "Good-bye," he told us. "I know you'll do your best." A warm hand-clasp from each, and then they had slipped away into the shadows.

For a minute or so, Lantin and I stood silent, listening to the tramp of feet on the stair above us, and then a sudden high-pitched cry broke on our ears from the center of the plaza. It was D'Alord's voice, and he was shouting at the top of his lungs, "Out, comrades, out! We are to be loosed on Kom tonight!"

The cry rang out over the silent city, and then was repeated, but louder, the Frenchman's three friends adding their voices to his. There was an uneasy murmur from the guards at the gate, and one among them called to the Frenchman, whom they could not see in the darkness, to cease his shouting.

He went on with the cry, unheeding, and now, out of the buildings along the branching streets, men were pouring, running toward the plaza. They heard D'Alord's cry and took it up, thinking that his statement was a true one, and repeating it.

"Loose us on Kom tonight!" they bellowed, rushing toward the gate of the stair and pressing against it. Away across the great clearing, we saw a sea of faces around the ruddy lighted gate, pressing against it and against the high wall that balustraded the stair's length for the first few yards. And from all around, from all of the nine branching streets, came others, sword in hand, afire to be led out to loot the city whose riches had been many times described to them.

They beat against the barred gate in one buffeting wave of solid humanity, in eager hope of freedom and pillage. Their cry rose up like that of a single, vast voice, but in a thousand different tongues.

"Loose us tonight! Loose us on Kom tonight!"

There were anxious cries from the guards on the stair as the great mob battered at the gate. Those of the guards who patrolled the stair's upper part ran down swiftly to aid their fellows in holding the gate. It was this that Lantin and I awaited, and at once I grasped the metal grappling-hook, whirled it round my head by the attached rope, and then sent it hurtling through the air toward the edge of the stair above us.

It struck the outside of the stair's low wall with a loud clang that brought my heart to my throat, and that I feared would attract the attention of the guards at the gate, even over the clamor of the crowd. But the hook had not caught and fell down beside me.

Before I could throw it again there was a warning whisper from Lantin, and in a moment a solid group of some fifty men rushed by us, heading toward the riot at the gate, news of which had evidently penetrated to the city's farthest reaches. They raced by, not seeing us in the darkness, and after them came four or five single stragglers who likewise passed us without stopping. Then, the coast again being clear for the moment, I slung up the hook again, with more force than before, and felt a throb of relief when it caught, slid a little along the edge of the stair-wall, and then caught again.

I tried the rope hastily, but it held firm, so I hastily began to climb up it, by means of the thick knots along its length. Scrambling up with panicky swiftness, I reached the rail, pulled myself over, and lay gasping for a moment on the stair. Then, leaning over the rail, I signaled to Lantin, whom I could see but dimly in the darkness. Bracing myself against the wall of the stair, I pulled in the rope until after a seeming eternity my friend's head appeared above the wall. He scrambled over, and then, winding the rope around my body and tossing the hook as far away as possible, I stood for a moment motionless.

Across the plaza, and below us, was the gate, flooded with crimson light and alive with activity. The mobs of the city's dwellers were pressing against the gate, while the guards were repelling them by thrusting through the bars with their long spears. And from all the long streets that stretched away into the darkness there came the sound of many running feet, and the cries of excited men. Certainly the riot which our friends had kindled to aid us was no mean one.

A moment only I watched the scene below, then turned, and with Lantin beside me, began the long climb up the spiral stair.

As we toiled up along the steeply slanting spiral, the clamor at the gates below gradually lessened in volume as we drew away from it. That the riot below had not yet been quelled, though, was evident, for before we had been on the stair ten minutes, a tiny beam of blue light flashed out at the gate, a narrow little shaft of azure light that clove up to the shaft above us, and seemed to stab straight up to the metal cover of that shaft.

I remembered Denham's words concerning the signaling of the guards, and wondered if that was the cause of the little light. In a minute it vanished, but as we raced on up around the great spiral, a faint sound came down to us from far above, a grating clash of metal that we could barely hear.

"The temple floor!" I cried to Lantin. "They've swung it aside! They've uncovered the shaft of the stairway!"

He did not answer, out of breath from the toilsome climb. Before many more minutes had passed, we had progressed half-way from the floor of the cavern to its roof, up the stair. Abruptly something hissed down from above through the circle of the spiral stair. The hissing was repeated, and now I saw that it had been caused by a number of thick ropes that had been dropped from above, and that now swung free at the center of the stairway's spiral.

I grasped Lantin, flung myself flat on the stair, pulling him down with me. And not a moment too soon, for peering cautiously over the low wall, I saw dark shapes flashing down along those swinging cables, in long strings, one after another. When they had passed, we jumped to our feet and sped on.

"The guards from above," I told my companion. "Let's hope that all above have gone down."

On we raced, around and around the spiral, ever upward. The sound of the riot in the pit had faded from our ears by now, and we came to the roof of the cavern, and the shaft that pierced it. On we went, the wall of the shaft on our left side now, and we hugged that wall closely as we sped up the narrow pathway.

I judged that we had traversed two-thirds of the stair's length, when Lantin suddenly halted. When I turned, he held up a warning hand, listening intently.

"Hear it?" he asked, in a low voice.

I listened tensely, and in a moment heard the sound that had halted him. It was a rhythmic, regular thudding, and seemed to come from a point some distance above us, and across the shaft from us.

"The guards!" he whispered. "Some of them are coming down the stair!"

All the blood drove from my heart at the thought, for we were caught on the airy stairway without chance to advance or retreat. And every minute that I stood there in indecision, the tramping feet of the guards were nearing me. Why they were descending by the stair instead of the ropes, I could not guess, though it may have been that they had already started down the stair before the alarm from below. But whatever the reason, they were coming nearer and nearer, until finally they were directly across the shaft, coming around the down-slanting curve of the stairway toward us.

My brain, momentarily stupefied by the oncoming deadly peril, again acted, and with frantic speed I unrolled the rope that was wound round my body. The low wall that protected the stair's right side was pierced at regular intervals with circular, ornamental openings, and swiftly I passed the rope through one of these and tied it securely, then tied its other end into a double loop. At once Lantin saw my purpose, and with a muttered "Good!" he set his foot in one of the loops, while I did the same with the other.

Swiftly the tramping feet were coming around the curve toward us, though in the murky darkness of the shaft we could make out nothing. Feet in the loops at the rope's end, we grasped the low wall of the stair and gently swung ourselves over it. Then, hanging above the abyss, we lowered ourselves until we swung some twenty feet below the stair, floating gently back and forth at the rope's end, with nearly two miles of space below us.

The marching guards came quickly around the stair's curve, and I held my breath as they passed the place where our rope was tied. If one but felt it and slashed carelessly with a knife, we would hurtle down to death on the floor of the pit, far below. But the guards passed on, and I could plainly hear the command of their leader to move faster, as they went by us.

Waiting until they had progressed to the opposite side of the shaft, Lantin and I began to pull ourselves up. Slowly, toilsomely, we fought our way upward until our hands gripped the stair's rail and we were able to scramble over it onto the steps.

As I rolled over the wall onto those steps, the hilt of my rapier struck the metal stairway with a loud jar. Appalled, I lay tense for minutes, but there was no sound to indicate the guards had heard, and we could hear their marching footsteps dying away below.

I rose to my feet, then, breathing hard. "A near shave, that," I told Lantin, who was also struggling to regain his breath. "If those guards had caught us on the stair, it would have been all up with us." Untying the rope from the wall, I again wound it round my body, and stepped up to where Lantin awaited me.

He was looking back the way we had come, peering into the darkness. As I stepped up toward him he cried suddenly, "Look out, Wheeler!" and as I instinctively threw myself flat on the stairway, a heavy knife hurtled out of the air behind me and passed over me, striking the wall. I jumped to my feet and turned, ripping out my sword.

Five steps down the stair from us a guard was standing, a tall, dark-faced fellow whom I could just see in the nightmare blackness of the shaft. In a flash, I knew that the clang of my rapier on the stairway had been heard, by this fellow at least, and that he had come back to investigate and had found us.

The man below me uttered a hoarse cry, and ran straight up toward me, his long spear aimed at my heart. But by now my own rapier was out, and avoiding the spear by a quick sidestep, I thrust with my blade at his throat, where no armor protected him. The stab was a true one, and he sank to the stair with a choking, terrible cry that rang out eerily there in the vast dark shaft. From far below his cry was answered. There was no time to lose, and we pressed on up the stair.

But now there were cries from below, and a bugle peal came up toward us. It was evident that the alarm had been sounded by the cry of the guard I had killed, and that we were being pursued.

I knew that we were very near to the stair's top, by then, but although we knew the metal cover of the shaft was not in place, there was no light from the great opening above us, the great temple being as dark as the shaft below it.

"Pray God there are no guards at the top of the stair," I cried to Lantin, as we sped upward. He did not answer, and from his agonized breathing I knew that he was out of wind from our long, torturing climb. And, away across the shaft now, there was a chorus of shouts as the guards beneath raced after us. Their cries halted for a moment, and by this I knew that they had found the body of the man I had killed. Then, with yelps of rage, they sped on after us.

We staggered drunkenly up the last curve of the stair. Out of the darkness appeared the little collapsible stairway which joined the temple's black ring of flooring with the great spiral on which we stood. There was no sign of the presence of any guards around or above it, so I jerked out the sword at my belt, and clasping it in one hand, strode cautiously up the little stair until I stood on the black flooring that was the rim of the shaft up which we had come.

Dense darkness reigned in the gigantic building, and the complete silence in it showed me that it was deserted. Lantin was beside me now, and the cries of the pursuing guards were ringing up the shaft ever louder, as they neared us. I sprang to the building's wall, clawing frantically along its side.

Abruptly my hands encountered the thick lever I was searching for, and as I jerked it down as far as it would go, I sobbed with relief. There was a loud click, and the little collapsible stair swung up and folded into an aperture in the wall.

"That will hold them on the stair, for a time," I told my friend, who had come up to me and was grasping my arm. As we raced around the wall to the building's entrance and exit, I explained in a few words what I had done. It was well for us, too, that I had remembered how the little stair was folded and unfolded, for as we sped down the tunneled gateway to the outside air, there came a shout of baffled rage from behind us, as the guards on the stair found their progress thus stopped.

Speeding down the arched tunnel through the temple's great wall, we emerged at last into the open air. For a moment, heedless of the clamor in the temple behind us, we stood with swelling hearts, breathing in the free air, expanding, almost, there beneath the limitless sky, after our sojourn in the cramped cavern below.

Darkness reigned over the city of the Kanlars, a darkness intensified by the absence of moon or stars above. From where we stood, the broad street, plashed with ruddy light from the glowing bulbs along its length, stretched away to the east, piercing the mass of winking lights that betokened the city's presence. Even from where we stood, we could see that there were many of the guards in the street, and there was no chance of our passing them unchallenged.

I turned to Lantin, but before I could speak we both shrank back into the temple's entrance. Footsteps were sounding on the ground near us, coming toward us along the outside of the temple's wall!

We crouched against the wall of the tunneled entrance, hearing the footsteps come nearer. From the temple behind us came the faint, raging clamor of the guards on the stair, who were still blocked by my stratagem. Then two figures appeared in the entrance of the tunnel, two ghostly white figures who were advancing through the darkness.

"Slaves!" muttered Lantin, and from the white robes and stiff movements, I saw that he had guessed the identity of the two aright. They walked on toward us, then passed us, at arm's length, walking stiffly, mechanically, past us. Whether or not they saw us, I can not say, though if they had glimpsed us, I doubt whether their soulless natures would have understood the significance of our presence there. At any rate, they passed us by, and proceeded on down the tunnel.

My sword was in my hand, and grasping it by the blade six inches or more beneath the hilt, I stole quickly down the tunnel after the white-robed figures. As quietly as possible, I hastened after them, and in a moment the heavy hilt of my rapier swung down on their skulls in two swift blows, and they slumped to the floor. A low call brought Lantin to my side, and we hastily pulled the long white robes from the two on the floor, and put them on over our own clothing. I shuddered with deep loathing, in the process, for these two men on the floor were icy-cold to the touch. Dead-alive, and slaves to the Kanlars! I hoped, at least, that my blows had released them from their dreadful servitude.

Disguised now by the white garments, we hastened again out of the tunnel and down the broad ramp into the red-lit street. We passed some distance along that street before we came near to any of the guards, and when we did so, we changed our pace, walking stiffly and rigidly, eyes staring straight ahead, striving to give to our faces the blank, deathly expression of the faces of the slaves.

We were unchallenged, the guards passing us without giving us more than a casual glance. And as we passed group after group of the armored men, we began to breathe easier, though we still kept to our unlifelike walk and expression.

As we drew farther toward the city's edge, the street became more deserted. The buildings began to lessen in size and frequency, and we were not far from the spot where the red lights along the street ended and it became a road.

Abruptly, I clutched Lantin's arm. From far behind us, from the temple whence we had fled, there rose a great ringing sound, a vast bell-note that echoed out over all the city clearly. It was repeated, and now, from far behind us also, came a dim, angry clamor, a score or more of raging shouts, through which there cut the clear note of a bugle.

"The guards!" I whispered to Lantin, tensely. "Someone has found them there on the stair! They're after us!"

"Faster," he muttered to me, without turning. "We're almost out of the city."

It was so, in truth, for we were nearing the end of the street's lighted part, while on each side the buildings were becoming fewer. We had met no one on the street for the last few minutes, and as we passed under the last of the glowing bulbs, I turned and cried to my friend, "Out of the city, Lantin!"

He caught his breath, turned to me, his face livid, and whispered, "For God's sake, Wheeler, be still! That guard over there is watching us!"

My heart contracted suddenly, as I looked toward the left of the street and saw the man he referred to, a guard in full armor who stood at the doorway of a small building and regarded us suspiciously. No doubt his attention had been aroused by the spectacle of one slave talking to another, and I cursed my folly in crying out to Lantin.

We passed on, hearts thumping, into the darkness that lay beyond the lane of crimson light. Once safe within it, we swiftly shed the white robes, whose length hampered our movements, and then set out along the road at a rapid trot.

Away back in the city, the disturbed, angry clamor of our pursuers lessened, faded. We were in open country now, and as the road soon ended, we fled on over the long, grassy swells toward the east, toward the hills and the valley where our time-car was hidden.

"Safe!" I exulted, as we stumbled on through the thick darkness. "They'll never even know what direction we took."

"They will if the guard who saw us talking tells them what he saw," replied Lantin, and I sobered.

"Even then—" I began, but broke off suddenly, and looked back. "Lantin!" I shouted. "Lantin!"

Out of the city toward us were streaming a hundred or more men, carrying with them on long poles many of the flashing red light-giving bulbs, whose crimson rays struck down and glinted on the armor and spear-points of the men who carried them. Over a mile behind, yet the gap between us was fast decreasing as they came straight on toward us.