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With him he took fifteen men, headed by Zangamon, who now insisted he was well enough to go, and ably seconded by Frumuos. Each man carried an automatic, and six had rifles. They bore an average of one hundred cartridges apiece, and in knapsacks of goat-leather, dried rations for a week. Each also carried fish hooks and a stout fiber line.

Yet something must be done, and quickly, for every second, every fraction of a second, was golden. The merest accident might now mean death or life life, if the girl still lived! "Zangamon!" "Yea, master?" "Be very bold! Do my bidding!" "Speak only the word, Kromno, and I obey!" "Go you, then, very quietly, very swiftly, to the other side of these great growing things these trees, we call them.

It was on the second day of July, according to the rude calendar they were keeping, that he once more bade farewell to Beatrice and, borne by the Pauillac, headed for the village of the Lost Folk. He left behind him all matters in a state of much improvement. Zangamon and Bremilu were now well installed in the new environment and seemingly content.

Not more than twenty minutes later, followed by Bremilu and Zangamon, Stern was making way through the thick-laced wood and jungle. Awed, terrified by their first sight of trees and by the upper world which to them was naught but marvel and danger, the two Merucaans followed close behind their guide.

His hand flash-lamp showed him the rough path to the terrace. With fast-beating heart he ran down it, unmindful of the unprotected edge or the sheer drop to the rocks of New Hope River, far below. Bremilu and Zangamon, seeing perfectly in the gloom, hurried close behind, with words of awe, wonder and admiration in their own tongue. "Beta! Oh, Beatrice! Home again!" Stern shouted triumphantly.

In a few minutes the litter was ready-made of fern-tree branches thickly covered with leaves and odorous grasses. On this he placed the girl. "You, Zangamon, take these boughs here. Bremilu, those others. Now I will hold the light. Back to the cave, now quick!" "We need not the light, master. We see better without it. It dazzles our eyes. Use it for yourself.

Out he jerked his pistol and fired, straight up, their prearranged signal: One shot, then a pause, then two. Some bare possibility existed and that she still might live and hear and know that rescue came if it could come before it were eternally too late! "On, on!" cried Allan. "Go on, Zangamon! Quick! Lead me on the trail!"

Many long hours had passed since, his fuel-tanks replenished from the apparatus for distilling the crude naphtha, which he had installed during his first stay in the Abyss, he had risen a second time into that heavy, humid, purple-vapored air. With him he now bore Bremilu, the strong, and Zangamon, most expert of all the fishermen.

Zangamon whispered some unintelligible phrase. Allan projected the light forward again, and at sight of a moving mass, vague and intangible, among the gigantic fronds, leveled his automatic. But on the instant Bremilu seized his arm. "O master! Do not throw the fire of death!" he warned. "You cannot see, but we can! Do not throw the fire!" "Why not? What is that thing?"

Bremilu stood staring for a moment, unable to grasp this catastrophe on the very moment of arrival. But Zangamon, of swifter wit, had already fallen on his knees, there by the mouth of the cave, and now seeing clearly by the dim light which more than sufficed for him was studying the traces of the struggle.