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Updated: June 13, 2025
Thither, toward that strange, eternal fire and the ghastly circle of the headless skeletons the Folk were drifting now. Thither his captors were dragging him. And there, he knew, Kamrou awaited Beatrice and him. There doom was to be dealt out to them. There, and at once! Thicker the press became. The flame was very near now, its droning roar almost drowning the great and growing babel of cries.
And under pain of death he bids all men abandon every task and haste to homage. Kamrou the Terrible is here!" For a moment Stern stared, speechless with amazement, at the old man, as though to determine whether or not he had gone mad. But the commotion, the mingled fear and anger of the boat crews convinced him the danger, though unknown, was very real.
Now the quivering jet of the flame grew visible. Now, suddenly, he was thrust forward into a smooth and open space. Silence fell. Before him he saw Kamrou, Kamrou the Terrible, at last. The chief of the People of the Abyss was seated at his ease in a large stone chair, over which heavy layers of weed-fabric had been thrown.
Stern got confused glimpses of the Folk he saw the terrible, barbaric eagerness with which they now anticipated this inevitable tragedy of at least one human death in its most awful form. Beatrice he no longer saw. Where was she? He knew not. But in a long, last cry of farewell he raised his voice. Then, with Kamrou, he strode toward the steaming, boiling pit in the smooth rock floor.
And now in his look Stern saw the kindling of a savage passion so ardent, so consuming, that the man's heart turned sick within him. "Ten thousand times better she should die!" thought he, racked at the thought of what might be. "Oh, God! If I only had my revolver for a single minute now! One shot for Kamrou one for Beatrice and after that, nothing would matter; nothing!"
But of Kamrou neither he nor the girl yet breathed one syllable.
"You, damn you, what d'you want?" he cried again, his finger itching on the trigger of the automatic. "Think I'm going to quit for you, or Kamrou, or anybody? Quit, now?" "Think a civilized white man, sweating his heart out to save your people here, is going to knuckle under to any savage that happens to blow in and try to boss this job? If so, you've got another guess coming!
Free and unfettered, he stepped forward, stretching his arms, opening and closing his cramped, numbed hands, out into the ring toward Kamrou, the chief. Off came the gag. Stern could speak at last. His first word was to the girl. "Beatrice!" he called to her, "there's one chance left! I'm to fight this ruffian here. If I beat him we're free we own this tribe, body and soul! If not "
He felt a need to rest, and think, and plan, to recuperate from the long journey and to recover poise and strength. And with relief, as he raised his hand for silence, he perceived the wrinkled face of one Vreenya, head councillor of Kamrou, his predecessor. Him he summoned to come close, and to him gave his orders.
He broke off short. Even the possibility was not to be considered. She looked at him and understood his secret thought. Well the man knew that Beatrice would die by her own hand before Kamrou should have his way with her. The patriarch spoke again. "My son," said he, "there is but one way for all these combats. It has been so these many centuries.
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