The Secret People

CHAPTER I

Margaret woke, and her first sight was a rock roof. It was seven feet above her, but it seemed to press down. Those tons of stone could be suspended safely, she hoped, above her body, but there was no support to lift them clear of her spirit. All that weight rested full upon it, striving to crush her stubborn resistance. This was always the worst moment of her 'day'. All defences were at their weakest, reserves at their ebb. She liked to keep her eyes closed when she woke, gathering strength before opening them.

How many times had she lain awake, but voluntarily blind, hoping futilely that it was a dream? She did not know. At first she had tried to keep some count of time, but she had missed once—or was it twice? She made two strokes on the wall, and then changed her mind and rubbed one out. Later she missed again. The record became a muddle. Anyhow, what was the good of it? Even if her sleeping periods did roughly correspond to nights in the world above, there was little to be gained from knowing how days, weeks, months slipped away. It did not help. Indeed, it made things worse. Without dates one could imagine the world as one had last seen it. Dates meant change outside, and it was somehow bitter to think of a world which went on changing, of seasons coming and going, flowers blooming and dying while one lay here inmured, dead to it all.

Yes, dead to it—only death must be more peaceful. Why did she not kill herself? On every waking she asked the same question. Sometimes she had resolved to do it, but then, with the fuller return of consciousness, she had absolved herself. Time for that later, after all, there were still possibilities.... When she had grown older, when her skin had lost its softness, and her hair become grey— when, in fact, there would be nothing to return to in the outside world; then she would do it.

She put up a hand and dragged a lock of hair forward over her face. Holding it out at full length, she could, by squinting uncomfortably, focus upon it. Presently she smoothed it back into place. Careful inspection had failed to reveal a single strand of grey among the dark red. There were stories of people whose hair had gone grey in a night—in view of the condition of her own, she was inclined to consider them fables; if they were not, she ought, she felt, to be snow-white by this time. Perhaps at the sides ... ?

An awkward business, this, and not a mirror to be had.

She sat up. A bundle of muddy-yellow fur in another corner uncurled, yawned widely and stretched itself. It sat back on its haunches, blinking at her.

'Good morning, Bast.'

The cat yawned again and, dropping its eyes, began the morning toilet.

'Yes,' she agreed. 'Bath time.'

She rose from the heap of fungus strips which did duty for a bed, and walked towards the entrance. It was necessary to stoop as she passed into the corridor; the place had been hewn by pygmies for the use of pygmies.

Outside, she greeted her guards. Her first resentment of them had long since passed off. What was the use? They no longer worried her; she had even begun to feel half sorry for them. At bottom they were nothing but simple, unmalicious little folk who had been cheated of life.

The usual procession formed up. First, two white dwarfs whose only garment was strictly utilitarian, consisting of a string about the waist for the purpose of supporting a stone knife. Then herself in that white suit which had been so smart, and was now so much the worse for wear. Finally, two more pygmies carrying slings and a pouch each of stones to supplement their knives. In this formation the five marched to the half-flooded cave which did duty as a swimming bath.

An air of ceremony had gathered about Margaret's ablutions. The operation designed purely for practical ends had succeeded in becoming a popular spectacle. Numbers of impressed spectators, apparently with nothing to do, attended it as in other circumstances they might have attended the changing of the guard.

She seldom thought without a smile of the agitation which had accompanied her first swim. She had been in the water before her guards had realised her intention. The terrible howl of lamentation which greeted her reappearance on the surface could not be attributed entirely to disinterested anxiety for her safety. What penalties were visited on guards who allowed a semi-sacred person to elude them either by suicide or escape, she never inquired, but probably they were painful. She had turned her head to look up at them, whereat the howls had languished, to be replaced by expressions of wonder. An excited gabble arose as she struck out, and when she swam back to the ledge, it was to land at the feet of a group astonished into awe and servility.

At that time she had been unable either to speak or to understand their language, but it needed no words to show that she had risen in their estimation. Her divinity, first suspected owing to her association with Bast, was now an established fact. She felt the difference in their regard, and resolved that the advantage should not be allowed to lapse. She pursued it by making her 'daily' swim a custom.

On this 'morning'—the habit of dividing her time into manageable sections persisted in the face of their inaccuracy—the ceremony was performed as usual. A crowd of a hundred or so persons who associated large quantities of water only with inundation and death, was assembled on her diving-ledge, ready to admire and marvel.

The false modesty which had bothered her at first no longer troubled her as she slid off her clothes. Neither men nor women of the pygmies wore clothes in the ordinary course of things, and she knew now that they regarded hers not as a concealment, but as a badge of office. Her unclothed body they regarded with completely detached admiration. It looked, one of them had told her, as if there were light in it; white, but an utterly different white from the dead pallor of their own skins. For herself, she dreaded the time which must come when this trans-lucence should thicken from lack of sunlight and air to an opaque chalkiness.

She stood for a moment, a slim figure poised on the brink, while the watchers held an awed silence. Then up and out. Her arms spread in the grace of a perfect swallow. She cut the water twenty feet below with the merest spurting of a splash.

For a time she entertained them, laughing up at faces which could not banish all traces of apprehension. She turned and twisted as she would, flashing her white limbs in the dark water. She let herself sink and swam twenty yards under water, baffling them agreeably as to her direction. An excited ovation greeted her reappearance— she had performed a near-miracle. At length she headed with a long, reaching crawl for the landing-place.

An elderly pygmy, whose face contrived to appear wrinkled while giving an impression of being tightly stretched across his skull, joined her on the march back to her cave. He was distinguished by wearing a garment. Not an elegant garment, for it was roughly woven from narrow strips of fungus skin, and fashioned into a very brief tunic, but it served to set him apart from his fellows. Margaret greeted him as 'Garm'—to the end she was never quite certain whether this was a name or a title, but it did what was needed. He responded by asking after hei health perfunctorily, and after that of Bast with greater concern. She answered briefly, knowing that he would talk no more until her cave was reached and the guards were out of hearing.

With Garm alone of the pygmies was she able to hold conversations. Once she had learned enough of the language to make herself clear, she had determined to learn more of the people, but from most her questions met only rebuffs. Occasionally they called forth angry replies; more usually, they were disregarded in such a manner as to show that the inquiries were in bad taste if not indelicate. They made allowances for her infringements of their lesser taboos—after all, was she not privileged as the attendant of a goddess?—but became surly when she overreached certain mysteriously placed bounds of de cency. Their displeasure was not infrequent. Safe passage along the catwalk of one's own racial code must be achieved through long experience; it is harder still to climb from it to another, and when that other is as involved as a maze and is entirely supported by incomprehensible misconceptions, a foot is bound to slip through the fabric from time to time. Margaret did her best to step warily after the first gross blunders, but it was not easy.

Garm was different from the rest. It is the stupid who become more bigoted with age, and Garm was not stupid. In his world he was a wise man who saw many inconsistencies in his people's beliefs. His complacency had been early upset by theories which snapped from rotten roots, and he had begun to keep a watch for flaws upon which he nurtured a growing tolerance. Impious unorthodoxies appeared in his mind, clinging like lichens to its barrenness, finding nourishment scarce, yet surviving. Many youthful precepts and implanted conceptions had withered down to the stalks; only a hardy few now showed good foliage; fewer still were entirely untouched by the blight of inquiry.

All his life he had hidden his doubts, partly from fear, more from policy. Why should he show them? Either they would upset the established order of things, or else, and more likely, he would suffer punishment. Neither would be of the slightest use. Probably he would meet the usual fate of heretics, and he would have accomplished nothing but death for the sake of a very little knowledge.

He wanted to know more. The desire to learn had been the heaviest fetter on his tongue, and he was glad now that he had held his peace. The odds and ends of information he had gained from this woman prisoner were in parts wise, trivial, or absurd. A few fitted into his jigsaw of beliefs, many were useless. But they were all interesting and new—perhaps he was the only man of his race to show interest in the new; he had never met another.

Conversation between the two was not easy. It was not enough that he had taught her his language. There were so many things in her life which were not in his, many words which whole sentences of his language failed to explain, so that he had perforce to learn something of hers. They talked now, and wallowed through swamps of misunderstanding in a mixture of the two.

Back in the cave, Margaret's first concern was with Bast. As long as the cat lived she was safe. Should it die, she did not know what might happen. Had she been sure that such an event would ensure her banishment to the prison caves, Bast's career would have been short. But the pygmies held a belief in survival after death; a belief which they inconveniently extended to include animals. It was quite on the cards that she might be despatched to attend the cat on its journey through the shades. Cautious inquiry of Garm, who still retained views on the divinity of cats, did nothing to dispel this notion. After all, he pointed out, a sacred cat could scarcely be left to shift for itself, and who could be better suited to attend it than those who had looked after it in life? It might resent having strangers thrust upon it and be displeased with those who had sent them. A wise man tried to please even the whims of a goddess. Granting feline immortality, it all sounded uncomfortably logical. To Margaret, doubting any kind of immortality save that vicariously achieved through offspring, it was doubly vexing.

She examined the cat and made certain that it would take some time to chew through the present cord. Never again should Bast escape if she could help it; there had been more than enough trouble last time. Assured of its safety, she brought a small bowl from the corner. Bast looked at the contents, sniffed with that reserve common to cats, and began to eat with no reserve whatever.

There had been some preliminary dietetic difficulties. Bast had firmly refused fungus food in any form. Margaret in a series of pictures which had excited general admiration, had succeeded in making the fact clear to the pygmy mind. This got them only a little farther, since it seemed that food and fungi were synonymous. Milk? But one could not draw a picture of milk. She tried her hand at a cow. It was not a success. Not only was it a bad picture of the 'square-animal-with-a-leg-at-each-corner' variety, but it rested very heavily upon a religious corn. Only later, when she saw carvings of Hathor, did she realise that she had been on dangerous ground.

She thought again. What did cats eat? Of course, fish. This time enormous discussion was provoked. According to Garm's subsequent explanation, a question of precedence had arisen. Was it legitimate to feed the symbol of Bast upon the symbols of Hamhit? This embraced the practical question of which goddess had the more powerful means of advertising her displeasure—for one of them must be displeased, since either cat or fish must die. The puzzle was at length solved by the suggestion that there were many fish to be had, but only one cat. Hamhit might not grudge (or not miss) a few.

They had brought them. Unpleasant monstrosities caught in the subterranean rivers, and unlike any Margaret had ever seen. White and eyeless, born of a million generations blind in the darkness. One eel-like creature among them found particular favour with Bast.

Reassured by the cat's appetite, she could now turn to her own food. She had grown used to the monotonous diet, and was able to eat the mess of chopped fungi with much the same indifference as she would have taken bread at home. Garm sat down near her, dipped a stone cup into a bowl of spirit and sipped from it. The bowl was there for his particular benefit. Margaret had tried the stuff once only; she classified it several stages below that inferior vodka which is made from bread. Garm evidently enjoyed it; he took several sips before settling down to resume 'yesterday's' broken conversation. His particular interest at the moment centred in the treatment of animals. Though his experience of them was limited to a few cats, dogs, rats, and other small creatures which had somehow found their ways below, he knew of others from pictures and carvings.

Preliminary misunderstandings had been lessened by now. Margaret had succeeded in dispelling the idea that a cow consisted of a bovine head mounted upon a female human torso. The old man found this revolutionary, but not incredible; he had already been troubled by the difference between a live dog and the classical figure of Anubis.

'You do not worship animals?' he asked.

'No,' Margaret said. 'At least, not in our country,' she amended.

'And the gods are not angry?'

'I don't think so. You see, ours are different gods.'

Garm considered the point. The idea of gods unasso-ciated with animals was difficult, but he managed it.

'Then, since you are not afraid of the gods and the animals must eat much food, why do you not kill all those animals you do not wish to eat?'

'We make them work for us.'

'But you talked of special metal creatures you had made to work for you—far stronger than men or animals.'

'Yes, but for some things it is cheaper to employ animals than machines.'

Garm looked wonderingly at Bast.

'And what do cats do for you?'

'They catch mice.'

'What are mice?'

Margaret groaned privately and started to explain. That was always the trouble with these conversations. There were so few points of contact that everything was continually being interrupted by the most trivial explanations. Moreover, she was tired of the status of animals, and wanted to change the subject. But that was not Garm's way; he got his teeth into a topic, and worried at it. Soon he succeeded in finding out, to his great satisfaction, that there was a class of animals, known as pets, which did no work, and, furthermore, that a society for protecting the rights of animals was upheld chiefly by the supporters of these parasites. He seemed to regard this as the beginning of a return to grace.

'It shows,' he said, 'that they are beginning again to worship animals.'

'It doesn't—it shows sublimation,' Margaret objected.

Sublimation took some explaining, but he got it at last. Instead of resenting the idea, he welcomed it, and plunged forthwith into a number of incomprehensible statements about the relationship of religion with sublimation, from which he emerged with the idea of increasing animal worship somehow strengthened.

'They keep animals, pets, you call them, for no obvious reason. That means that they must find something in the animals which they cannot find elsewhere. That is the divine spirit. Knowing of this divine spirit, they band together into a noble society to preach it, so that others may recognise it.'

'No. You don't understand. There's nothing divine about it.—in fact, they say that animals have no souls.'

Garm looked momentarily shocked by the heresy.

'But they live.'

'Of course, but our people say that only human beings have souls.'

'Why?'

Margaret was forced to admit that she did not know why. Garm became triumphant.

'It means that your people are beginning to regain faith. Soon they will admit that animals have souls. In their hearts they must know it already. If they did not, is it likely they would spend so much time and wealth upon animals?'

'Quite likely,' Margaret thought.

'No, you do not understand. I mean, if they thought animals to be soulless, they would obviously spend for the good of men whom they know to have souls. It would be waste to do otherwise.

'You say your world is in difficulties. It is not surprising, for you have spurned the gods. But now that their servants are once more being recognised, the gods will smile again upon you.'

'Oh,' said Margaret.

The idea of world redemption through the R.S.P.C.A. was novel, even if it inspired little faith.

Garm, with the status of animals settled to his satisfaction, became approachable on other subjects. She inquired for news.

'Have there been any more breaks?'

'No,' he told her. No more breaks, but two airshafts had had to be stopped when the water came trickling in.

So the New Sea was still rising. Margaret wondered how long the great pipes at Qabes would continue to pour out their millions of gallons. There had been no bad break for some little time, but it was an ever-present possibility. The weight of water was slowly and relentlessly finding out the weak spots, and driving through. So far they had beaten it by blocking the passages, but one by one the air inlets were being covered. How many of those hundreds of small fissures, which were the caves' natural ventilating system, could they spare before the air would thicken unbreathably? Each time that she heard that there was one less, it seemed to her that the caves became a little more stuffy. It looked like being a question which would deal the final blow, suffocation, or drowning?

The configuration of the caves puzzled her more than a little. One 'day' she had managed to evade her guards, and had made her way back to the cavern where she and Mark had landed. She had stood at the top of the ramp and looked down on the Sun Bird still lying where Mark had moored her—how long ago? But the water no longer rushed through the cavern. The break had been blocked. Only a current so slight as scarcely to trouble the surface flowed across from the tunnel down which they had swept, to an opening on the opposite side. The cavern lake was now so smooth that reflection rivalled original.

Gazing down on the hull of the maimed Sun Bird, Margaret was tempted. It would be so easy just to run down the ramp, to jump aboard and cast off. Surely it would be better to drift away into that other tunnel and take one's chance, than to continue this existence among the pygmies. Probably she would fail, but what did that mean? Just to die a little earlier; to perish in the attempt rather than to wait here and drown. And she might have the luck to get free—to save this subterranean place and its people—and Mark. She imagined herself fighting officials, working night and day, pulling strings until at last the Qabes pumps should cease to turn. An expedition would be sent down to free Mark and the other inhabitants of the prison system.

For a long time she looked, but though her fancy soared, her body did not move. She was afraid, but that was not the whole cause of her hesitation—she was no more afraid to go than to stay. Another feeling held her back. A sensa'tion that she might help here, that someone—Mark?—might need her, and she would have deserted. It would be all but impossible for her to escape alone, and by trying she might in some way wreck the chances of others. It was not very clear; but it was very compelling. With a sigh, she had turned away from the sight of the Sun Bird, and gone back to search for her distracted guards.

There had, she knew, been other breaks since the one which had engulfed Mark and herself, and yet there was the Sun Bird floating at practically the same level as before. It was puzzling. She decided to ask Garm about it, without revealing her reasons. At that time they had talked with difficulty, but as far as she could understand he had replied:

'The caves are on many levels. Often they are like a series of deep holes connected by passages. Only in those where the floors of the caverns to be connected are of even, or almost even depth, do the passages enter and leave at ground level. Often it has been more convenient to cut an entrance part way up a wall, and make a ledge sloping to the ground. Thus the actual tunnelling can be made shorter. Sometimes there have been fissures, and at others formations of harder rock to be avoided. There is no regularity. Therefore, it follows that although some of the breaks have sent water pouring down to the lowest levels, others have entered these well-like caves, and we have been able to stop them before they could reach the side passages and overflow. It is lucky that there are less of us than there were, for already all the lowest caverns are flooded deeply.'

With this she had to be satisfied, though it left much unexplained. Why, for instance, was there a slight current through the Sun Bird's cave? Was it making its way to the pygmies' lower levels? If so, why hadn't they stopped it? The only other possibility seemed to be that the water was flowing beyond the pygmy system; that the incoming water had joined the course of a subterranean river already flowing through the cave. In the end she had sighed and given it up—one had to give up so many problems in this incomprehensible place.

It was a relief to know that there had been no more breaks lately. Each time she had heard of one her heart raced painfully, until she was sure that the prison caves had not been threatened. At first she had been angry with herself for her own anxiety—it rose, involuntary and unwanted. She had not yet forgiven Mark for the slaughter of the pygmies. It had been the sudden intrusion of violence which had shocked her even more than the violence itself. For a long time she had been unable to picture Mark without seeing those pathetically childlike bodies sprawling before him. Had she been able to reach the Sun Bird again before her first wrathful resentment had cooled, there would have been no hesitation to deter her.

Familiarity with the idea had now damped down the sense of shock. Insensibly she had begun to adopt something of the pygmy attitude. The thing had happened. Lives had been lost; it was unfortunate, but it could not be helped. There was no demanding the blood of the slayer; no suggestion that he might have behaved differently. The pygmies seemed to attach less importance than did her own people to the act of dying. Or did they? Wasn't it rather that her people attached an exaggerated importance to the more sensational and spectacular forms of death? At home, more indignation and publicity was expended upon one murder (justified or not) than upon a hundred fatal road accidents. But death was just as final. Obviously then, it was the manner which counted, not the act; if it were not so, there would be no difference between hanging by the law, and hanging by private individuals, whereas everybody knows that the law may do many things which the private individual may not. Yes, it was the manner which stirred people's emotions. If you were to shoot a man because he was a public danger, everybody would be enraged, but if you killed an excellent citizen through negligent driving, nobody minded very much. It was all very confusing____ Anyhow, the emergent fact was that the pygmies did not draw these nice distinctions, they seemed to put all deceases under the heading of death from misadventure. Death, after all, was as natural as birth, all that had been done was to accelerate its advance. Everyone was condemned to death by being born, you couldn't change that.

As time went on the picture of the slain pygmies began to have less significance. They were no longer the shocking evidence of an unsuspected streak of brutality in Mark's nature____At least, the idea of a streak of brutality was no longer shocking. In fact, there were things in favour of a streak (a narrow streak, of course) of brutality. ...

Garm broke in upon an interesting line of thought. The baffling time sense which the pygmies had evolved came into play as though an alarm clock had gone off in his mind.

'We must go now,' he interrupted.

Margaret had long ceased to be surprised by this bump of temporality. She rose, and crossed to Bast, gathering her up as she loosed the cord. Garm gulped down the dregs of his cupful of spirit, and led the way to the outer passage.

CHAPTER II

The worship of Bast centred in one of the larger caverns. Immense labour had gone to make this place a fit dwelling for a goddess. The usual pygmy custom of smoothing only the most dangerous corners and cutting away the more obtrusive projections could not give a sufficiently polished effect for a divine sanctuary. The incon-veniencies of rough adaptation might be good enough for themselves, but they were inadequate for a goddess. In pursuance of the axiom that good housing is more necessary for a bodiless spirit than for one's own flesh and blood, they had done their best. They had smoothed the rock walls almost to regularity before covering them with carvings in low relief. Broad bands of pictorial representation, alternating with narrower bands of purely conventional pattern now encircled the whole hall from floor almost to roof.

Margaret suspected that the broader bands contained a history, but, if so, it must have been designed for the edification of greatly gifted readers. Frequently the stiffness and angularity of the figures made them no more informative than the geometrical patterns above and below. Isolated groups in which battles—between slingers and stone-throwers—were taking place could be identified as could certain processions which might consist either of victors or vanquished; but the interdependence, if any, of these events was elusive.

Nor was Garm able to give any suggestions. The incidents, whatever they might be, were long forgotten, and the links between them entirely invisible. To him, and to all his race, the carvings were merely decoration. The knowledge of history had followed history itself into nullity. He knew only that they must have been made by his own people, since every figure was of pygmy cast. To this Margaret's observation added that the eyes were set full face in profiles, after the Egyptian manner, and that the few colours used were applied sparingly, though with skilful effect. The main result of her inspection was to confirm her opinion that the race was now in an advanced stage of degeneracy.

At the far end of the cave stood a huge statue of the goddess, Bast; a concrete testimony of alien influence. The ponderous figure sat upon a throne. Straight-backed and dominant, she stared down the cave; great fists, set square upon the knees, held, one a sistrum, and the other, a shield. Further, to enhance its majesty, the sixty-foot sculpture had been mounted upon a dais of stone ten feet high. From the centre of the front panel a narrow flight of steps projected, leading up to an altar set between the gigantic feet.

Margaret never failed to be a little awed. Perhaps in the open, staring across Egyptian sands between the two immensities of desert and sky, the figure would have been unimpressive, but here, where confinement exaggerated, it all but overwhelmed. Only the face relieved its severity.

The sculptor, having flanked his work with twenty-foot images of cats, had been content that the goddess herself should show her humanity. Had he chosen to crown her with such a head as her two attendants wore, the effect would have been fearsome—as it was, he had given her a face in which wise benignity and peace went far to mitigate the sense of impotence which her size induced. To look up at it was to feel partially reassured. Its graven smoothness showed no trace of pygmy features. Margaret liked to think of it as the work of some captive more fortunate than herself; fortunate in that his faith had transcended his captivity. There were angles from which one could read into the stone face and the wide, calm eyes, compassion and, perhaps, a wistfulness as though something of the artist's exiled longing had survived in the stone.

As they entered, the crowd parted, leaving a straight, clear path between them and the steps. Garm fell back, allowing Margaret to take the lead. She paused for a moment, gazing up at the towering figure of Bast, then, keeping her eyes fixed upon the statue's face, she started forward with a slow dignity.

This was always the most trying part of the ceremony. The fact that she was, to pygmy eyes, clad in a robe of honour entirely failed to give her self-confidence. In her mind her grimy suit became even more grimy than in reality. At such a moment she longed for a skirt. There was grace and rhythm about a garment which hung; one could move in it. In breeches one seemed either strutting or striding; dignity was very hardly attained.

Pygmy heads to right and left bowed as she passed, offering homage not to her, but to the cat in her arms. Bast, with the detached superiority of cats, remained indifferent. She continued to purr loudly and contentedly.

The cave was more crowded than usual. Moreover, Margaret had the feeling that the crowd was expectant, not excited nor anxious, yet in a state where its members were stirred by one thought at the same time. This, in the stagnation of the caves, was sufficiently rare to be remarkable. She had known such simultaneity of emotion only a few times since her capture; on each occasion it had been traceable to the common danger from the water. But this time the reason did not serve; Garm had denied that there were any more breaks. Something else, of which she knew nothing, must be afoot. She was irritated by the sense that she was being kept out of things. Garm had let her down; after all, there was little enough to occupy one's interest in this place. A censorship would be intolerable____

At the head of the steps she halted, and set the cat down on the altar block. Her further duties as acolyte included only the fastening of the cord and a perfunctory bow of homage. Then she retired, leaving the stage to Garm.

From behind the idol's foot it was possible to look out past the curve of the great ankle bone, over the congregation. There was no doubt that it was far bigger than usual. Hundreds of silent pygmies—men, women, and children—stood motionless, listening to Garm's high-pitched intoning. For the most part their eyes followed the movements of the cat as it paced uneasily back and forth upon the block. The expressions of solemn awe which the creature produced had amused Margaret at first, but that had passed now. To all races the very rare is a matter either for awe or mirth. The very fact that life not unlike their own could take so different a shape, must be impressive to those who rarely, if ever, had seen an animal. There would be something magical about it— was there not always something magical about life? Was not her calm acceptance of it the result of being so much in contact with varied living forms? Familiarity with the miracle of existence had made it seem no miracle. To these people, knowing none of its forms save in themselves, their fungi crops and their fish, a simple cat became something occult. If one of the great stone cats beside the statue had come to life, and bounded from the block, they would have marvelled but little more. Margaret would have been far more startled than they. The cat in their eyes was a carving come to life, no wonder they were awed, no wonder they worshipped this goddess, Bast, who could breathe life, Pygmalion-like, into her symbols.

She turned her attention from the crowd to Garm. His speech was part prayer, and the prayer, like most prayers, part flattery. It was addressed to the cat as mediator between themselves and the goddess. The language, as in many primitive tongues, made great play with tonal variation, and the animal's restlessness was due mostly to the shrill sing-song aimed at it. Margaret's knowledge was sufficient to give her the general drift.

The goddess was implored to aid them. Surely they had deserved well by her? Had they not treated her symbol with all honour, risking even the displeasure of Hamhit for her sake? If anything which might have been done had been left undone, it was not by design, but through the ignorance of their inferior, contemptible minds. Of all the gods, Bast was the greatest, none in the whole celestial hierarchy could compare with her. Nor was the symbol of any other god so graceful, so detached, so calmly contemptuous of mere humanity. With the Ibis of Thoth they had held no truck (nor, indeed, with Thoth himself, for it ill became men to aspire to the wisdom of gods). The jackal of Anubis might await them among the shades, but Anubis was of little help in this life____

A disparagement of all the gods in glorification of Bast ensued. All, that is, with the notable exception of Ra. It was hoped, perhaps, that Bast might overlook this omission. Not even to curry her favour could the risk of sudden darkness be taken.

The prayer went on. A few pertinent remarks on the continued decline in the birth-rate were dropped in— 'our fathers were multitudinous as the spores of a thousand mushrooms; they filled our caves from the lowest levels to the highest. We are but a remnant, shrunk and shrivelled, like a fungus in a dry place'—but still the main purpose of the speech remained hidden.

Margaret grew restive. Already the ceremony had lasted longer than usual. The cat tired of its prowling, and curled up comfortably in the middle of the altar. Garm's voice went on:

'—And now we implore that the blessing of Bast be given to our work. Though there may be destruction, yet it is ultimately to save, not to destroy, that we hope. Inasmuch as we have obeyed commands, that we have not wasted life by taking it wantonly, that we have imprisoned rather than slain, we ask help. Shall it ever be said that Bast has allowed ruin to be the consequence of obedience? We have faith that Bast will never forsake her people. Her justice, her mercy, her understanding, her ways inscrutable—these we honour. Will she not lend us now her wisdom, her wit, her power irresistible?'

Garm bowed low. The congregation knelt, and bent its faces to the floor. The old man's voice still muttered the sing-song prayer for blessings. His manner was less devout than that of the rest. One felt that he approached the goddess with a full knowledge of her obligations towards her people. There was an unmistakable air of 'we've done the right thing by you; now it's up to you not to let us down'. The conception of a bargain was blatant; almost put into words, though there was no threat of reprisals in case of Bast's default.

Margaret made one interesting discovery. She had wondered why the pygmies with their light regard of death troubled to imprison their captives. It now appeared as obedience to the goddess's direct wish. There was no humanitarian feeling behind it—merely blind observance of a religious rule. Had they been cramped for space, the law might have lapsed, as it was they were put to no trouble, since the captives were made self-supporting. She and Mark and all the prisoners probably had to thank the long dead Egyptian missionaries who had set up the temple for cunningly including a law for their own preservation in the articles of faith.

But still she had no clue to the reason for this special service. For all Garm's lack of humility, he showed far more supplication than was usual in his formal prayers.

She let her eyes rove over the hundreds of bowed, naked backs. Row upon row of them, white beneath the many globes, dull dry white; not one body with a healthy, gleaming skin. Her gaze reached the backmost row. Suddenly she stiffened, and leaned forward round the stone foot, staring fixedly. Her mouth opened, but she caught back the rising exclamation in time.

Beside the entrance stood a giant—at least, so he appeared to her first startled glance. She had grown so used to pygmy standards that it was hard to recognise him as a normal man. Her heart hammered with a sudden excitement, painfully so that she pressed a hand below her left breast. But it was not Mark. A sudden rush of dizziness, compound of shock and disappointment, left her leaning weakly against the stone. She forced her eyes back to the distant figure, and strained to distinguish the details. Absurd that she could ever have thought that it was Mark. This man was dark and bearded. His clothes, even, were unlike Mark's; he seemed to be wearing the rags of a uniform____

What could he be doing here? Why hadn't the pygmies captured him? It was impossible that anyone could have penetrated as far as this unseen____Or had he escaped?

No, that was obviously absurd. But wasn't his very presence here absurd? Garm had said that except for herself all the captives were in the prison caves—and once they were in, they stayed in. What, then-?

She gave it up, and stood watching him. He lounged against the wall; seemed to be watching with a kind of tolerant boredom. Evidently he stood in no fear of the pygmies. But why not?

Garm's prayer was ending. He was calling upon the concourse to proclaim the magnificence of Bast. The responses of their thin voices swept through the cavern like the rustle of a high wind.

Bast, the benign. Bast, the merciful. Bast, the omnis cient.

The cat, disturbed, resumed its prowling. It mewed plaintively. Garm paused with both hands upraised; he knew something of the value of dramatic effect. In all the huge temple cave there was no sound but the thin crying of the cat.

The pygmies had gone, and Garm with them. Of all the hundreds who had filled the place only Margaret's four guards remained. But the stranger, the man at the far end, had not gone. He had stood close to the wall while the crowd passed out. They saw him, but they did not give him a second glance. Not until the last of them had been swallowed up in the tunnel did he rouse himself into an indolent saunter towards the statue. Margaret waited, watching his unhurried approach with a sense of misgiving. She had no premonition, merely a feeling that something was amiss. The man's casual air was unreasonably out of place in its surroundings.

He looked an unattractive specimen, but so, she reminded herself, would any man just free of the prison caves. The rags of his uniform dangled and flapped about him as he walked. The buttonless jacket fell open to show a hard muscled, though none too clean, chest and stomach. Beneath a tangle of black hair, dark eyes set in a sallow face were fixed on her own. The expression of his mouth was invisible behind a ragged scrub of beard and moustache.

His head tilted back as he looked up to the calm stone face far above. She saw a flash of white teeth as he smiled derisively. He began to mount the stairs without hesitation. Margaret shot a glance at her four guards. They were watching the man with the barest curiosity, certainly without animosity. He approached her where she stood beside the altar. For a moment his gaze was transferred to the cat. He put out a hand, and stroked it gently behind the ear. The expressions of the guards became respectful; it was evident that the man was on good terms with the goddess. The cat purred, and rubbed itself against his hand. Looking back to Margaret, he said:

'You've got a soft job, eh?' The English was easy enough, but it was spoken with a strong Latin accent.

He looked her up and down in a fashion she did not like. It had the effect of making her feel far more naked than she had been when swimming to impress the pygmies. She tried to shake off the feeling of uneasiness he induced. It was ridiculous that she should feel like this towards the first man of her own kind she had seen for—how long?—well, a very long time.

'Who are you?' she asked.

'Miguel Salvades. And you are Miss Lawn?'

'How did you know?'

Miguel shrugged his shoulders.

'There is little news in the prison caves—when there is any, everybody knows it. When it is that a beautiful lady is imprisoned here instead of with the rest of us, everybody is very interested.'

'Then you have seen Mark? Tell me, how is he?'

'He is well now. He was very bad for a long time. They thought he would die.'

Margaret, too, had thought he would die. How those pygmies had hammered and beaten him! She had flung herself on them, trying to help, until others came and dragged her away. Her last sight of him had been of a battered and bleeding figure sprawling helpless on the ground. Only the repeated assurances of Garm had later convinced her that he had indeed survived that mauling.

'There've been no ill effects? Nothing broken?'

'He didn't look bad when I last saw him. Still weak, of course.'

Not until she had satisfied anxiety for Mark, did Margaret revert to the problem of this man's presence.

'How is it you are not a prisoner?' she asked.

'But I am. I've been in here more than four years.'

'No, I mean why are you here? How did you get out of the prison caves?'

'They let me out—they don't think I can do any harm.'

'Only you?'

'Yes, only me.'

Margaret frowned. Was he being deliberately evasive, or merely stupid? He didn't look stupid. She tried again.

'But why should they let you out? I thought they kept all prisoners in there always.'

'Except you? Yes, that is so. But I was able to do them a good turn. We made a bargain. They were to let me have the run of these caves if I did what they wanted.'

'And what was that?'

'Oh, just to give them some information.'

He uttered the last answer with an air of finality which discouraged further questions. Margaret found it irritating. Still, it was his own business. It was puzzling to know what information could have been important enough to support such a bargain. Such knowledge as she herself had tried from time to time to impart to the little people had never been welcomed with any enthusiasm. In any case, he had not gained a great deal. For herself, she would prefer to be in the prison caves with people of her own kind. She told him so.

'But I am not going to stay here. I'm going to escape.'

'How?'

He shrugged. 'I must look round—explore first. There are ways in—there must be ways out.'

She contemplated him, wondering how he proposed to escape. So far as she could see, it would be scarcely easier from here than from the prison caves. Openings there were, airshafts and cracks, hundreds of them, but the pygmies would be watching him just as they watched her. They might be a backward, simple race, but they were not fools. They must know why he had bargained for the freedom of the outer caves.

'Garm told me,' she said, 'that no one has ever got away.'

'I know, that's what they say, but ... who is Garm?'

'The old man who was praying just now. He told me what happened to the last man who tried.'

'Well?'

'He started to climb an airshaft. They let him get a little way up, and then built a fire underneath—a big fire. The smoke and the heat were too much for him. Fie let go in the end, and came tumbling down. He landed in the fire, and they didn't bother to pull him out.'

'I see. They got rid of him, but no one could accuse them of actually killing him. Very nice.'

He appeared little perturbed by the prospect.

'Then you don't intend to try one of the airshafts?'

'I must look round,' he repeated. 'As I see it, there is no great hurry; a few days more or less doesn't count much on top of four years. It wants thinking out carefully. I must get out first time—there won't be a second chance.' He looked up and caught Margaret's doubting expression. 'Little ray of sunshine, aren't you?'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, all you've done up till now is to tell me how it's never been done, and can't be done. Anybody'd think you were in with these little devils.'

'I'm sorry, but-You see, I thought of nothing but escape at first; then I found out it was hopeless. It's a bit difficult to get optimistic again suddenly. It's not even as if you had a plan____'

'Maybe I have. I did manage to plan my way clear of the prison caves.'

'But you're just as much in prison now.'

He chose to ignore her last remark.

'You didn't try to make a break for it?'

Margaret shook her head. 'I thought of it once, but something held me back.'

'How do you mean?' Miguel looked puzzled.

'Just a feeling that if I did it, I'd be doing the wrong thing. An idea that I wouldn't get through, perhaps, and if I failed, I should have spoilt the possibility for anyone else.'

'I don't quite get you.'

'You heard how we got in?'

He nodded. 'In part of a wrecked plane, wasn't it?'

'Yes, and it's still there where we left it. There's a current running through the cave, but I don't know where it goes. I thought that if I went downstream for a bit I might get beyond the pygmy caves, and find a way out somewhere where they couldn't follow me. I know it all sounds rather vague—it wasn't really much of a plan; just an idea.'

'You think this river would carry von beyond the inhabited caves?'

'It might. It must go somewhere.'

Miguel did not answer at once, he seemed sunk in thought.

'It's only really necessary for one person to get out,' she went on. 'Once this place is known about they'll send an expedition, and rescue us all. If you or I-' She looked at him, hesitating. After all, why not? Fear that she would be physically too weak to make good her escape had been the real deterrent. Miguel was far from weak. His was the hard, wiry type which could survive hardships. Why shouldn't he take a risk in the Sun Bird? He received the suggestion none too kindly.

'You'd rather I took the risk than you?'

'No, it's not that—I told you I don't think I could manage it.'

Miguel's attitude remained unenthusiastic. But in his eyes there was a gleam which Margaret missed.

'Don't you see?' she continued. 'It's the very chance you want. The pygmies don't know the Sun Bird's there. They'd be puzzled right from the beginning. While they were looking for you in the airshafts, you'd be floating off miles away. You must take it—it's your one chance—our one chance.'

But Miguel continued to look dubious.

'How do I know I'll be able to find a way out?'

'You don't, but isn't it worth the risk? Oh, please, please try it—we're all depending on you; all those people down in the prison caves. If only you can do it, you'll save not only yourself, but all of us.'

'But how can I find this Sun Bird? Where is it?'

'I can't describe the way to it, but I can show you.'

Miguel was looking half convinced. He glanced doubtfully at the guards.

'We'll have to get rid of them.'

'I can dodge them—I did it before in one of the fungus caves.'

'When can we go?' Miguel spoke suddenly in a sharper tone. 'Now?'

Margaret hesitated. Why not now? They could take a circuitous route, give the guards the slip on the way.

'Yes,' she decided.

She picked up the cat, and turned towards the steps. At the top of the flight she halted suddenly. Garm had returned with several followers. Hastily she turned back to caution Miguel.

'Be careful with Garm, he knows some English.' She made a quick decision. 'It's no good now. We couldn't shake them all off. Some other time.'

She turned to face the old man. He did not look pleased at the sight of Miguel, but he said nothing. Margaret wondered if he guessed that they had been talking of escape. Probably he did; it was the most likely topic.

She descended to meet him. His greeting was a shade curter than usual. The final glance he gave to Miguel was anything but friendly. Miguel grinned. As they passed away from him down the long temple, his grin grew broader.

He seemed oddly cheerful for one whose chance of escape had been delayed____

CHAPTER III

The arrangement of a meeting in a place where opportunities are few, and time has no meaning, is not easy. As far as Margaret could discover, only four things in the caves proceeded with reliable regularity: her own sleeping periods, the worship of Bast, the ripening of the fungi, and the duration of the period of gestation. Since the last two were useless for the purpose of time fixing, and the first was a law to itself, phased with complete independence of externals, it became necessary to plan the meeting with reference to Bast. And even there difficulties arose. Ever since Garm's demand for the goddess's assistance, the smooth running of pygmy life had been disturbed. An air of activity and purpose, wholly foreign, was pervading the caves. Attentions to Bast were more frequent, more flattering and a little briefer.

It was four 'days'—judged in terms of her own sleeping—before she and Miguel met again. Had it been only one, or even two 'days' the course of events might have been very different. As it happened, Miguel found himself facing a woman who looked at him with a new and discouraging expression.

Margaret had been talking with Garm. Twr unusual happenings in quick succession—the special prayer to Bast, and the unhindered wandering of Miguel—had roused in her a curiosity which must be satisfied. Garm had explained. The new light in which he placed Miguel was not flattering. It threw shadows of other doubts. Had Miguel really been so unwilling to use the Sun Bird for escape? Had he been disarming suspicion by letting the suggestion come from her?

Perhaps she was misjudging him in that. If he had come openly and said that he wanted the Sun Bird, would she have refused it? She did not think so. Then why had he not done that? She tried to put herself in his place, but failed. It was scarcely surprising, for Miguel's was one of those minds which instinctively distrusts the obvious, preferring to hide even the simplest actions under an indirect method.

At this second meeting he noticed the look on her face with misgiving. She had found out something, then. But how much? Better let her tell him. Most likely he would put his foot in it if he spoke first.

'So you got here by giving away your friends?' she began. Miguel's face maintained an irritating blankness.

'You told the pygmies about their tunnel, didn't you?'

'Who said that?'

'I asked Garm why you were allowed here, and he told me.'

'You believe that little monkey?'

'I do.'

Miguel gave a snort of contempt.

'What other lies did he tell you?'

Margaret disregarded the question; she stared at him coldly.

'If that was not your side of the bargain, what was?'

'So you're open to believe what every little swine of a pygmy tells you, eh?'

'What did you do?' she repeated. Miguel's eyes fell.

'Yes, I told them,' he admitted at last.

'That was a pretty low down trick to play on your friends.'

'They were no friends of mine; they were working on their own.'

'But for your good. If they had made the tunnel it would have meant your freedom as well as theirs.' 'If they'd made their tunnel,' he laughed. 'As if they'd ever make their damned tunnel. Why, do you know how long they had been working on it? Years, and others for years before that. They'd never have got it through, the fools. Sweating their guts out over a job which would never be any good to anyone.'

'So you felt justified in throwing away all those years of work by telling the pygmies?'

'Well, who wouldn't for a chance?'

Margaret looked at him with contempt.

'A chance. You chuck away all their work to get here without even a plan of getting any farther. Just hoping for a bit of luck.'

'You're wrong there. I did have a plan.'

'Yes, to get hold of the Sun Bird. Why couldn't you tell me that right out?'

Miguel looked momentarily disconcerted.

'You wouldn't have agreed.'

'Yes, I should, but I'm doubtful now.'

'You——?' Miguel frowned.

'What'll you do if you get out? You've let your friends down once____I very much doubt whether it's worth risking.'

Margaret was speaking rhetorically. She had no intention of withdrawing the offer of the Sun Bird but she had begun to dislike Miguel heartily. He however, took the threat seriously, it frightened him.

'What do you mean? I've got to have it. Do you think I'm going to rot in this lousy hole on account of you? The sooner you lead me to it, the better it'll be for you.'

He glared at her in sudden panic. It was in her power to upset all his plans; to keep him imprisoned here for the rest of his life. It would have been wiser to strike a more submissive note, but his alarm had taken him by surprise.

The counterpart of his frown appeared on Margaret's face. She was unafraid of him, and of his scowls, but she was surprised by the peremptory tone. It was wrong in the circumstances, the kind of outburst one expected from a cornered man, not from one going on a mission of rescue. Nor was she aware of all his misgivings. For one thing, he was not as easy about the pygmies as he pretended. Once they had closed the tunnel, they might take it into their heads to send him back to the prison caves. That would not be pleasant. His own friends whom he had left directing the pygmy forces would not welcome him for throwing away his chance, nor would the revenges of Smith, Ed, and the rest be gentle. Miguel was gifted with an uncomfortably good imagination concerning nastinesses. Then, too, there was the possibility of a pygmy defeat. Suppose the prisoners broke out! Suppose Zickle or one of the others came hunting him through the tunnels! The idea made him sweat. He must have the Sun Bird, and get clean away from all of them. He continued to glare savagely at the girl—he was more used to the positions of the sexes reversed. She said calmly:

'And when you get out?' He looked blank. She continued: 'What are you going to do then? Where are you going to lay information?'

Miguel's reply was vague and unsatisfactory. It sounded lame in his own ears. He ought to have thought up some convincing details. Damn the woman! Margaret allowed him to stumble through.

'So you'd never thought of it,' she said cuttingly as he finished. 'Perhaps you never intended to think of it? It seems to me you're just out to save your own miserable skin—you don't care if the rest of us die here.'

Since this was precisely Miguel's attitude, his protests, though vigorous, were unconvincing. He became more angry; partly with Margaret; partly with himself. He ought to have settled the whole thing last time—in fact, he had considered it settled. Never for a moment had he thought that she might get the whole yarn out of Garm. But for all that, he was irritatingly aware that he might have saved himself had he handled this second talk better.

Of course, she was right—he hoped the rest would rot here. Miguel had never yearned for publicity. If he were to succeed in convincing the authorities of the existence of the pygmies (not an easy matter in itself), he would be in the glare of a veritable floodlight of publicity. Various persons who had been industriously seeking him for years would immediately find him—with fatal consequences. In the all too likely event of his story being disbelieved, he would be sent to the penal battalion as a deserter from the Legion. He had had enough of the Legion proper; the idea of the penal battalion made him feel sick. He'd heard some stories____No, either way it was a poor lookout. All he wanted to do was to re-emerge into the world in the least obtrusive fashion possible.

Margaret was convinced by now that he intended to do nothing to help them. He could see by her face that she believed no word of his protestations. Her mouth was set in an obstinate line. She knew that once he got the Sun Bird they would hear no more of him. Miguel saw that he had gone too far; he allowed his anger to die down, and changed his tactics.

'You don't believe me,' he accused bitterly.

'Not a word,' Margaret agreed.

He was desperate; there was still a chance.

'Why don't you come, too?' he began.

Margaret's first impulse was to disregard the suggestion, but as he continued, she began to wonder. He explained his own difficulties honestly and truthfully. His attitude became for the first time comprehensible. Without any doubt contact with the authorities would put him between the devil and the deep sea.

'But for you, it is different,' he pointed out. 'You can raise hell with the English and the French, and get everyone out.'

The idea tempted. The more she thought of it, the better it seemed. When (and if) they got out, Miguel could disappear, and leave her to make the report. The difficulties which had daunted her before would be diminished by the presence of a companion, and even if she failed, she would at least have tried. The real objection was Miguel himself. He was so slimy. He twisted and turned when there was no need. Why couldn't he have told her before that he was afraid of the authorities? It seemed impossible to trust him an inch. There was no doubt that he had betrayed his companions in the prison caves, and equally little doubt that he would betray anyone else, should he think it to his advantage.

With the temptation came a weighty sense of responsibility. Unless something were done soon, it would be too late. No one could tell when there might be a break which would Hood the whole system. On the other hand, if Miguel was up to some new trick, it might ruin the last hope. He was still urging, but she scarcely heard him. She had no intention of being driven to a hurried decision. She must think it out.

The procrastination sent Miguel almost frenzied. He cursed, argued, and threatened, but Margaret remained adamant; she must have time.

She walked out with her four guards, leaving him trembling in a fury of exasperation.

CHAPTER IV

Little of Margaret's next 'night' was spent in sleep. Mostly she lay restless, turning the problem round and round to examine each facet. Her mind felt weighted down with liability; it could move only sluggishly instead of jumping.

The Sun Bird she had now come to regard as the essential fulcrum of escape; to waste it would be to lose everything. Had the escaper been anyone but Miguel, she would not have hesitated to go with him—or even to let him go alone. But that did not help. Miguel was Miguel, and no amount of wishing would change him. Why, out of all the hundreds of men in the prison caves, must it be Miguel who had escaped? The answer was obvious. If it had not been Miguel, it would have been someone like him. The essence of his ability to get so far lay in that very fact. Only someone utterly unprincipled and ruthless could have made that bargain with the pygmies.

And if he had been ruthless once, why not again? He was already angry with her. Why should he keep his part of the bargain when there was nothing to hold him to it? It would be only too easy for him once they had started to push her overboard and let her drown.

Margaret turned uneasily. Yes, that would be child's play. Just the sort of satisfactorily complete ending to the affair which would please a mind like Miguel's. She could see just how he would look at it: This woman might tell the authorities of him either by accident, or by citing him as a witness to the truth of her story. Why take chances?

Settle her out of hand, and stop any possibility of trouble.

And then ...? Not only would she have lost her life, but the Sun Bird would be gone too....

Wasn't there some way of getting a hold on Miguel to force him to keep the bargain?

Money? A good round sum to be paid over when she should reach safety.... But she had very little money. Mark had plenty, she knew, but that was not much good. For one thing he might not fulfil a promise made by her to Miguel, and, for another, the chances of his rescue alive were problematical. So much so that they could scarcely be expected to restrain Miguel if he thought himself in jeopardy. No, money would not serve. What would?

Her thoughts swept round in overlapping circles. They multiplied; their pattern grew more intricate, more mazy, but they led nowhere. Not in a single place did the line of argument shoot off to form a plan. She grew wearied of the infinite revolutions, and dragged herself back to the single fixed point of the pattern. It all hinged on one question.

Was she, or was she not justified in risking the Sun Bird with such a man as Miguel?

Put like that, the answer was obvious. She was not.

And on that decision she went to sleep.

She told Garm about Miguel the next 'day'. It was not an agreeable task. Her betrayal of him seemed from some points of view to drag her down to his own level. But she made herself do it. If the safety of the Sun Bird was as important as she had assumed, it must be assured at all costs. Miguel might succeed in finding it without her help; he might be searching for it even now. And he must be stopped. Suppressing any reference to the Sun Bird, she set herself to blacken, if possible, Miguel's character.

Garm listened willingly. His original dislike of Miguel, founded not on the other's underhand methods so much as on pure prejudice, made him a good subject. He was not vastly surprised to hear of the projected escape; that was only to be expected, and not very worrying—in fact the sooner it occurred, the sooner this Miguel business would be settled. When he was told, however, that it was proposed that Margaret should accompany the flight, his indignation rose. To attempt one's own freedom was natural, but to suggest such a course to the hand-maiden of a goddess was vile.

And that was not all. With rising anger he listened to a well-coloured account of Miguel's attentions and intentions towards her. By the end of it Margaret had succeeded in rousing him to a remarkable state of fury. Garm himself set little prize on celibacy, but he was convinced that the goddess insisted upon virginity in her chief attendant. But there was worse to follow. It appeared that this scum, this filth, this Miguel had profaned holiness, had committed such coarse sacrilege as revolted the mind, had outraged the spirit of the goddess at her very shrine, had, in fact, spat in the cat's eye.

Garm swept from the cave in a passion, leaving Margaret a little stunned by her success. That afterthought had done more than all the rest. She looked across at Bast, who blinked solemnly back at her.

'It's lucky you can't let me down,' she told her. 'That's certainly finished Miguel, and you seemed rather fond of him. Scratched your ears nicely, didn't he?'

She was suddenly struck by a spasm of remorse. Had she pitched it too strong? Even though she hated him, she had no wish for his death upon her conscience. Garm had looked too angry to stop at mere detention, but she hoped he would. After all, Miguel had wanted freedom no less than the rest. His weapons had been base, but he had no others. One should not blame him too much....

Resolutely she put the subject away. She had considered it her duty, and whatever happened now was outside her control.

She took one of the white, eyeless fish from a bowl and began to cut it up with a sharp stone for Bast. The cat still seemed to thrive; that was a blessing. She put the fragments into a smaller bowl, and pushed it across the floor. It was odd the extent to which events had depended upon that bundle of fur.

But for it, she would have been in the prison caves. It was because she was here and able to show him the way to the Sun Bird that Miguel had made his bargain—for she was sure now that he had intended from the beginning to get hold of it. Because of that bargain a war was now going on in the prison caves. Her thoughts drifted to Mark. Would he be strong enough yet to fight? What sort of fighting could it be? No firearms, no swords even. A hand to hand tussle, she supposed. The pygmies had been greatly thinned by the numbers drafted away. Since the special prayers to Bast, which she now recognised as the send-off of the expeditionary force, the attenders at the temple meetings had been mostly women.

And the prisoners had beaten off the first attack. Garm had told her that with mingled sorrow and surprise. His pride of race had been hurt. On the purely practical grounds of size it was only to be expected that one of the prisoners should be a match for two pygmies, but when a mere hundred and fifty or so were able to defy well over a thousand pygmies, he felt humiliated. He understood it to be due to guile.

'We,' he explained, 'are honest fighters. We fight with pride in our skill and our strength, but these prisoners....' He shook his head. 'They do not know how to fight. They work with cunning and hidden subtleties, instead of fighting like men with sling and knife. It degrades warfare....

'Of course'—he became magnanimous—'they can scarcely be blamed. They have not our standards. Coming, as they do, from a world which has forsaken the gods so that devils may stalk in spurious honour, it is not surprising that they have learned meannesses of spirit, unworthy stratagems which we despise.'

'We have a saying,' Margaret told him, apologetically, 'that all's fair in war.'

Garm looked shocked.

'Truly you have some remarkable sayings—I think this is the worst you have told me yet. Is there no honour in your wars?'

'Very little. Though you would find many people to agree with you, that the more subtle and drastic weapons should be abolished.'

'They know they are dishonourable, then? There is some hope for you.'

'No, that's not quite right. You see, they don't think of war in terms of honour, any more.'

'Then why do they want them abolished?'

'They think they are too dangerous.'

'They are cowards?'

'No.'

'But they must either be cowards or men of honour.'

'They're men of sense, up to a point.'

'But have you no men who think of the glory of war?'

'Oh yes; but they're mostly very young—too young to have had any experience of it. They are the ones who talk about all being fair in war.'

Garm appeared confused.

'Do you mean that the men who will use all guile, every cunning means to destroy their enemies, are the same who believe in the honour of war?'

'They are about the only ones,' Margaret agreed.

'But that is absurd. How can it be honourable to fight with tricks? Skill, yes, but tricks, no.'

'But what you call tricks, they call skill,' she attempted patiently.

'No,' said Garm, 'not even such a race as yours could sink as low as to confuse tricks with skill. It is that you are a woman, and do not understand these things. The female mind-'

Margaret hastily headed him back to the subject of the war. She had heard Garm on the female mind before.

'But what are your men going to do? Will they retire?'

'Retire?' Garm looked horrified.

'But if your attacks can be repulsed?'

'They have repulsed us once. We shall change our plan.'

'Trick them?'

'Certainly not. We shall merely adopt other methods. We never trick. When we fight an enemy who knows nothing of honour, we adapt—temporarily, of course— our methods to his. We do not approve, but self-defence demands it.'

'There seems to be something familiar about that,' said Margaret.

The conversation had revealed an unexpected side of pygmv activities. Garm's 'when we fight' had surprised her inasmuch as there appeared to be no one for them to fight. She inquired:

'When did you last fight?'

But Garm could not tell. There had been no fighting in his own time. Nevertheless, tradition spoke of expeditions from time to time against the prisoners, and more than one civil war between the devotees of rival gods. In any case, he insisted, these wars had always been fought in an honourable way. It was because this particular fracas was being conducted in such an undignified manner that it had been necessary (against their better standards) to call in all available help.

The 'natives' had been willing to co-operate since the caves were as much home to them as they were to the pygmies. And certain of Miguel's friends had joined them —though whether this was done on the principle of backing the winners, or as a result of bribery, she was unable to discover—they were supplying the guile which the high-minded pygmies naturally lacked. Garm's attitude towards them was a mixture of admiration of their ingenuity, with contempt for their standards. There was no word for serpent in the pygmy tongue; if there had been, he would undoubtedly have used it to describe the renegades.

Margaret's final deduction was that the besieged prisoners were holding their own, and likely to do so for some time to come. As long as the fighting went on Miguel was certain of the freedom of the outer caves, and at liberty to search for the Sun Bird. The more she considered it, the more glad she was to have put a spoke in his wheel.

But the apprehension of Miguel did not proceed smoothly. In answer to her worried questions, Margaret's guards could tell her nothing more than that the order had gone out for his capture. She was forced to wait until Garm's next visit. When he came, it was with a gloomy face.

No. Miguel had not been caught yet. He had disappeared. Hidden himself in the disused galleries and caves where it would be difficult to find him. No one living knew the geography of those parts, though once upon a time, when the pygmies had been as numerous as the spores in a thousand puff-balls—Margaret listened patiently again to a repetition of past glories. She became uncomfortably aware that she had not been justified in dismissing Miguel from her mind.

'But surely," she interrupted, 'they will be able to hunt him down soon.'

'Of course.' Garm spoke with a confidence which his earlier remarks scarcely vindicated. Though he might believe his people to be mistaken on some points, and misinformed on others, yet his pride in them was immense. The idea of the pygmies failing to do anything they chose to take up was completely foreign to him. Even their inability to deal with the gradual flooding had shaken his faith only slightly—deep down, he was sure that they would come through this peril as they had come through others. As to this matter of one escaped prisoner, it was unthinkable that he could evade them for long. The real cause for worry was lest the goddess should be angered by delay in the blasphemer's punishment. An expedition must be sent to search the disused caverns, and he had not at present many men to spare.

'Does he know you want him?' Margaret asked.

Garm nodded. 'It is unfortunate. We found the bodies of two of the men who were sent to find him. Their slings and knives had gone.'

'You're sure he killed them?'

'Who else?'

'Then he must know.'

Margaret's misgivings grew. The thought of the unscrupulous Miguel further goaded by desperation increased her uneasiness almost to fear. For the first time she was thankful for the continual presence of her four guards. Miguel could have little doubt who had started the hunt. It would not be pleasant to meet him alone.

'It was foolish,' Garm was saying. 'The men should have worked in fours, not in pairs. We have lost time now that he is warned.' He glanced across at Bast, curled up into a rythmically expanding and contracting ball. 'She is well?' he asked anxiously.

'Quite well.'

Garm was relieved. It was lucky that there had been no manifestations of the goddess's displeasure as yet. But the matter must not be allowed to slide. An uneasy thought struck him—there had been a second defeat in the prison caves; the tactic of advancing behind mushroom heads had been out-manoeuvred; was it not possible that Bast was showing her resentment in this way?

The more he considered it, the more likely it appeared. He wondered why he had not thought of it before. Nothing but divine opposition could have wrecked so subtle a move as that second attack. How could he have been so foolish as to think that she would fail to act? What goddess worth her salt would remain passive while her symbol was made a target for expectoration? The sooner atonement was made, the better for everyone. Miguel must be found without delay. In his sharpened urgency, the old man left the cave almost at a run.

Margaret was left with a shadow on her spirit. She pictured Miguel prowling through passages and. caverns, hunting for the Sun Bird. Or would he be keeping to the disused parts to evade pursuit? Would even a man of Miguel's type wait to be ferreted out as he must be, sooner or later? It was more to be expected that desperation would make him reckless. However, that had its better aspect. The odds against his finding the Sun Bird before he fell in with search parties of pygmies were immense.

Gradually Margaret worked herself into an easier frame of mind. She saw in their true proportions the obstacle? she had managed to raise between a single, unassisted man and his desire. If he should succeed, it would be by the merest fluke. She had done her best.

She yawned wearily. How long, she wondered, since she had slept? It felt like bedtime again, anyhow. She loosened her clothes and lay down, looking up at the glowing light. How many years did it take to adapt oneself to this nightless existence? Without day and night as measures, one never seemed fully awake or asleep, but spinning out a monotonous existence somewhere in between the two. Now, to Bast it didn't matter a bit; provided she was fed frequently, she seemed prepared to doze the rest of the time. Margaret wished, not for the first time, that she were like that....

Her eyes were still enviously on the cat when the lids slipped over them....

CHAPTER V

Margaret was awakened by a half-heard sound from the corridor outside. Nothing very unusual in that. Her inability to fit her 'nights' into the pygmy time-scheme had led more than once to Garm's having to wake her for the temple ceremonies. When and where the pygmies slept she did not know, but she suspected that it was in short spells of two or three hours at frequent intervals.

She lay for some moments without moving, her eyes on the entrance; but the old man did not appear. She called out in the pygmy language:

'What do you want?'

There was no answer. She raised herself on one elbow.

'Guards?'

Still no answer. Only a faint sound of movement in the passage. Margaret got up and crossed to look out. Something must be wrong; the guards had never before failed to answer her. The six-foot passage between her cell and the main corridor was empty. But at the end, protruding beyond the left-hand corner, was a naked foot with toes pointing up into the air. She could see all the lower part of the leg as far as the knee, lying motionless. She spoke again, but still there was no reply. Queer, why didn't one of the other guards speak? They wouldn't all be asleep. She stepped forward, keeping her eyes on the foot. She put her head round the corner, and stared down at a body on the floor. It was one of her guards, and he was very dead. His head was savagely battered, a lot of blood and other things had spilt on the floor. Margaret opened her mouth, but before the cry could come, a pressure, rigid as steel, fastened on her throat.

Both her hands flew up, wrenching and scratching at the sinewy fingers which were strangling her. Her nails filled with skin from them, but they did not loosen; her fingers could find no hold to prise them apart. She lowered her right arm, and sent back the elbow in a vicious jab. It met something yielding and brought forth a sudden grunt, the grip was cruelly increased till her head felt as if it would burst from the pressure of pounding blood.

She felt herself whirled round, and forced back to her cell.

On her bed of fungus skin strips she was thrust face down. Only then did the terrible grip on her throat relax. She could not cry out nor struggle; she could do nothing but draw a deep breath into lungs which ached for the lack of it. The respite was brief; a weight—a knee, she guessed—was thrust on the back of her neck, crushing her face among the fibres so that again she could scarcely breathe. Hands groped for her arms; found them, and tied the wrist tightly together with a coarse cord which cut deep. There was a fumbling, followed by a ripping sound as the back of her silk shirt was torn away. Then she was twisted over, and the silk bound tightly over her gasping mouth.

Miguel rose to his feet, and looked down at her. He raised a bleeding hand, and licked clean the scratches her nails had left.

'Wild little bitch!' he said venomously. 'Now it's my turn. Thought you'd finished with me, didn't you? Told the little devils a whole pack of lies about me. I'll make you eat 'em. I'll make you sorry you ever lived to tell 'em—you dirty little double-crosser.'

A faint sound came from the far corner. Miguel spun round to face Bast in the performance of her usual awakening yawn. She looked up at him and mewed.

'Told them I'd spat in its eye, did you? Well, see what I really do.'

He jumped towards it and seized it by the tail. It gave one screech, which was cut short as its head met the wall. Miguel dropped the body and turned back to glare at Margaret.

'And as for what's going to happen to you ... well, you'll see.'

Margaret looked towards the entrance. Where were the other guards? Surely they must come? Miguel saw her look, and laughed.

'No hope there, so you might as well give up. I got all four of 'em. Showed myself up the passage so that two of them chased after me; when I'd finished with them, I came back and tackled the other two. They're easy; silly little runts with brains to fit-'

He stopped suddenly, and tiptoed down the passage. Margaret strained her ears, but could hear nothing. Miguel slipped back, and stood flat to the wall, beside the entrance. Outside came an abrupt, high-pitched exclamation. Garm's voice. He must have found the dead guard. Margaret tried to shout a warning; all she achieved was a muffled grunt. It served the opposite of its purpose. Garm came hurrying in. She saw his eyes widen at the sight of her, then Miguel's fist took him on the chin. The blow lifted him clean off his feet, and his head hit the ground a sickening smash.

'Easy,' murmured Miguel. 'Dead easy.'

He crossed back to Margaret, and produced another length of cord to bind her ankles. Despite his contempt for the pygmies, he had decided that it was time to be going. He picked her up and slung her over one shoulder. After a cautious glance up and down the outside passage, he set off in a direction which would, she knew, take them to the disused caverns.

Her eyes opened to meet his. He was sitting a few feet away from her, devouring a slab of mushroom with large, greedy bites.

'Oh, so you've come round, have you?' he said.

She must have fainted as she hung head downwards over his shoulder. She had no recollection of reaching this place. That it was one of the smaller disused caves was obvious to the first glance. For one thing, the liquid in the globes had dulled to a glimmer, for another, it lacked the cleanliness of the inhabited caves. There was the glisten of slime upon the walls, and the floor was littered with accumulated debris and scummy puddles. There was an odour of dampness and the things which grow in stagnant water. She became aware of her surroundings without thought, the whole conscious surface of her mind was taken up with the hurting of her arms. Both hands were numbed to insensibility, but where the tight cord cut into her wrists began an ache which diffused upwards and about her shoulders in a dull throbbing.

The gag had been removed, but her mouth was strained and stiff, moreover it was parched and dry so that her tongue felt hard and useless. When she tried to speak, her voice was little more than a croak. Miguel hesitated a moment, and then decided to push over a bowl of water. By leaning over she could just bring her lips to it.

'My arms,' she said, 'they're hurting so.'

'And why not? If the pygmies had caught me after your lies, I'd have got more than hurt arms.'

Nevertheless, he crossed to her and untied the cords. She brought her arms slowly and painfully forward; returning circulation in her hands was a new agony. Miguel was taking no chances. He waited just long enough for the first numbness to wear off before he rebound her wrists; in front of her this time, and more loosely, though not less securely. Then he went back and resumed his meal.

'Now, we can talk,' he said. 'And I don't care if you yell—they won't find you here.'

Margaret, glancing round the ten yard square cave, could easily believe him. The pygmies had no maps of their caves; they knew them only from familiarity, and when they were no longer needed, they were forgotten. The present pygmy generation would be as lost in these parts as she herself. She did not respond. Miguel went on:

'Thought you'd done with me, didn't you?' And so you damn nearly had. A couple of the little devils almost got me, but I croaked one, and then beat up the other to see what it was all about. Yes, you spun 'em a good yarn— that bit about the cat put paid to my chances—almost. But, by God, your going to be sorry for it.'

He paused, and looked at her. Margaret did her best to stare steadily back. He must not know what a horrible feeling of empty weakness his last vicious threat had caused. He dropped his gaze at last, and grunted.

'Going to be stubborn, eh? It'll be better for you if you're not.'

Still Margaret made no reply. She fought against a rising fear. What did Miguel intend? The very deliber-ateness of his tone frightened her as much as the threats themselves.

'Now, first, are you going to tell me where this Sun Bird is?'

Margaret shook her head.

'No.'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'I thought you'd say that. I'm giving you a chance you don't deserve. Tell me, and there'll be no more trouble.'

She gave no reply.

'A pity,' he said. 'You've got nice hands.'

He put aside his piece of mushroom, and, very deliberately, picked up a flaky lump of rock. With a stone held in his other hand he began to tap it gently and carefully. He went on talking as he worked.

'Do you know what's happening to your friend and his lot down in the prison caves?'

'They're holding out.'

'They were holding out, but it won't be long now before the pygmies get them. They're being smoked out. How long will they be able to stay in a cave where they can't see and can't breathe? They've got them by this time, I should guess.' He knocked off a fragment of stone, and laid-it carefully on the floor. 'It's too late now,' he persisted, 'you'll never be able to help them. Why can't you be a sensible woman? Tell me where the Sun Bird is, and we'll get away together—you'll save a lot of people.'

'No,' said Margaret.

Her heart became heavy. Was Miguel really telling the truth this time? Perhaps, but even so, there might be a chance. After all, the prisoners had beaten off two attacks. She tabulated the alternatives. If it were not true, the position remained as before. If it were, might she not just as well sacrifice the Sun Bird? No, there were the other prisoners to be freed. She had got things in the wrong-proportion. The handful of fighting men had come to have so much more importance than the hundreds of neutral prisoners, but the latter existed, many women and children among them, so Garm had said. She couldn't sacrifice them all to save herself from Miguel.

He continued to tap methodically. There was now a neat row of little stone flakes on the floor in front of him. She gazed at him, apprehensively wondering what he intended. What was it he had said? That she had nice hands? Well, that was true, but...?

'You see,' he was saying conversationally, 'there is no time limit—you will have to tell me sooner or later.'

He laid down his stone and looked at the flakes before him. There were ten of them; little splinters of rock, quite narrow, and no more than an inch and a half long. She wondered ... ?

He picked up one and approached her.

'Come on, now—where is the Sun Bird}'

'No,' she said.

'That's your last chance you damned little mule.'

He caught her bound hands in one sinewy fist. With the other he inserted the sharp point of the stone sliver beneath her finger-nail. Then with a quick thrust of his thumb, drove it in.

A streak of vivid pain tore Margaret's arm. She shrieked with the agony of it.

'Will you tell me now?'

Sobbing she shook her head. She could not speak.

'Very well.'

He reached for another slender splinter of stone.

'You've got guts.'

Miguel addressed the quivering, sobbing form on the floor with a kind of reluctant admiration.

Margaret did not hear him. She was struggling in a sea of red agony; clinging fast to one straw of determination —she must not tell—must not tell....

Miguel sat down and looked at her moodily He felt more than a little sick. Why couldn't the fool have told him at first? He didn't want to do this. He had hated her for her betrayal, but that had passed. He'd called her a mule, but, by God, a mule wouldn't have been as stubborn as all that. He had half a mind ... No, that would be a fool thing to do. When he had gone so far____Anyhow he would try once more. He picked up a stone knife he had filched from one of the dead pygmies, and went back.

Margaret looked up at him standing over her. He was talking. From blurred eyes she could see his mouth moving. She must try to hear what he was saying. The words seemed to come from far away, but she caught their meaning—he was telling her what he proposed to do next. She listened, and her body twitched almost as though it could feel the stone knife. But he talked on, going into details, horrible, sickening. She cried out:

'No, O God, don't do that.'

'Then tell me where the Sun Bird is.'

She shook her head. 'I won't.'

'All right then____'

The stone splinter began to descend. Margaret's eyes could not leave it. Why, oh why____? All she had to do was to agree. In another second it would touch, then it would tear, then, O God.... It touched____

She screamed: 'I'll tell.... I'll tell....'

She twisted aside, sobbing with anguish of spirit. The utter abasement of defeat swept her into a misery beyond any she had known. But if—No, she would have survived one ordeal only to face another—perhaps a worse. Sooner or later she would have broken.... But the weakness of prostration was bitter beyond bearing.

Miguel turned away, glad that she could not see his face. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, and flung the stone splinter into a corner. He felt sicker than ever. He could never have done it, he knew that, but the threat had worked, thank God____

He went back to the girl and loosed the cords from her wrists and ankles. From a corner he fetched the clothes he had torn from her, and laid them over her. The tatters of her silk shirt he folded into a pillow for her head. When that was done he crossed the cave and sat down, leaning his back against the wall, listening to the sound of a sobbing so wretched that it seemed interminable.

A revolution was in progress in Miguel's mind. All his anger and hate of her had waned. He could feel nothing but pity for her, and for the things he had had to do. In fact, it was hard to believe that he had done them. It was as though events had conspired, and used him as the tool to hand. The will to live, he supposed Gordon would have called it; the will which was stronger than the form it inhabited. A gust of remorse drove through him. Yet his cunning did not altogether desert him. She must not be allowed to see his regret. She might become stubborn once more; then she would have defeated him indeed. He could not repeat those brutalities....

It was a long time before the abandoned weeping slackened, but, at last, there came into it a more normal note. The first wildness of defeat passed into a calmer hopelessness. Miguel brought a bowl of water, and held it while she drank. She raised her tear-stained face, and fixed her brimming eyes on his own. The expression she saw there surprised her. Through her sobs she murmured :

'Oh, Miguel, why have you hurc me so frightfully?'

Miguel frowned that his remorse should have been visible to her first glance.

'I had to know,' he answered curtly.

'And you'd do it again?*

'If necessary.'

She looked hard at him.

'I don't believe you would.'

'You're going back on it? Because if you are-'

She shuddered. 'No—no. I'll tell you. You've beaten me—broken me. I'll tell you.' She lay back, weeping from sheer weakness, not bothering to hide her face.

Miguel watched the tears. He could not stand this sort of thing much longer.

'Tell me where it is, and I'll go.'

'I can't.'

'You can't?' He raised his hand. 'If you-'

'No. I mean, I can show you the way, but I can't describe it.'

Miguel thought. He should have realised that a description of the way would be impossible. She was right, he must be shown.

'All right, we'll go.'

'And I am coming on the Sun Bird.'

He paused at that. 'But-'

'It doesn't matter much if you kill me or not now. I've done all the harm I can—and there might be a chance.'

There would be climbing, M'guel reflected. Alone, he might make it, but if he were encumbered with her, it would be more than doubtful. However, that could wait until the Sun Bird was found—it would be easy enough to leave her.

'Put on your clothes,' he said.

Margaret wept again.

'I can't. My hands-'

He was forced to do it for her. He completed the task by tying the strip of silk over her mouth once more.

'Not taking any risks,' he explained. 'We've got to go through pygmy tunnels. Now, march.'

She took two tottering steps. It was plain he would have to carry her. This time she was not slung across his shoulder, but held in his arms.

Miguel halted at the crux of two, well-lighted passages.

'Which way?' he asked, in an undertone.

Margaret nodded her head to the right. Miguel looked down at her in anger.

'So that's the game, is it? I happen to know that that way leads to Bast's temple. How many times have you played that trick, you damned little snake? I've a good mind to go back with you to the disused caves.'

Margaret's eyes widened with terror and pleading. She shook her head violently, and then nodded in the forward direction.

'All right.' Miguel strode on. 'But if you lead me into a trap, God help you—no one else will.'

They emerged into the fungus cave where she and Mark had first encountered the pygmies. There was not much farther to go now. Margaret resigned herself to helplessness. The luck had run all Miguel's way. They had not encountered a single pygmy to give the alarm, and her pathetically futile plan to lead him into trouble had been detected at its inception. At the back of her mind she knew that he had no intention of taking her with him. Why should he embarrass himself with her? As to what he would do with her, she wondered very little— it did not seem to matter much now.

Miguel started to cross the cave by a beaten path through the fungi. After a few steps he thought better of it, and retraced his way to the wall. Not only would one side thus be safe from attack, but an ambush springing from the fungi must give him a few seconds grace as they crossed the intervening open space. He was becoming uncomfortably suspicious that something unusual was afoot. They had come thus far with never a sign of a pygmy. What could they be up to now? He believed he would have been easier if one or two had put in an appearance. Then he would at least have had the active satisfaction of a fight, and a knowledge of what he was up against, whereas he was feeling distinctly nervous. It had gone too easily....

Part way round the wall, he stopped dead. From somewhere in the big cave had come the murmur of a voice. He looked round, listening and trying to place it. It was not easy, for the rock walls flung echo at echo, and both at original. He could tell no more than that it was in the cave, and growing louder. But, with a shock, he noticed that it was deep and full—no pygmy had ever spoken in such a voice as that. Without hesitation, he made for the great growths. In a well-hidden spot he laid Margaret down, and stood over her, straining his ears.

The sound came nearer. An eerie rumble of speech, still confused into unintelligibility by the echoes. At last, he caught a phrase:

'—And I'm dead certain I'm right this time.'

Miguel could not recognise the distorted voice. The answer made him jump violently.

'Sure, buddy, but you were just as dead certain the other three times, and they were flops.'

Smith's voice. How, in hell's name, had he got here?

'You wait a bit. I know this is the place.'

A muffled cry came from the girl. She had no doubt of Mark's voice. Miguel pounced on her, thrusting one hand fiercely over her mouth, and holding the other clenched in a threatening fist, close to her face.

'What was that?'

'Didn't you hear something? Sounded like a voice.'

'One of them durned pygmies, I guess—let 'em be, unless they ask for trouble, and they've had a bellvfull of that by now. Now, just where is this tunnel of yours? If this ain't the right cave. I'm through. I'm gonna climb one of the blifterin' air shafts.'

'And probably find the water pouring in on vou when you get half-way up.' Mark said scathingly. 'I tell you, from where we left the Sun Bird, the river runs north, and that means under the mountains. It may be a longer climb when we find a hole, but at least there won't be the water above us.'

'Sure. But how do we know we're gonna find a hole? Seems to me-'

But Miguel waited to hear no more. He had recognised Smith's voice and Ed's; he knew now that the other must be Mark's. How many more there might be in the party he didn't know, and didn't care. The important thing was that they were searching for the Sun Bird, and he must get there before they did. He was tempted to leave Margaret where she was, and trust to luck for the rest of the way, but the risk was too big. Instead, he picked her up again, putting her across his shoulders in a less impending fireman's lift, and set off among the fungi.

Miguel had a good sense of direction, and he needed it. Progress between the thick trunks, and over ground littered with twining tendrils was difficult and seemed snaillike, but he managed, at length, to intersect with the middle pathway. Once there, the going became easier, save for the heaviness of the loam underfoot. He hurried on, panting from his own efforts and the weight of the girl. The possibilities of ambush were forgotten; he had only one ambition—to reach the far end of the cave before Smith and his lot. They were not hurrying, and they were taking the longer route by the wall. If he could only get into the opposite tunnel without being seen____

Years of lethargy in the prison caves were not good training for this kind of thing. His lungs laboured painfully; he developed an agonising stitch in his side; sweat trickled down his forehead into his eyes, from his temples into his beard. His breathing seemed loud enough to be heard all over the great cavern. At last, when he had all but despaired of keeping up his speed any longer, the end of the path came into sight.

Behind the last great mushroom trunk, he paused to reconnoitre. The others were not in view, but he could hear their voices not far away. There was the open space to be crossed before he could be safe in the tunnel. If only he could risk leaving the girl ... but it might mean missing the way at the very last. He gathered himself for the effort, and then burst from the growths, sprinting like a hare for the tunnel mouth....

And he made it. No shout followed him. His bare feet had been silent in the soft loam. He had been so sure of detection, that for a moment he failed to realise his luck; then exhilaration poured fresh life into him. He'd beat 'em yet. When they got to the cave it would he just in time to see him drifting away in their precious Sun Bird. He'd have the laugh of them in the end. He set off along the passage in a long, swinging stride.

Margaret, slung like an inanimate bundle across his shoulders, wept miserably. She had thought she could weep no more, but a compound of pain, weariness, and disappointment forced out tears of utter wretchedness____

They had been so near; just one word would have done it—if only Miguel had not gagged her. Now the chance was gone. Miguel would take the Sun Bird, and leave them all here. Mark, if he ever found her, would despise her for a coward....

'Which way?' Miguel demanded.

She hesitated. He made a threatening move towards her hands. She nodded forward, and he went on. That was the end. There were no more turnings, and she had told the truth when she might have misled him. But if she had____O God, hadn't she been hurt enough already?

One more effort. She must make one last attempt. She raised her free hand to the gag. The touch of the soft silk felt like knives in her injured fingers. But she must do it. She clenched her teeth so that her jaw ached. The bleeding fingers fumbled at the silk____

CHAPTER VI

'This,' said Mark, pointing to the tunnel mouth, 'is it.'

The rest of the party was not impressed. Smith yawned elaborately. The burly Ed grunted. Even Zickle would appear tq have lost faith. Gordon was alone in that he did not lqqk sceptical—but neither did he lqok enthusiastic.

Mark walked forward and examined the walls just within the entrance. He pointed with excitement to a scar on the stone.

'It is,' he cried. 'Look here.' The others came round him.

'Isn't that a bullet mark?' he demanded.

Smith peered closely.

'You've said it,' he admitted. 'But what of it?'

'Don't you see? This is where the fight was—one of my bullets did that.'

The attitude of the others underwent a slight change; so slight that it was hard to rate it higher than a faint diminution of disbelief.

'Well, I'll believe it when I see your Sun Bird,' said Smith, expressing a good average of the general feeling. 'The Lord knows how long we've been looking for it, but it feels to me like a week, and I'm beginning to think it just don't exist no more.'

'Come on,' Mark said, leading the way up the tunnel, 'how much'll you bet?'

'Nothin', buddy. I never steal toys from kids.'

'It's lucky for you-' He broke off.

Somewhere ahead a voice was shouting. The words were indistinguishable, and broke off abruptly. A moment later came a piercing scream.

'What the hell-?'

'Pygmy,' said Ed briefly.

'Pygmy, my foot. That was a woman. C'm on.'

Smith charged ahead; the rest followed in a bunch. They rounded the corner and came to the crossways.

'Which?' Smith called back over his shoulder.

'Straight on,' panted Mark.

A long stretch of straight, another corner, and then they found her; a bundle of torn dishevelment, whimpering pitifully. She raised her tear-stained face as they came.

'Margaret,' cried Mark.

Smith stopped short beside her.

'Great God, look at her hands!'

'Miguel. Stop him. He'll get the Sun Bird,' she moaned.

Smith charged on, leaving her to be attended by Mark, but this time he was not the leader. Zickle had sped ahead; there was an old score to be settled between him and Miguel. He was a better runner than Smith, and drew off rapidly. Ed pounded up alongside Smith, and the two began to slack off.

'Let Zickle have his fun,' he puffed. 'And if he don't settle him, we'll be right there to finish it.' He drew his improvised club from his belt.

On ahead, Zickle had rounded the last corner. There was nothing now between him and the opening into the flooded cave—nor was there any sign of Miguel. He left the passage, and came out on the top of the ramp.

At the foot of it lay a craft like a huge, silver eggshell; a ragged figure was fumbling desperately at the line which moored it. With a shout, the Negro turned and charged down the slope.

Miguel gave a startled glance, and leapt aboard. He staggered a moment on the slippery roof, and then bent down, trying to loosen the mooring line from that end. It was stubborn. Zickle sped on, taking a flying leap at the Sun Bird. Miguel straightened to meet him. As the Negro's feet touched the roof, Miguel's fist met his jaw. It was a good punch, but it could not check the impetus of the leap. Zickle's head went back, but his feet slipped forward, knocking Miguel's legs from beneath him, and the two rolled on the curving roof together.

Miguel took his chance for a hold while the other was still dazed. Zickle rallied in time to break it before it could be well established, and tried for one of his own. Miguel brought his knee into action. Simultaneously, he got his fingers on the other's nostrils, and the mill was well in action. If there was a nasty trick which Miguel did not know, it was not his fault; if, in Zickle's native village, the rules of wrestling were unknown, who should blame him?

Smith and Ed reached the top of the ramp, and stood looking down on the two squirming figures—it was an inelegant sight.

'Hell, he's a filthy scrapper,' said Smith.

'Well, Zickle ain't no pansy, neither. Just you watch the boy.'

The Negro had fixed a scissor hold, crushing Miguel like a vice. The great black thighs were tensed hard as stone. They could hear Miguel gasp with the pressure as he tried to keep groping black hands from his eyes. He made a desperate attempt to break the scissor, and failed. The black seized his advantage, and his hands were on the other's face. Miguel screamed, twisting wildly. The interlocked bodies slipped, hung a moment, and then slithered down the curved hull into the water.

For some seconds little could be seen but a seething and splashing. When they again became visible the hold had been broken, and both were threshing wildly in attempts to find a grip. With Miguel's hand on the Negro's throat, they sank again. For long seconds there was no sign, then a single head reappeared. Miguel's.

'Well, I'll be--'

But even as Smith spoke, Zickle's woolly head bobbed into view behind the other. Black arms reached forward; black fingers clenched deep, like talons, into Miguel's neck, and the two sank once more.

The watchers stood intent for a long time.

A few bubbles troubled the surface....

CHAPTER VII

Margaret regained consciousness in a leisurely manner. She seemed to drift from sleep into the comatose, and thence into an awareness of her surroundings. Thus it was with no shock of surprise that she found herself in the cabin of the Sun Bird.

Nevertheless, the full implication did not come home for some minutes. When it did, it was in a flood of thanksgiving which completely swept away the earlier misery of her defeat. It had been worth it—worth all the agony. The victory was hers after all. Had she given in only half an hour earlier, Miguel would have won. He would have got through the caves unmolested, and now be floating down the subterranean river. No other tonic could have acted with the power of that realisation—the sense of triumph flowed in like a surge of new strength.

But it was not physical strength. Her muscles remained heavy and slack; it was an exertion to lift one arm. When she did,raise it, she found that the hand was wrapped in a thick bundle of bandages. She tried the other hand, and found that it had been similarly treated. Feeling utterly helpless, she called out in a voice which surprised her by its weakness. There was a scraping on the roof; presently Mark swung himself in through the open door. He bent over her.

'Better, darling?'

She smiled up at him, and tilted her head farther back. He kissed her lips.

'Ever so much. What's happened?'

'Never mind about that now. Just lie quiet. I'll get you some food.'

'I couldn't eat it, but I'd like a drink.'

'What sort? Tea?'

'Tea? Did you say tea?'

Mark laughed. 'Yes, tea. We're almost civilised again. You can have tea or cocoa, but there's no brandy left.'

'Tea,' Margaret chose firmly. 'You know,' she added, 'I never really thought I'd ever drink tea again.'

'Soon you'll be able to have all the tea in the world— we're going to get out of this.' Mark started up a small electric stove, and rummaged in a cupboard for the tea-caddy as he talked, 'just as soon as the others come back, we're going to cast off and slide away down the river.'

'The others?' she said. 'Who are they?'

'There's Smith who is tough, but has brains as well. He's American. There's Ed who is tougher and more American. And Gordon who is English, in spite of his name. He's an archaeologist. Just the three of 'em. There were more.'

'I heard that there were over a hundred of you.'

'Oh yes. What I meant was that our party was bigger. We had Zickle, the nigger, and Mahmud, who was some kind of Arab.'

'What happened to them?'

Mark hesitated.

'You ought to rest, you know.'

'Nonsense, Mark. I've been asleep for Heaven knows how long. I want to know what's happened. I don't understand it at all. You and the rest are supposed to be in the prison caves—not only in them, but besieged there —instead, you're wandering about here. And all the way with Miguel I didn't see a single pygmy. Tell me all about it while I drink the tea.'

Mark gave an account of the pygmy attacks, and their defeat.

'But didn't they try to smoke you out? Miguel said something-'

'Yes, that was their last move. They'd have brought it off, too, if the water hadn't come in.'

'Where from?'

'From the tunnel our people had been making. They must have got through just in time.'

'What happened to them?'

'I don't know.'

'But weren't they washed down?'

'We didn't see them. I expect they got jammed in there, poor devils.'

'What happened when the water came into your cave?'

'Luckily it couldn't come at a great rate, the tunnel was too small for that, so we had plenty of time to get ready.'

He went on to tell of the building of rafts from mushroom trunks. Margaret interrupted again:

'But what had happened to the pygmies?'

'Oh, they'd gone. One look at the water was enough for them—and we weren't far behind them. It wasn't very difficult to get along. The water really rose quite slowly— particularly when it had to flood the larger caves. What worried me most was that I couldn't remember whether it was a gradual rise all the way to the prison caves entrance. If so, we should be all right, but if there was a dip, or more than one dip on the way, we'd probably get trapped. But I needn't have worried, for there were no dips worth troubling about. The other worry was lest the pygmies might trap us. You know what they do when there's a break—knock in the passage at a strategic point, and sacrifice all the part that's beyond it. If they did that and we were on the wrong side of the fall, it would be all up.

'Luckily they didn't. We just kept on pushing the rafts ahead and making better time than the water. Once or twice we even had to wait until the water rose enough to float the front raft before we could get along. It was as simple as could be. We never got a glimpse of a pygmy or a "native" or anyone else the whole way. In fact, it was too good to last. The balloon went up when we reached the last big cave.

'Of course you've never seen that particular cave. It's one of the biggest in the whole place, I should think. At one end is the passage through which we came, and at the other is the only connection between that system and this. And it's a narrow connection, too. Quite a small passage, and before you can get at it, you've got to reach a ledge a hundred feet up the bare wall. Well, I hadn't thought a great deal on what we should do when we got there. I'd got a rough idea that we'd just sit on our rafts while the water rose and floated them up to the ledge, and I hadn't reckoned at all with what else we might find.

'We came in to discover one of the nastiest shemozzles I've ever seen in full swing. Every living soul in the prison caves had rushed there at the first alarm; the pygmies, the prisoners themselves, and the "natives", too, and the whole lot had arrived at just about the same time. On the ledge was a crowd of pygmies dangling ropes to haul their pals up, but everybody else wanted those ropes, too. Some of the prisoners were trying to climb up, and the little devils at the top were jerking to shake them off. The pygmies down below were hardly having a look in. Everybody else was dead sure that if anybody was going to be saved, it wouldn't be pygmies, and the little chaps were coming in for a rough time. But those up on top were just as sure that they weren't going to save prisoners while pygmies were left to drown. They succeeded in dislodging most of the climbers so that they fell on those below. If they couldn't get rid of them that way, they just cut the ropes and let 'em drop. Everyone that dropped from fifty or sixty feet laid out four or five of the scrappers below. So far as I could see, not a single prisoner had reached the top yet, and it didn't look as if any would.

'Already the water was ankle-deep at the base of the wall, and everyone there was pretty nearly mad with fright. I don't blame them—it's not a nice lookout when you know the water's going to rise and trap you. And swimming—which only a few of the prisoners and none of the pygmies knew—wouldn't help them. Those who could swim might have a little longer to wait for the end, that was all. As it was, the whole lot had lost their heads, and were hitting out wildly in a blind panic. And in the middle of it all we came out of the passage, shoving our rafts.

'It was a minute or two before anybody noticed us, but when they did—well, it beats description. They just forgot about their own scrapping, and came for us. We didn't stand a chance. There were only a few of us, and hundreds of them, wild with fright. There were fists and stones and a few knives, and the women raked with hands like claws. They'd have had our eyes out in a couple of minutes. Smith yelled to us to get back. Most of us did, but a few stuck to their rafts and tried to defend them—I don't know what happened to them. We saw them go down in the rush, and that was all.

'Then, of course, another scrap started. There wasn't a tenth the number of rafts-necessary to carry them all, and they started in to settle who was going to be saved, and who was going to drown. It was a nastier fight than I ever want to see again. The water down our end of the cave was waist-deep now and the prime tactic of the day seemed to be to thrust an opponent under and stand on him or her while one clutched firmly to the raft with one hand and defended the position with the other. The screeching and shouting in most of the languages of Africa and Europe was ear-splitting. We stood back with Smith and watched.

'What his plan was, I don't know. I thought at the time that he intended to let the rest put one another out of action before he charged in to recover some, at least, of the rafts. Even two would be enough for our particular party, for a couple of mushroom trunks would support a considerable number provided that they were content to cling to the sides instead of climbing on top. Possibly that was his idea; anyhow, we stood and watched with our backs to the tunnel through which we had just come. I was beginning to wonder whether it wasn't about time to take a hand when I got a nudge in the back. I looked round to find a big mushroom trunk which had drifted gently out of the tunnel on the rising stream.

'We needn't have made those rafts at all. The way we had come was simply full of floating logs and puff-balls. Whether they were the scattered remains of our rampart, or of fungi newly broken off by the water, I don't know, but, wherever they came from, there were plenty of them. The fighting round the rafts stopped almost at once, and there was a rush at the flotsam. Soon, there was more than enough rubbish drifting in to support the lot of us.

'Our small group got hold of three trunks, and by the time we had managed to get a couple of ropes round them and scramble on top, the water was up to our armpits.

'Up the other end of the cave, the pygmies on the ledge were working furiously to save such of their pals as were still standing. Little white figures went swinging and bumping up the perpendicular face to the top. Then the ropes were untied, and thrown down for another load. They were working mighty quickly against time, but time looked like winning. Already, even at that shallower end, the water was waist-high on the pygmies, and there were still scores of them to be hauled up. Most of them were scared stiff or practically screaming with fright and hitting at the water as if they could push it away. Poor little devils—most of them had never seen more water than there is in a drinking bowl or a small stream, until the breaks started.

'We began to paddle over with our hands, taking as much floating rubbish with us as we could. After all, you can't sit by and watch even pygmies drown like that; you forget you've been fighting them an hour or two before.

'Then it was just a matter of waiting while the water rose and gradually lifted the lot of us towards the ledge. The pygmies up above craned over and looked at us, and held long discussions. It was pretty clear what they were talking about. If they were to close the tunnel leading to the outer caves, they would not only seal the break, but finish with us as well: on the other hand, all the pygmies (and there were plenty of thern) floating about with us would have to be sacrificed. They were faced with the nasty point of whether it was worth it. Eventually, they decided it was not. Not so much, I think, from humani-tarianism as from a fatalistic sense of defeat. I don't think they had much feeling of gratitude towards us for saving their pals—though that may be an injustice; but the idea that the pygmy world is doomed, and that they can do nothing so save it, has been growing of late, and, with it, the notion that whatever they do doesn't matter a great deal.

'Anyhow, whatever the reason, they waited until we were about half-way up, and began shouting down to those with us; then they went away. Mahmud explained that the suggestion was that we should all get out together, and that the pygmies with us should stay and close the passage behind them in order to confine the water to the prison system.

'And, to cut it short, that's what happened. We gave them a hand; the minute the tunnel was closed, they scampered off, and Mahmud with them. We've scarcely seen one of them since. I think they've gone north to the highest levels. Mahmud didn't think much of the Sun Bird idea, and held that the safest course was to keep with them. The rest of the prisoners scattered in groups, looking for ways out. We stuck together, trying to find the old Sun Bird; it seemed the best bet.'

'And when you'd found her?' Margaret asked.

'The others were going downstream to find a way out.'

'Not you?'

'There was still something in the caves that I wanted more than my liberty-—I was going to look for it.'

She smiled up at him.

'Darling.'

After the interlude, she said, with a frown:

'But Miguel—what happened to him?'

He gave Smith's account of the fight. She shuddered.

'Pooi Miguel.'

'What?' Mark exclaimed, looking down at the bandages on her hands. 'After that?'

'He was weak. He almost cried as he did it. Perhaps in different circumstances ...'

Mark stared speechlessly.

'I don't understand,' he managed at last.

'Never mind, dear, I didn't expect it. Tell me what's happened to the others. Didn't you say there were three of them?'

'They've gone to cut up some mushrooms—there's not much food aboard for five. They ought to be back soon.'

Mounted upon the Sun Bird's instrument board was an electric clock. With the discovery that it was still going, the passage of time became suddenly more important. The recent mental habits became superseded by the old outlook. The clock stood for change and progress, its moving hands were a constant reminder of time wasted, things to be done, and, more uncomfortably, things that now never could be done. Margaret stared at it with fascination and dislike. There had been points in favour of the timeless existence once one got used to it. To see the hands sliding irrevocably over the numbers, brushing them into the past, depressed her. There was much to be said for a permanent today which had no finished, inflexible yesterdays____

The hands had covered an hour before a hail called Mark from the cabin. She heard him shout an answering greeting, and felt the Sun Bird manoeuvred until her door was against the ramp. Mark came back with two tattered men, bearded like himself. Their large size crowded the little cabin.

'Smith and Ed,' he introduced. 'Where's Gordon?'

'Comin' along right behind us,' said Smith.

He inquired how Margaret was feeling now, and made uncomplimentary references to Miguel.

'Say, I'm almost sorry Zickle got him. I'd have liked to show him where he got off, myself.'

'It'll soon be all right,' she assured him. 'It might have been worse.' She thought with a shudder of the thin stone knife.

Smith looked down at her and shrugged his shoulders.

'That must be the Christian spirit they used to tell me about at school. By God, if a guy had done tricks like that to me-' He left the sentence unfinished, and turned to Mark. 'We'd best get the stuff aboard—no good wastin' time.'

The other two went outside and started to hand in slabs of mushroom head which Smith stowed carefully in the stern.

Gordon came down the slope just as they were finishing. He held one hand behind his back; the other was empty. Beside him stalked a rusty-looking cat.

'Where've you been?' Mark demanded. 'We were beginning to think you'd got yourself into trouble—and, anyhow, you were supposed to be fetching mushrooms. Where are they?'

Gordon shook his head.

I forgot them,' he admitted. 'But look what I did get.'

He brought the hand from behind his back and held out a shining globe, somewhat smaller than those which glowed in the cavern roof. The others came round him.

'It took some time to get it off,' he explained.

The cat left his side, and prowled towards the door of the Sun Bird. It disappeared within.

'But what's the idea?' Smith asked. 'We've got electric light, and the batteries are not down yet, not by a long way.'

Gordon regarded him pityingly.

'You poor mutt,' he said, slipping for once into the alien tongue. 'Don't you see what we've got? Cold light, man. No waste by heat, no power supply necessary, depreciation scarcely noticeable. It'll mean millions for all of us. Why, there's nothing we couldn't get for it, once we've analysed the stuff inside. Cold light; it's been the dream of the world, like—like the universal solvent—and we've got it.'

Smith grunted.

'Maybe you right, but we ain't out of this vet. Come on. Stow it aboard. We've got enough mushrooms, anyway.'

They crammed into the little cabin A gingery bundle of fur had curled itself up on Margaret's lap.

'Look,' she said. 'Bast's come back. Where did you find her?'

'Bast? Oh, that cat. I don't know. It came sniffing around while I was getting the lamp. When I came back, it came too.'

'I thought she was dead, poor thing.'

'You can't kill 'em,' said Smith. 'African cats are made that way. Now, stow that light some place, Gordon, and we'll get goin'.'

He climbed to the roof, while Ed stepped on to the ramp, and loosed the moorings.

'O.K.?'

'O.K.'

Ed gave a mighty heave, and scrambled aboard.

The Sun Bird slid out upon the cavern lake. Towards the middle she swung a little in the gentle current. She turned, drifting slowly towards, the black hole in the wall. The beam of the searchlight sprang ahead. The sides of the passage closed upon her. The blue-white lamps of the cavern fell behind.

CHAPTER VIII

'Light ahead.' Smith's voice came echoing back to the rest.

Almost too good to be true. So many hours of climbing through natural tunnels, narrow clefts, booming caves, and up all but impossible 'chimneys' had wearied them almost to hopelessness. Had it not been for the dogged-ness of the two Americans they would have given up long ago, and stayed to die in some corner of the labyrinth. It was chiefly Ed's amazing strength which had brought them so far, for it was he who, by bracing back against one side, and hands and feet against the other, had managed to scale the perpendicular 'chimneys', and throw down a rope to the rest.

How long it was since they had left the Sun Bird rocking on the underground river, and started the climb, none of them knew. Two or three days, perhaps, but it had seemed a short lifetime. There had been disappointments, dead-ends, retracing of steps and fresh starts. They had been confronted with cracks too narrow for passage, walls too smooth to be climbed, caves from which the only outlet was a split in the roof. Margaret, still weak at the start, had soon become exhausted. Mark had helped her until his strength gave out and Ed came to the rescue. The calm patience of the two Americans amazed them. Again and again they turned back from dead-ends without bitterness or the futility of anger, and sought another route. If they felt any despondency, not a trace of it was allowed to show, and their confidence buoyed up the rest.

Except when Ed performed his prodigies of climbing, Smith was in the lead. The Sun Bird's searchlight was hung against his chest, and a battery mounted on his back; next came Ed, carrying Margaret, then Gordon, adding to the illumination with his globe, while Mark, with another lamp and a smaller battery, brought up the rear. Each had started with a pack of food in the form of mushroom slabs, but these had now dwindled to a quarter of their original size, and what remained was dry and leathery.

Smith's call put fresh life into them all. Mark forgot that his feet, on which the boots were coming to pieces, were, swollen with great blisters, and hurried on till he was close behind Gordon.

'Daylight?' he called.

'Sure, sunlight,' shouted Smith.

They emerged from a crevice on to a narrow ledge. The sun was about to set behind a line of rugged mountains. It was some time before anyone spoke.

'Gees,' said Ed, at last, as he lowered Margaret, 'ain't that just glorious? There ain't no sweller sight in the whole of God's world—an' I reckoned I wasn't never gonna see it no more. Yeh, we've sure been missing some-thin' down there.'

Mark crossed to Margaret. He put his arm round her.

'You mustn't cry, darling. It's all over now.'

'I know,' she managed. 'That's why I'm crying. It's so lovely and I'm so glad. Oh, Mark____' She lifted her bandaged hands and put her arms about his neck.

Gordon laid his light globe down carefully and turned to observe the sunset with the air of one witnessing an interesting, and slightly unusual phenomenon.

'Well, what do we do now?' he asked in a practical tone as the last arc sank from view.

'Sleep,' Smith told him promptly.

'You've said it,' Ed agreed.

'What we got to do is get goin' as soon as maybe,' Smith observed through a mouthful of shrivelled and unappetising mushroom. 'There ain't no tellin' when the next break'll come, nor how big it's goin' to be. If we aim to get the rest out, we've got to move right now. Here's my idea.' He turned to Gordon. 'You speak a bit of Arabic, don't you?' Gordon nodded. 'Well, you and Mark get along to the nearest village, find out where we are, and get hold of something to ride—don't matter what, camels, horses, mules—and get some of those Arab duds, burnouses, or whatever they call 'em, for Ed an' me. We three wait here for you, and then we all cut off together for civilisation. How's that?'

Gordon demurred.

'Why don't you go? You're both about twice our size, and size tells with Arabs.'

'Two good reasons. One is that we only know about two words of the lingo, but you know it well, and Mark's got money which is a good substitute for lingo any place. And the other is these duds.' He indicated the shreds of his uniform. 'We'd run into a goumier like as not, and that'd be that.'

'What's a goumier?' Margaret asked.

'Kinda native cop they run to in these parts. He gets twenty-five francs if he brings in a Legion deserter, dead or alive—and a dead man's less trouble.'

'But you aren't deserters.'

'No, but who's goin' to believe that till they know about the pygmies? It's no fun bein' found innocent if you've been bumped off first. What's more, it seems to me we're goin' to save a hell of a lot of trouble and argument if we desert right now. What say?' He looked question-ingly at Ed.

'Suits me.'

'And after that?' Mark asked.

'We make for some place where we can get white man's pants. Then, when we're all swell and classy, we spill the beans about the pygmies—and, believe me, we'll have to do a mighty lot of persuading.'

'But we've got proof,' Gordon pointed to his globe.

'An' we'll need it. Well, what about my proposition? You guys willin'?'

'Yes,' Mark agreed, 'but where are we going to find a village?'

Smith looked down from the ledge into the rocky valley. He pointed to a small, muddy stream which meandered along the dusty bottom.

'See that? I'm willin' to bet it's someone's water supply. They like it that way round here. Just you follow downstream, and you'll find a village pretty soon.'

'Right you are. So long, and look after Margaret.'

'And look after the lamp,' added Gordon. 'Don't let that damned cat get anywhere near it.'

The three left on the ledge watched them climb down and turn to the north.

'They won't be in danger? You're sure?' Margaret asked Ed.

'Betcha life,' he replied with an assurance which sounded more nearly absolute than he expected.

A week later a party which had come into Algiers the previous day by the line from Jelfa, sat round a cafe table. They attracted a certain amount of unwelcome interest by their curious appearance. For one thing, they were accompanied by a desert cat of unattractive, even repulsive, aspect; for another, the girl's hands were heavily wrapped in bandages, but most remarkable was the complexion of one of her three male companions. The forehead and the upper part of his face was badly sunburned to a vivid, angry red, while the rest was of a startling white, as though a beard might recently have been removed. He addressed the other two, who wore beards neatly trimmed and pointed.

'I wish to Heaven I'd had the sense to keep on my beard. I feel like a circus clown.'

Margaret laughed.

'Never mind, dear, I like you better without it—and your face will soon even up.'

Smith knocked back his fourth brandy that morning with great appreciation.

'That's what I call a white man's drink.' He ordered another, and looked up the street.

'Where the hell's Gordon? You ought to be gettin' along.'

'He's gone to get a case for that precious globe of his— he said it might take him half an hour or so.'

'Well, he's late already.' Smith paused, and a worried frown came over his face. 'You're sure you've got this right?' he said. 'You three go and lay the information, but you don't say anything about Ed an' me. We're the absolute last shot in the locker. If you can't convince 'em any other way at all, you can bring us into it, an' we'll try.'

'I don't see what they could do even if they found out who you are,' said Margaret. 'After all, the term of service in the Legion is only five years, and that's up long ago.'

'If they chalked us up as deserters it ain't over, you bctcha sweet life,' Ed replied. 'Not by a million miles.

And they're just crazy over deserters.' 'There he is,' said Mark suddenly.

Gordon was hurrying along the crowded footpath towards them. He looked hot, moreover, his face suffered from the same varie-colouring as afflicted Mark's. In one hand he clutched a clumsy, cubical leather box, and in the other, a newspaper which he waved at them.

'What's the rush?' Smith inquired, as he came up to the table. 'Seein' you're a half-hour late right now, why bother?'

'Look at this,' Gordon panted, throwing the paper on to the table, and dropping into a chair.

'Good God!' Mark had caught sight of a headline. The four craned over to read:

MYSTERY OF THE NEW SEA and underneath, a lesser caption:

Level Sinks 24 cms. in One Night 'What's that?' said Ed.

' 'Bout nine or ten inches,' muttered Mark, reading ahead.

'The New Sea, which has on several occasions failed to show the expected rate of progress, sprang a new surprise on the experts last night. The engineers in charge of the work were hurriedly summoned from their beds soon after retiring for the night. Upon arrival at the observation station they quickly discovered that the level of the New Sea was dropping rapidly. "It was amazing," said M. Radier, who is in command of the Qabes works, when interviewed by our correspondent. "We have never experienced anything like it before. The level continued to show its usual rise until ten o'clock, and then began to fall. The men left in charge became alarmed, and summoned us to the scene. We at once verified their observations with the gravest concern. The fall continued throughout the night although all the pumps are at work as usual. This morning it had dropped by 23-832 centimetres, at which figure it remains. It is a very serious thing for us, meaning as it does, a loss of many weeks of work.'

Asked if he could offer any reason, M. Radier replied: No. It is inexplicable." At the suggestion that the same thing might happen again, he shrugged his shoulders.

It is impossible to say until we know more," he declared.

'Another responsible official, M. Pont, when interviewed, replied: "The fall must have been caused by a sudden subsidence of the sea bottom." Asked if this was usual, he said: "No, but it does not surprise me. The earth is as full of holes as a sponge." Our interviewer then suggested that so great a volume of water might cause danger, should it reach the internal fires. M. Pont smiled as he replied: "You need have no fear of that; if it had reached the internal fires, I should not be talking to you now." '

There was a great deal more, chiefly repetitive. The four read it through, and looked up at one another. Smith took a drink of brandy, and lit a cigarette with care. 'Poor devils,' he said. 'I guess that's that.' Mark nodded. Ten inches of water over that vast area represented an unthinkable number of gallons. Yes, it was the end. The big break had come. There would be no rescues from the pygmy caves now.

'I wonder if any of them got out?' Margaret said. A few, Gordon thought, probably quite a number of the prisoners had been lucky enough to climb shafts here and there, but the pygmies, no----

'Well,' said Ed, and there was a note of relief in his voice. 'That lets us out. There's no good spinnin' the yarn now, and I don't mind tellin' you folks that I'm gonna be a lot easier in the mind when I'm out of French territory.' 'Me, too,' Smith agreed, 'but where are we goin'?' 'London, of course,' said Gordon. 'Do you mean to tell me that you've forgotten that you are to be members of the board of the Cold Light Company Limited?' Margaret looked round the group.

'Yes. London,' she agreed. 'But there's something much more important than the Cold Light Company. You're going to attend a wedding.'

Smith tossed down the last of his brandy. 'Free drinks?' he inquired. 'Oceans of them.'

He rose, and dragged Ed with him. 'Good news, sister. Lead us to London.'