I glanced at the cleft the lights had come from. It looked big enough to get Foster into. That would give him some protection. I tumbled him over the edge, then flattened my back against the slab and settled down to fight in earnest. I worked in a pattern, sweeping vertically, then horizontally. The globes ignored me, drove toward the cleft, fighting to get at Foster, and I swept them away as they came. The cloud around me was smaller now, the attack less ravenous. I picked out individual globes, snuffed them out. The hum became ragged, faltered. Then there were only a few globes around me, milling wildly, disorganized. The last half dozen fled, bumbling away across the plain. I slumped against the rock, sweat running down into my eyes, my lungs burning with the sulphur. "Foster," I gasped. "Are you all right?" He didn't answer. I flashed the light onto the cleft. It showed me damp clay, a few pebbles. Foster was gone. CHAPTER VI I scrambled to the edge of the pit and played the light around inside. It shelved back at one side, and a dark mouth showed, sloping down into the earth--the hiding place from which the globes had swarmed. Foster was wedged in the opening. I scrambled down beside him, tugged him back to the level ground. He was still breathing; that was something. I wondered if the pub owner would come back, now that the lights were gone--or if he'd tell someone what had happened, bring out a search party. Somehow, I doubted it. He didn't seem like the type to ask for trouble with the ghosts of ancient sinners. Foster groaned and opened his eyes. "Where are ... they?" he muttered. "Take it easy, Foster," I said. "You're OK now." "Legion," Foster said. He tried to sit up. "The Hunters...." "OK, call 'em Hunters if you want to. I haven't got a better name for them. I worked them over with the flashlights. They're gone." "That means...." "Let's not worry about what it means. Let's just get out of here." "The Hunters--they burst out of the ground--from a cleft in the earth." "That's right. You were halfway into the hole. I guess that's where they were hiding." "The Pit of the Hunters," Foster said. "If you say so," I said. "Lucky you didn't go down it." "Legion, give me the flashlight." "I feel something coming on that I'm not going to like," I said. I handed him the light and he flashed it into the tunnel mouth. I saw a polished roof of black glass arching four feet over the rubble-strewn bottom of the shaft. A stone, dislodged by my movement, clattered away down the 30 slope. "Hell, that tunnel's man-made," I said, peering into it. "And I don't mean neolithic man." "Legion, we'll have to see what's down there," Foster said. "We could come back later, with ropes and big insurance policies," I said. "But we won't," said Foster. "We've found what we were looking for----" "Sure," I said, "and it serves us right. Are you sure you feel good enough to make like Alice and the White Rabbit?" "I'm sure. Let's go."