"On the sixth night we shall go out! In darkness we have lived; in darkness we shall emerge. Then shall we feast in the arena of Vashta as we did of old. We shall see this new world; we shall breed and people the world; we shall take up our lives again. "Let the captives live!" he commanded. "Feed them well. They shall be the sacrifice to Vashta--all but the woman. She shall see the blood of the others flow on the altar stone; then shall she come to me." There was a chorus of mental protests; of counter claims. The leader quieted them as before. "I am Master of All," he told them. "Would you dispute with me over this beast of the Earth--a creature of no mental growth? Absurd! But she interests me somewhat; I will find her amusing for a time." * * * * * There were bearers who came crowding in; and again in groups they left. They were on the side where Chet dared not look, but he knew each group of blacks meant a mysterious something that was being carried carefully. And somewhere in the confusion of black, shuffling feet the others vanished. No sight of Walt or Diane did the slitted leather give; only a motley crew of blacks who were left, and a wall, high-sprung to a glittering ceiling, and flaming, cold fire that ebbed and flowed till the room's last occupant was gone. Then the flames faded to dense blackness where only fitful images on the retina of Chet's staring eyes flared and waned, and ghostly voices seemed still whispering through the clamoring silence of the room.... They were echoing within his brain and harshly at his taut nerves as he made his slow way toward the passage through which he had come. Despite their terror-filled urging he did not run, but took one silent, cautious step at a time, until, after centuries of waiting, his eyes found a square of light that was blinding; and he knew that he was stumbling through the portal in the top of the pyramid of Vashta--Vashta the All-Wise--unholy preceptor of an inhuman race. CHAPTER XXII _Sacrifice_ "Down in the pyramid! You went down there?" Herr Kreiss forgot even his absorbing experiments to exclaim incredulously at Chet's report. Guided by Towahg, Chet had returned to Happy Valley. There had been six days and nights to be spent, and he felt that he should tell Kreiss what he had learned. "Yes," said Chet dully; "yes, I went down." He was seated on a rock in the enclosure they had built. He raised his deep-sunk, sleepless eyes to stare at the house where he and Walt had worked. There Walt and Diane were to have made their home; Chet found something infinitely pathetic now in the unfinished shelter: its very crudities seemed to cry aloud against the blight that had fallen upon the place. "And what was there?" Kreiss demanded. "This hypnotic power--was it an attribute of the ape-men themselves? That seems highly improbable. Or was there something else--some other source of the thought waves or radiations of mental force?"