Chet was breathless; it was an instant before he realized that he was free, that the hypnotic bonds that had bound him were loosed. It was another instant before he sensed that his companions were still marching--trudging stiffly, woodenly off through the dark. He bounded after, heedless of bruising walls; he followed where the sound of their scuffling feet marked their progress to a sure doom. There were stairs; how he sensed them Chet could not have told. But he paused, hesitated a moment, then found the first step and half ran, half fell, through the utter darkness of the pit into which they had gone. * * * * * The odors that had seemed the utmost of vileness now came to him a hundred times worse. They tore at his throat with a strangling grip, and he was weak with nausea when he crashed upon a figure that he knew, was Kreiss. Then on, to grasp at Diane and Harkness; to drag them to a standstill in the darkness that pressed upon them smotheringly, while he shook them, beat at them, shouted their names. "Diane! Walt! Wake up! Wake up, I tell you! We're going back!" He swung them around; forced them to face about. "Walt, for God's sake, wake up! Diane! Kreiss!" The deep, sobbing breath of Diane was the first encouraging response. Then: "Free!" she gasped. "I'm free!" And Harkness and Kreiss both mumbled incoherently as they came from their hypnotic stupor. "How--" began Harkness, "how did you--" But Chet waited for no explanation of the seeming miracle that had just taken place. "Go back," he told them, "--back up the steps!" And a babble of cries that were terrifying in their inhuman savagery welled up from the depths of the pyramid to urge them on. The body of their captor was prone on the floor above: they stepped over it to reach the entrance. No figure showed there now; Chet stooped low and stepped forth cautiously that the surging horde on the ground might not see him. The others followed. He felt Harkness' hand in a sudden warning grip upon him. "Chet!" said Harkness, "there is something there in the shadow--there!" And Chet saw, even before Walt pointed, a wriggling figure that crept toward them. He struck down the bow that Kreiss had raised, and a ray of light came through a jagged niche in the rock above to fall upon the face of the one who drew near. Abjectly, in utmost humility, the naked figure crept toward their feet, and the savage face that was raised to theirs was wreathed in a distorted smile. Beside him, Chet felt Harkness struggling to speak. In wondering tones that were almost unbelieving, Harkness choked out one word. "Towahg!" he said. "Towahg!" And the thick lips in that upraised face echoed proudly: "Towahg! Me come!" CHAPTER XIII _Happy Valley_ "Towahg!" Chet marveled; "you little devil! It's you who has been following us all this time!"