But he knew, as he led the party away from the camp, how long a gamble he was undertaking. There were so many chances that he might fail! The odds were plenty tough--yet the stakes were equally high. Had he known how difficult those odds were, Garth might not have risked it. For the Noctoli poison worked faster than he had guessed. Meantime he guided ten sullen, fearful men, a walking corpse, and a girl deeper into the unexplored heart of the Black Forest. The Noctoli flowers breathed their poison from the underbrush, deadly and relentlessly. VI That day they met a new enemy: jet-black lizards, five feet long, that clung to the black tree-boles, perfectly camouflaged, till the party came close. Then the reptiles flashed toward them, fanged jaws gaping. Constant alertness was all that saved them--that, and the blazing guns that killed the monsters. Presence of the lizards was no respite from the other perils. The bloodsucker plants were more numerous, and the camouflage-moss made deceptively inviting paths through the red gloom. By dark, everyone was nearly exhausted, nerves worn to rags. Garth knew it would not take much for the men to explode into furious resentment against him. Luckily, an hour after they had made camp, Captain Brown woke from his drugged trance, perfectly normal. But it took a while to make him understand what had happened. For the first time Garth saw Brown lose his iron self-control, and then it was only for a moment. A flash of stark horror showed on the Captain's lean, hard face, to be gone instantly. He lit a cigaret, his eyes brooding on Paula and Garth. Briefly he glanced past them to the men, preparing their rations. "Uh-huh. Not so good. I suppose it's useless to think of traveling by night." "It's impossible," Garth told him. "You can make more antitoxin?" "Sure--but not here. It's too dangerous. We've been safe so far because we've moved fast, camping at a different spot every night. If we holed up, we'd have a gang of monsters down on us in no time." Brown considered. "It's a nasty business, having my own body go back on me. A bit of a shock. Well--" He let smoke drift from his nostrils. "Two more days ahead of us, eh? Then we reach the lost city." "If it is a city. We don't even know that." "But we do know there may be Zarno around. We'll have to arrive there soon after dark, so I'll be ... conscious. If there's a fight, I want to be in on it. Why the devil didn't you test that antitoxin, Garth?" His voice was harshly angry. Garth didn't answer. Brown had given him the rush act, but he wasn't making any excuses. Paula said, "This isn't the best time to quarrel. You'd better talk to the men, Carver, so there'll be no trouble tomorrow." "Yeah. Yeah, I suppose so." Even the rebellious Sampson was convinced by Brown's well-chosen remarks.