Over and over they rolled, their grips tight-locked as steel. Now Kamrou was on top, now Stern. But the chief's muscles were still strong as ever; Stern's already had begun to weaken. Strive as he might, he could not get another hold, nor could he throw another ounce of power into that he already had. Up, up, slowly up slipped the chief's arms; Stern knew the savage meant to throttle him; and once those long, prehensile fingers reached his throat, good-by! Then it seemed to him a voice, very far and small, was speaking to him, coolly, impersonally, in a matter-of-fact way as though suggesting an experiment. Dazed as he was, he recognized that voice--it was the voice of Dr. Harbutt, who once had taught him many a wily trick upon the mat; Harbutt, dead and gone these thousand years or more. "Why not try the satsu-da, Stern?" the voice was saying. "Excellent, at times." Though Stern's face was black and swollen, eyes shut and mouth all twisted awry in this titanic struggle with the ape-hold of the huge chief, yet the soul within him calmly smiled. The satsu-da--yes, he remembered it now, strongest and best of all the jiu-jitsu feats. And, suddenly loosening his hands from the chief's throat, he clenched his right fist, hard as steel. A second later the "killing-blow" had fallen on the barbarian's neck, just where the swelling protuberance behind the ear marked the vital spot. Terrible was the force of that blow, struck for his own life, for the honor of Beatrice, the salvation of the world. Kamrou gave a strange grunt. His head fell backward. Both eyes closed; the mouth lolled open and a glairy froth began to trickle down. The frightful grip of the long, hairy arms relaxed. Exhausted, Stern fell prone right on the slippery edge of the boiling pit. He felt a sudden scalding dash of water, steam and boiling spray; he heard a sudden splash, then a wild, barbarous, long-drawn howling of the massed Folk. Lying there, spent, gasping, all but dead in the thick steam-drift of the vat, he opened his eyes. Kamrou was nowhere to be seen. Seemingly very distant, he heard the copper drums begin to beat once more with feverish haste. A great, compelling lassitude enveloped him. He knew no more. CHAPTER XXXVIII THE SUN OF SPRING "What altitude now? Can you make-out, Allan?" "No. The aneroid's only good up to five miles. We must have made two hundred, vertically, since this morning. The way the propeller takes hold and the planes climb in this condensed air is just a miracle!" "Two passengers at that!" Beatrice answered, leaning back in her seat again. She turned to the patriarch, who, sitting in an extra place in the thoroughly overhauled and newly equipped Pauillac, was holding with nervous hands to the wire stays in front of him. "Patience, father," she cheered him. "Two hours more--not over three, at the outside--and you shall breathe the upper air again! For the first time the sunlight shall fall upon your face!"