Only a little distance away a stone pillar rose from a dais. A dark blur of a figure still sagged there with a wide, wire cage over its head. Janus stared through the gloom. He knew it was Ketrik, but there was something vaguely wrong, unnatural, about it. Something he could not immediately make out. He moved swiftly nearer to find out. Devries, knowing what he would see, called a warning. But Janus didn't stop. He didn't stop until he came very near, and the full horror of the sight burst suddenly upon his vision. The Ritual had gone on to the very end. Through the ghastly, greenish dusk all that Janus saw was a white gleaming skull upon a still living body. He knew the body lived for he saw it still breathing, faintly, and he saw one of the out-stretched hands twitch. And from somewhere in the throat he heard a horrible little gurgling sound as though the skull were trying to speak. The brain, of course, had not been touched, but Janus knew the brain within that skull must now be mad. He could no longer think of the thing as Ketrik. In those few seconds that he looked, Janus felt his mind slowly slipping away into a chaos of vertiginous horror, but he caught it on the brink. Instinctively he raised the flame-pistol, aimed, and made very sure that the thing which had been Ketrik no longer lived. Devries gave a cry of warning. Four or five thin, shadowy figures were leaping from a nearby street. They had probably seen the flash of the flame-pistol. Devries tensed. "For Lord's sake fire! Let 'em have it!" he cried hoarsely to Janus, as the creatures bounded nearer in long leaping strides. But Janus stood there, swaying a little, still dazed by the sight he had just seen. Devries leaped to his side, snatched the flame-pistol just as the Proktols came within range. One of them reached for its pistol. At the same time Devries let his flash out in a sweeping path. He was about two seconds quicker. The Proktols' momentum carried them straight into it, and they crumpled with hardly a sound. Devries grasped Janus' arm and shook him out of his daze. "That way!" he whispered, indicating a wide street across the square. "It's the way we came in. If we can get out into that desert, we might steal one of those space-ships we saw!" But the delay had been fatal. Other Proktols had seen the flash, and were hurrying toward them. Janus stopped to snatch up a fallen flame-pistol, then they were leaping away across the square. But they didn't get far. Now, not dozens, but hordes of Proktols were converging on the scene. The entire square seemed to resound with their shrilling cries, bringing others. The Earthmen hadn't even time to wonder where they all came from. Most of them were the smaller, savage Proktols, unarmed; but some of the others with flame-pistols were trying to press through.