Desquer threw him an armful of clothes and grinned. “You’ll live long enough to get help. If the Copts break out of Sub-Sahara, it’ll be like rounding up a thousand fleas. Besides, I don’t know what’s back of this—but it’s nothing small, I can promise you. If—” He leaped like a panther. His shod foot came down with a sickening crunch on flesh and bone. Tony, startled by the sudden movement, saw that Desquer had sprung upon the Coptic priest, from whose hand a ray-projector had dropped. The priest’s blood-smeared face, twisted in agony, lifted toward the ceiling as he cried out. “Not dead, eh?” Desquer whispered, his voice taut with savage fury. “Well—you soon will be.” He drew back his foot. But the priest’s lifted arm somehow halted him. The Copt dragged himself half erect. His thin voice shrilled, “Go down to Alu, fools! But you will be too late. Isis has risen—and with her the gods who dwell in Alu. Before the opening to the outer world can be cleared again, we shall have triumphed—and the Earth will tremble before the power of the Ancients! Aye—the Ancients who ruled over the Four Rivers before their sons fled to Egypt! “Go down to Alu, fools! _You shall find death!_” The priest fell back—and died. CHAPTER V Five Against the Gods Hours had passed. The legionnaires, headed by Commander Desquer, were encamped by a small, rocky inlet on the Midnight Sea, a fathomless lake of inky water that stretched beyond the limit of vision. A pallid glow came from the cavern roof far above, rippling over the surface of the tideless, sluggish sea. It was a scene fantastic almost beyond belief, and Tony, on guard at the mouth of a crevasse where the others slept, could scarcely realize that he was still on Earth, and not beneath the surface of some alien world. They had come far and fast, slipping stealthily past the guards the Copts had posted, taking advantage of every unused tunnel, guided more by instinct than by knowledge. The city of the Copts they had skirted, descending ever deeper to the forbidden gates of Alu. And now, on the shore of the Midnight Sea, they were ready for the plunge into the unknown. “We can’t stay here,” Desquer grunted. “They’d find us sooner or later. But in Alu we have a chance. The element of surprise will be on our side, at least.” He was right. Tony knew. He shifted uneasily, glancing at the carbon pistol and checking its load. His thoughts went back to New York, and the civilization of a world that seemed a billion miles distant. A world lost to him—and his brothers—forever. And in exchange they had gained—this! A hand fell on Tony’s shoulder. Desquer said, “All right. We’re marching.” The commander’s heavy jaw jutted as he stared out over the water.