Dean pressed her back into the narrow way with his hands. "Wait here!" he said, and gave her the flame-thrower. "I've an idea!" He stepped softly out into the broad passage and on naked, noiseless feet, moved swiftly toward the lighted room. It was empty. Beyond the barrier were no red figures, nor were there whistling voices to echo as he had heard them before. Here was the throne where Phee-e-al had sat; here the priests had stood; there, along the wall, were the chests. Fully twenty of them, each eight feet long, they stood ranged along the three walls of that part of the room protected by the barrier. No two of them alike; all of them were oddly carved and studded with jewels. The chests were ranged in a straight row a foot or more out from the wall. He crossed to them swiftly. About here was where that priest must have gone. He raised one of the heavy lids till the light struck within. Bones! Only fragments of a skeleton, blackened by age; a necklace of teeth from some animal's jaw; worthless trifles for the mummery of the priests. Then, beneath them, he saw two great fangs, a foot in length. They were curved, sharply pointed and yellow as old ivory. What was it Gor had said of legends that told of ancestors coming from the outer world? Rawson knew that he was looking at priceless relics of the tribe, at the tusks of man's long extinct enemy, the great sabre-toothed tiger. * * * * * But he had neither time nor thoughts to spare for marvels new or old--he must find his gun. Yet, even then, he wondered what undreamed-of treasures the other chests might hold--what jewels, what paraphernalia of ancient kings. He must be silent! Perhaps the next great glittering container might hold the blue gleam of his gun. And this time as the gem-studded lid was swung upward and back to rest noiselessly against the rock wall, Dean could not repress the audible gasp that came to his lips. His own pistol! He had expected to find the one weapon, but, instead, the chest was filled with all it would hold of rifles and side arms and cartridge belts, all mingled in one indiscriminate heap. They were twisted, some of them, and bent; discolored, too, evidently by flames. On some the stocks had been burned off. Rawson's hands were suddenly trembling. There was one rifle that seemed unharmed; he brought it out, and hardly heard the little clatter that it made among the other weapons. An ammunition belt--he slipped out a clip of cartridges, made sure they fitted his gun, and threw one up into the firing chamber. He was fumbling for more of the clips when there pierced through his tumultuous thoughts the realization that he was hearing sounds not made by his own suddenly clumsy hands. * * * * *