A file of them, stolid, woodenly walking—he could not fail to know them from the ape-men of the tribe. And they moved through the darkness toward the sounds of shouts and laughter.
Chet saw them when they returned; following them were three others. Schwartzmann was not one of them; but the pilot, Max, Chet could distinguish plainly; the other two, he was sure, were the men of Schwartzmann's crew.
And, for each of them, all laughter and shouted jests had escaped. They moved like wooden toys half-come to life. And they, too, vanished where Walt and Diane had gone through the high arch of the jungle's open door.
Chet knew Kreiss was beside him; at a short distance, Towahg, staring above the palisade, buried his unkempt, hairy head in the shelter of his arms. All of Towahg's savage bravery had oozed away at direct sight of the pyramid men; Chet, even through his heavy-hearted dismay, was aware of the courage that must have carried this primitive man to their rescue on that other black night when the pyramid had been about to swallow, them up.
To the pyramid all Chet's thoughts had been tending. There Diane and Harkness were bound; there he, too, must go, though the thought of driving himself into that black maw, through the overpowering stench and down to the pit where some horror of mystery lay waiting, was almost more than his conscious mind could accept. But, with the sight of Towahg and the abject fear that had overwhelmed him, Chet found his own mind calmly determined, though through that cool self-detachment came savage spoken words.
"If poor Towahg could go near that damned place," he reasoned, "am I going to be stopped by anything between heaven and hell?"
And his mind was suddenly at ease with the certainty of the next step he must take. He turned to speak to Kreiss, but paused instead to stare into the dark where shadows that were not the ghosts of clouds were moving. Then his whispered orders came sharply to the scientist and to Towahg.
"Come!" he commanded. "Come quickly; follow me!"
The two were behind him as he found the narrow opening in the barrier's farther side, passed through, and crouched low in the darkness as he ran toward the lake where the shallow water of the shore took no mark of their hurrying feet.