At the end of the lake he stopped. Beside him, Kreiss, weakened by his wound, was panting and gasping; Towahg, moving like a dark shadow, was close behind.
"I saw them," said Kreiss, when he had breath enough for speech, "—more beasts from the pyramid. They were coming for us! But we can go back there after a day or so."
"You can," Chet told him; "Towahg and I are going on."
"Where?" Kreiss demanded.
"To the pyramid."
Chet's reply was brief, and Kreiss' response was equally so. "You're a fool," he said.
"Sure," Chet told him: "I know there's nothing I can do to help them. But I'm going. All I ask is to get one crack at whatever it is that is down in that beastly pit and if I can't do that maybe I can still save Diane and Walt from tortures you and I can't imagine." He touched his pistol suggestively.
"Still I say you are a fool," Kreiss insisted. "They are gone—captured; they will die. That is regrettable, but it is done. Now, besides Herr Schwartzmann who escaped, only we two remain; the savage, he does not count. We two!—and a new world!—and science! Science that remains after these two are gone—after you and I are gone! It is greater than us all.
"But I, staying, shall contribute to the knowledge of men; I shall make discoveries that will bear my name always. This world is my laboratory; I have found deposits such as none has ever seen on Earth.