The eyes passed on to Kreiss. Then the ugly face swung toward Chet, and, as their eyes met, it seemed to Chet that a blow had crashed stunningly upon his brain. He tried to move—he knew that he must move. He must reach for his bow, must leap upon this hulking brute and beat at the glaring eyes with his bare fists. And his muscles that he tried to rouse to action might have changed to stone, so unresponsive were they, and unmoving.
The hairy hands reached out and touched Harkness. They passed on and lingered upon the blanched features of the girl, and Chet raged inwardly at his inability to resist and her utter helplessness to draw away. Then Kreiss; and again Chet's turn. And, with the touching of those rough animal hands, he felt that a contact had been established with some distant force—a something that communicated with him, that sent thoughts which his brain phrased in words.
"Curious!" said those thoughts. "How exceedingly curious! We shall be interested in learning more. We shall learn all we can in one way and another of this new race. We shall dismember them slowly, all but the woman: we find her strangely attractive.... You will bring them to us at once."
And Chet knew that the instructions were for the messenger whose hands came stiffly upward to point the way; while, with a portion of his mind that was functioning freely, Chet raged as he saw Diane take the first stiff, involuntary step forward. Then Harkness and Kreiss! and he knew that he too must follow, knew himself to be as helpless as the driven brutes he had seen herded down below. And then, with the same mind that was still able to comprehend the messages of his own eyes and ears, he knew that from behind the savage figure there had come a sound.
His senses were alert, sharpened to an abnormal degree; the almost silent footfall otherwise could never have been heard.
The raised hand swung toward him; he knew that he must turn and follow the others to whatever awaited.... But the hand paused! Then swiftly the savage figure swung to face toward the entrance, and those blazing eyes, as Chet knew, were a match for any opponent.
But the eyes never found what they looked for and the quick swing of the big ape-body was never completed. In the portal of light there was framed a naked figure which sprang as if from nowhere, squat, savage and ape-like, but hairless. Its arms were upraised; the hands held a bow; and the twang of the bowstring came as one with the ripping thud of a shaft that was tearing through flesh.
The savage fell in mid-turn; and it seemed as if the blazing light of the terrible eyes must have flicked out before the breath of Death. And, protruding from the thick neck, was the shaft of a crude arrow.... There were others that flashed, thudding and quivering, into the body that jerked with each impact, then lay still, a darker blot on the floor of a dark cave.
Chet was breathless; it was an instant before he realized that he was free, that the hypnotic bonds that had bound him were loosed. It was another instant before he sensed that his companions were still marching—trudging stiffly, woodenly off through the dark. He bounded after, heedless of bruising walls; he followed where the sound of their scuffling feet marked their progress to a sure doom.