He saw Phee-e-al fall. Even then, through all the pandemonium within his own mind, he thrilled with satisfaction at sight of a little dot and a spreading stain above Phee-e-al's heart, where only bare skin had been before.
The next shot took the foremost of the priests. The others paused, hesitant for a moment, ranged out in an irregular line. Past them, beyond the golden barrier, Rawson caught a confused glimpse of a sea of red faces. Green flames were stabbing upward from their ready weapons. The priests were between him and them, and there came to Rawson in that instant, through all the chaos of fighting and half-formed plans, the knowledge that these priests were a living barrier that held off the flames.
He fired once more to check them, then sprang for the wide entrance of the tunnel. He fired again back of him, shooting wildly as he ran, then saw Loah as she came from her hiding place with the flame-thrower ready in her hand.
"Quick!" he gasped. "Get back!" Then, with her, he was running stumblingly through the dark.
here could be no escape; even while they fled he knew it. And yet they almost made it—though the end, when it came, was one that neither could possibly have foreseen.
They were following a wide passage, one of the countless thoroughfares of the Reds. It was deserted. Loah flashed her light freely. Ahead of them the passage turned. Just short of that bend was a rift in the rocks.
"There!" Loah gasped. "Turn there. It will take us back to the jana." But the words were followed by a flash of green from dead ahead.
The flames that made it came quickly after and a dozen of the red warriors were before them, the light of their weapons slanting just above Rawson's head. His rifle was half raised—they would at least fight to the last. Then he realized that the green death was not swinging downward.