And there, in a heap like cast-off cocoons, were some half-dozen of those heavy, fawn-colored garments, identical with the one we had seen hanging in the tree.
"So-o-o," Rog Tanlu breathed tensely, "Eyoaoc Eiioiei was right! They have come! They must be—"
A startled shout cut off his words. It was followed by a blinding flash of light. Then hell suddenly broke loose down below us....
In that cavern-darkness the blast of light was, in itself, almost stunning; and following it were other blasts of equal intensity. Vision was a torturing thing. It was like those brief but vivid glimpses presented by lightning during a summer storm at night.
But with hurting eyes I managed to discern a group of figures jamming the entrance-way to the cavern, with Eyoaoc Eiioiei's weird shape looming between us and them.
"Down!" shouted Rog Tanlu to Doc and me. "Down, behind the rock!"
In a dim, bewildered way I realized that those flashes of light were from weapons in the hands of invaders—weapons trained on Eyoaoc Eiioiei. But we, also, were directly in line.
Doc Champ didn't seem to hear Rog Tanlu's order. He was staring down at that weird sight—staring at Eyoaoc Eiioiei. And for a moment I, too, ignored the warning. For that grotesque thing was fighting—fighting in a way that was an astonishing sight to witness.
Thin, dazzling, rapierlike beams were flashing up at him and past him. But Eyoaoc Eiioiei was avoiding those hissing shafts with a skill not human—a dancing, cavorting nightmare thing, silhouetted against and enmeshed by those lethal streaks of fire; and I saw that now and then from his metal hand flashed a return blast of radiance. He was standing between his master and his master's assassins, and such wild courage and savagery brought into my throat a choked feeling of admiration.
A hissing white shaft flashed within a foot of my head, bringing me to my senses. I made a grab at Doc Champ, intending to drag him down to safety. Then I realized that he was already lying flat behind that ancient block of rock.