I did not look back, but long rays of red light stabbed past me as our pursuers and their lights emerged from the wood. By that crimson glare they saw me, for a savage cry went up. A few strides and I was at the spot on the valley's bottom, on the slope above which lay the time-car. With fast-waning strength, I started up that slope.
Down the valley toward me bounded a score of men, spears and swords gleaming in the light of the bulb-torches behind them. Dragging Lantin on, blind with sweat and every muscle straining to its utmost power, I toiled up the slope, more like a goaded, maddened beast than a human being, while Lantin still besought me to drop him and save myself.
And up the slope after me raced the shouting guards, a hundred yards behind and gaining every second. I burst through the screen of boughs around our car, and sobbed with relief to see that it was still there, untouched. I spun open the circular door in its top, and dropped Lantin inside. I had just placed my feet inside the opening, when a dozen of the armored guards burst through the screen of branches, their red bulb-torches illuminating the little clearing with crimson light.
They stopped short on seeing me, some fifteen feet away. The three nearest me raised their right arms above their heads, a heavy spear poised in each. Then, like leaping metal serpents, the three heavy, dagger-pointed weapons flashed through the air toward me.
But in that split-second there came the click of a switch from the interior of the car, a gust of sudden wind smote me, and then the guards, torches, and even the three spears in midair had vanished, and the car, Lantin and I were speeding on into time.
CHAPTER 15
OVER THE ICE
We had flashed through two days and nights before Lantin judged it safe to stop our progress in time. By then, we had started the space-movement mechanism, and had sent the car up to a height of a mile above the ground. Once there, we snapped off the time-wave, and hung in midair, motionless in both time and space.
It was early morning now, bright and sunny, and peering down over the car's side to the valley below, I could see no sign of life. In the two days through which we had passed so quickly, it was evident that the guards had given up searching for us and had returned to the city. I wondered how they explained to themselves our sudden disappearance.