"They're beating down the gate," Denham said, "and in a few minutes they'll be pouring up that stair. But where is the aid you were to bring?"
In a few words I explained the battle we had taken part in, and the pursuit of the Raider into time by Kethra and his men. "We must hold them in the pit, somehow," I told them, "until Kethra and his forces come back. If those hordes once get to the temple's roof and seize the flying-platforms, it means hideous death for all at Kom!"
"Couldn't you close the metal floor of the temple?" suggested Lantin. "Swing it back in place and close the shaft?"
"But how?" asked Denham. "We've searched but can't find the secret of the floor, or how it is moved."
"But the collapsible stair!" I put in; "you can fold that back! Lantin and I did, the night we escaped!"
"Look!" ordered Denham, pointing toward the spot where the little folding stair had been. I looked, and despair rushed over me. For the stair had been removed, and instead of it, steps had been cut into the side of the shaft itself, leading from the spiral stairway in the shaft to the ring of black flooring on which we stood.
"The guards must have cut those steps after you escaped," said Denham, "probably because they would not allow anyone to play on them again the trick you did. We heard of your exploit, in the pit."
Up from the shaft was coming now an increasing clamor, and the battering on the gate far below had increased in fierceness.
"But how, then, are we to hold them in the pit?" I asked, despairingly. "A messenger has gone into time after Kethra and his forces, and if we could only check these hordes until he comes—"
Abruptly the Aztec spoke, calmly, gravely. "We are five," he said, "five strong swords. And the stair is narrow."