Just a little past eight o'clock a cry suddenly burst from Zangamon, who had left the line during a pause to look for water in a near-by hollow.
Stern heard the man's hoarse voice unmistakably resonant with terror. To him he ran.
“What is it, Zangamon?” he cried thickly, for his tongue was parched and swollen. “What have you found? Quick, tell me!”
“See, O Kromno! Behold!” exclaimed the man, pointing.
Stern looked--and saw a human body, charred and distorted, face downward on the blackened earth. Up through the back something projected--something hard and sharp.
He stooped, wide-eyed, staring at the thing.
“A spear-head, so help me!”
Then he realized the truth. They had found one of his slaughtered companions of the terrible flight from the Horde!
Stern recoiled. Shocked though he was, yet a certain joy possessed him. For now he knew he could not be far from the path of success. The wrecked machine, he knew, could not lie more than one or two days' march ahead. If the party could only last that long--
The others came hobbling. When they, too, saw the mournful object and knew and understood, a deep silence fell upon them. In a circle they surrounded the corpse of their murdered comrade, and for a while they looked on it with woe.