Then he was gone! The avalanche from the cracking skies buried him. A pile of rocks showed for an instant where he had been, and that, too, vanished as the rising waters seethed past.
Tony said nothing, but as he fought past the temple of Osiris where Phil’s body lay, he lifted his hand in a queer, quick salute. Perhaps Phil would know, now, that his death had been avenged . . .
Already the dark tides were seething at the tunnel-mouth that led to the upper world. On the threshold Tony paused, to take one last look at ruined Alu. The red light was darker now, and somber. The flaming clouds boiled up endlessly; the rock shook and quaked underfoot. The Niagara that poured from the roof of the cave looked like a solid obelisk, and an odd thought came into Tony’s mind.
“A pillar of cloud by day . . . and a pillar of smoke by night . . .”
Alu, daughter of Atlantis, was dying as the mother continent had died. Earth-fires and deluge were slaying her, wiping out all life, wrecking the culture that had survived from the misty, unknown eons before Egypt was. The huge temples, half submerged in seething tides, were falling in ruin. All over the vast cavern darkness was falling.
The arched ramp they had seen on entering Alu was still visible, far away. And now Tony saw that there were figures upon it, as there had been at first. Figures with strange, misshapen heads—
The pitiable, terrible beast-gods of Alu, created by dead Thotmes’ science!
One glimpse Tony had of those far figures, outlined blackly against red smoke. Then—the ramp fell.
Over Alu the roaring desolation of death and ruin held sway!
Tony turned to the white-faced Jimmy. Already the water was tearing at their thighs.