Then we saw the cache of weapons. It was half a demolished room in some broken structure that now was unrecognizable; an apartment partly open at the top, of some two hundred feet diameter. A little light filtered down from the lurid greenish-yellow storm-clouds high overhead.
"No one here ahead of us, Jim?" In the darkness, with Meeta perched again upon my shoulder, we stood peering and listening. There was only silence.
"Where are the weapons?" Jim demanded.
Meeta led us. "There in that little recess, Master. Many old broken boxes are filled with them."
We stood before the rock-shelves, numbed with disappointment and horror. The crumbling old metal boxes were here. But they were strewn about; broken open; empty! The weapons were gone!
"Gone!" Jim gasped. "That damned Jahnt!"
Abruptly Meeta cried, "Look! He is over there!"
With his hiding place discovered, Jahnt leaped suddenly erect from the shadows of a rocky niche. A knife was in his hand. I was nearest to him. I leaped. But I had miscalculated my abnormal heaviness. I hit the rocks a few feet short of him, stumbled, almost went down. As my arms flailed I saw him over me, his pointed face demoniac with lustful triumph, his knife stabbing at my chest.
There was a whirring of wings, and a glistening body went past my head. Meeta. The ten inches of her elfin form flapped and struck Jahnt in the face. He hit wildly at her with his left hand, went off balance, with his knife-thrust going wild; and collided against me so that I was able to fling my arms around him. Then my left hand caught his wrist, twisted and the knife fell away. We went down, locked together, rolling. And suddenly I felt the knife hit my hand. Meeta with swift agility had retrieved it and brought it to me. The lithe Jahnt, far stronger than he looked, was momentarily on top of me. I seized the knife, stabbed upward into his chest; and with a choked cry he went limp, fell forward on me.