"We've stepped on one of Krassnov's infernal signals!" cried Stoddard, above the din. "Now there'll be hell to pay!"
And "hell to pay" there was, almost instantly—for before they had taken ten more steps, the cavern ahead was full of small, ghostly figures, jabbering in their shrill voices.
Indifferent now of what he did, their lives at stake, Stoddard blazed away with his automatic, sweeping it from side to side of the stony walls as he fired.
As the shots crashed out, the jabbers turned to shrieks of terror. Several of the pigmies fell. The rest broke their ranks and shrank into the shadows.
"Run!" yelled Stoddard, slipping a new clip into his pistol.
The professor needed no invitation. Gathering his long legs he sped after the younger man, and together they burst from the mouth of the cavern.
utside, in the dazzle of moonlight, they paused for an instant.
"This way!" called Stoddard, racing toward that splintered arena.