Page:Weird Tales Volume 10 Number 6 (1927-12).djvu/120

 movements, and then set out along the road at a rapid trot.

Away back in the city, the disturbed, angry clamor of our pursuers lessened, faded. We were in open country now, and as the road soon ended, we fled on over the long, grassy swells toward the east, toward the hills and the valley where our time-car was hidden.

"Safe!" I exulted, as we stumbled on through the thick darkness. "They'll never even know what direction we took."

"They will if the guard who saw us talking tells them what he saw," replied Lantin, and I sobered.

"Even then" I began, but broke off suddenly, and looked back. "Lantin!" I shouted. "Lantin!"

Out of the city toward us were streaming a hundred or more men, carrying with them on long poles many of the flashing red light-giving bulbs, whose crimson rays struck down and glinted on the armor and spear-points of the men who carried them. Over a mile behind, yet the gap between us was fast decreasing as they came straight on toward us.

"The grass!" I gasped, as we stumbled on; "they can track us easily by it!"

The grass ever which we ran was high and seemingly very dry and brittle, so that at every step we crushed down great masses of it into a trail that a child could have followed. And a great, wolflike shouting came from behind, as our pursuers struck our track.

On we ran, lungs laboring and hearts near to bursting, but steadily the guards behind us drew nearer until they were within a half-mile of us. By that time, we knew that we must be drawing near to the valley where our car was concealed, and then it was that our real race began.

I heard Lantin's breath coming in great sobs, and knew that he was almost winded. The long climb up the stair from the pit and the flight through the city had sapped his strength, and his endurance was near its breaking point.

Through the darkness, a darker mass loomed up, and as we sped toward it, it showed itself to us as the little wood that lay across the valley's mouth. More by blind chance than by design, I think, we had come straight toward our objective, and now we struggled through the thicket with frantic bursts of speed.

We emerged from the wood into the open valley, and as we did so, Lantin sank to the ground.

"Go on, Wheeler," he gasped. "You can get to the car and get away. I can't go farther."

I looked back, and saw that our pursuers were advancing in a broad line through the wood, carrying forward a chain of the ruddy lights so that we might not hide from them in the shadows. There was no grass beneath the trees, and they could not track us in that way, but came on swiftly, for all that, shouting to each other mirthfully.

"I can't leave you here," I told Lantin. "If you stay, I stay."

"Go on!" he ordered. "You can make it, without me. Hurry!"

I glanced back, hesitated a moment, then swiftly stooped and swung an arm under Lantin's shoulders, half lifting him to his feet. Then, half dragging, half carrying him, I toiled up the valley toward our hidden car.

I did not look back, but long rays of red light stabbed past me as our pursuers and their lights emerged from the wood. By that crimson glare they saw me, for a savage cry went up. A few strides and I was at the spot on the valley's bottom, on the slope above which lay the time-car. With fast-waning strength, I started up that slope.

Down the valley toward me bounded a score of men, spears and swords gleaming in the light of the