Their power is great now on only this one day when the sun comes directly between the two stones they brought with them from their mother world."

She started suddenly and Gaar stared at her. "What is it?" he demanded.

"I feel something. I feel danger."

here was no time to ask questions. Gaar knew she would not be wrong. This daughter of a lost people had a knowledge he could not fathom. He lifted her out of the sarcophagus and set her on her feet.

"We've got to get out of here. Once we reach my men and set back for the coast they'll never stop us."

They were running now, back along the corridor down which Gaar had come. Half way they went, and then they heard the voices and the feet that came toward them from above.

Gaar listened intently. There were too many. One or two he would have fought, maybe even a half-dozen. But this was the tramp of many feet. They must have found the body at the head of the Stairs. Gaar cursed his luck.

"We'll have to go back. Is there another way out?"

"No none. It was the burial place for the kings of my people before the Druids came."

And it looked like it would be his burial place as well, Gaar thought. But he had to go back anyway. He couldn't take a chance on the girl being hurt in a fight in the dark. Besides, that fellow he had killed had a knife. It would be better than no weapon at all.

The feet were close behind them as they ran. The girl was too slow. Gaar scooped her up and ran with her under his arm. But still not swiftly enough. They had been overheard.

He had barely time to swing Marna behind the sarcophagus and out of immediate danger. He bent and tore the knife from Glendyn's loose grasp. And then they were on him, a flood of black-robed figures.

Blood spurted as the knife in Gaar's hand flashed. A man screamed, and then another as Gaar's fist made pulp of flesh and bone. His hands struck blows like Thor's hammer. He made them pay dearly for every backward step he took. But they came on still.

They were too many for him. They forced him back until a cold wall stopped him. Then, by the sheer force of numbers they overwhelmed him. He went down under a torrent of blows that drove everything from his mind but the thought that he had failed Marna.

aylight, and Gaar's head ached as consciousness returned. He seemed to be a single aching bruise from head to foot. After a while he realized that Marna lay beside him at the bottom of the stairs that led to the cavern mouth.

Light came down strongly, too strongly. It was long after dawn. A stray thought flashed across Gaar's mind: his men would be well on their way to the ship: Yet there was no use castigating himself. Marna would have died before they could have reached her if they had come in a body.

"I'm sorry," Gaar said, and tried to turn toward Marna. Leather thongs bound him tightly but he rocked back and forth until he tipped onto his side.

"Not as sorry as I," she said, her eyes soft on his face. "If I had not called you would never have come."

"The only thing a Norseman fears is that he should die in bed," Gaar told her.

But he wasn't ready to die yet. If he could only get a little play into these thongs! His muscles bulged with the strain as he threw his strength into the effort. Then a scream filtered down and sent a shiver along his spine.

"The sacrifices have started," Marna said. "It will not be long now. They will be coming for us soon."

"Can't you do anything?" Gaar asked. "Can't you fight them with their own weapons?"

"Not while I am awake. When I sleep my soul is in communion with my people who have gone and I draw