whip-like, yard-long antennae lashed the air. Below the plate, four huge mandibles, that gnashed together with a dry, clashing sound, took the place of a mouth. During one of these upheavals, the head would sway and twist, giving an obviously false impression of blindness Then down it would flash, once more to encircle the woman’s feet in loathsome patterns.
Not once, however, did the strange pair come in actual contact. Indifferent to her partner’s perilous qualities, the woman pirouetted, posed, leaped among the coils, her bare feet falling daintily, always in clear spaces. The partner, in turn, however closely flashing by, kept its talons from grazing her garments, her flying hair, or smooth, gleaming white flesh.
The general trend of the dance was in a circle about the luminous mass on the central pillars.
"Chilopoda!" a voice muttered, at last. "Chilopoda Scolopendra! Chilopoda Scolopendra Horribilis!"
It sounded like a mystic incantation, very suitable to the occasion. But it was only the naturalist, Bryce Otway, classifying the most remarkable specimen he had ever encountered.
"Chilo-which? It’s a nightmare—horrible!" This from Waring.
It remained for John B, to supply a more leisurely identification, made quite in his usual slow, mild drawl:
"When I was steward on the Southern Queen, 'Frisco to Valparaiso," said he, "Bill Flannigan, the second engineer, told me that one time in Ecuador he saw one of those things a foot and a half long. Bill Flannigan was a little careless what he said, and I didn’t rightly believe him—then. Reckon maybe he was telling the truth after all. Centipede! Well, I didn’t think those things ever grew this big. Real curious to look at, don’t you think, Mr. Sigsbee?"
Young Mr. Sigsbee made no answer.
What with the soft, glowing radiance of the central object on its pillars, the coiling involutions of one dancer, the never-ceasing gyrations of the other, it was a dizzying scene to look down upon.
That was probably why Tellifer surprised every one by interrupting the dance in a highly spectacular manner.
His descent began with a faint sound as of something slipping on smooth stone. This was followed by a short, sharp shriek. Then, twenty feet below the rim, the willowlike plumes, of a group of slender assai palms swished wildly. Came a splintering crack—a dull thud— and "TNT" had arrived at the lower level.
It was a long drop. Fortunately, the esthete had brought down with him the entire crest of one of the assai palms. Between the springy bending of its trunk before breaking, and the buffer effect of the thick whorl of green plumes between himself and the pavement, Tellifer had escaped serious injury.
The men on the rim saw him disentangle himself from the palm-crest and crawl lamely to his feet.
The girl, only a short distance off, ceased to gyrate. The golden Pan’s pipes left her lips. With cessation of the fluting melody; the dry clashing of monstrous coils had also ceased. But in a moment that fainter, more dreadful sound began again.
Up over Tellifer’s horrified head reared another head, frightful, polished, with dull, enormous yellow eyes—below them four awful mandibles, stretched wide in avid anticipation.
Tellifer shrieked again, and dodged futilely.
CHAPTER FOUR
"SUNFIRE"
TWO OF THE men left on the pyramid’s inner rim were expert marksmen. The heavy, hollow-nosed express bullets from four rifles, all in more or less able hands, all trained upon an object several times larger than a man’s head, at a range of only a dozen yards
or so, should have blown that object to shattered bits of yellow shell and centipedish brain-matter in the first volley.
John B. was heard later to protest that in spite of the bad shooting light and the downward angle, he really could not have missed at that range—as, indeed, he probably did not. Some, at least, of the bullets fired must have passed through the space which the monstrous head had occupied at the moment when the first trigger was pulled.
But Scolopendra Horribilis, in spite of his awesome size, proved to have a speed like that of the hunting spider, at which a man may shoot with a pistol all day, at a one-yard range, and never score a bull’s-eye.
One moment, there was Tellifer, half-crouched, empty hands outspread, face tipped back in horrified contemplation of the fate that loomed over him. There was the girl, a little way off, poised in the daintiest attitude of startled wonder. And there, coiling around and between them, and at the same time rearing well above them, was that incredible length of yellow plates, curved talons and deadly poison fangs.
From the pyramid’s rim four rifles spoke in a crashing volley. Across the open level below, something that might have been a long, yellowish blur—or an optical illusion—flashed and was gone.
There was still the girl. There was Tellifer. But Scolopendra Horribilis had vanished like the figment of a dream. One instant he was there. The next he was not. And well indeed it was for those who had fired on him that retreat had been his choice!
At the western side of the court was a round, black opening in the floor, like a large manhole. Down this hole the yellowish "optical illusion" had flashed and vanished.
As the crashing echoes of the volley died away, the girl roused from her air of tranced wonderment. She showed no inclination to follow her companion in flight. Judged by her manner, powder-flash and ricocheting bullets held no more terrors for her than had the hideous poison fangs of her recent dancing partner.
She tilted her head, coolly viewed the dim figures ranged along the eastern rim. Then, light as a blown leaf on her bare feet, she flitted toward her nearest visitor, Tellifer.
From above, Waring shouted at the latter to come up. Unless the girl were alone in the pyramid, the volley of rifle-fire must surely bring her fellow-inhabitants on the scene. Worse, the monster which had vanished down the black hole might return.
These perils, Waring phrased in a few forceful words. Seeing that, instead of heeding him, Tellifer was pausing to exchange a friendly greeting with the priestess of this devil’s den, Waring added several more, this time extremely forceful words.
Their only effect was to draw another brief upward glance from the girl. Also, what seemed to be a shocked protest from Tellifer. The latter’s voice did not carry so well as his friend’s. Only a few phrases reached those on the upper rim.
"Alcot, please!" was distinct enough, but some reference to a "Blessed Damozel" and the "seven stars in her hair" was largely lost. At best, it could hardly have been of a practical nature.
The big correspondent lost all patience with his unreckonable friend.
"That—fool!" he choked. "Stay here, you fellows. I’m going after TNT!"
And Waring in turn undertook the final stage of that long journey which so many others had followed, leading to the heart of this ancient pyramid.
The five adventurers had the testimony of the pitiful fleet of derelicts at the landing stage that the pyramid had a way of welcoming the coming, but neglecting to speed its departing guests.
