They had drawn close
to the edge of the chasm. Under them the thundering roar of the whirlpool
was unheard, their ears caught no sound of the moaning surge of the
flames far over their heads. Even as Jan stared horror-stricken in that
one moment, they locked at the edge of the chasm. Above the tumult of the
flood below and the fire above there rose a wild yell, and the two
plunged down into the abyss, locked and fighting even as they fell in a
twisting, formless shape to the death below.
It happened in an instant--like the flash of a quick picture on a
screen--and even as Jan caught the last of Jackpine's terrible face, his
hand drove eight inches of steel toward O'Grady's body. The blade struck
something hard--something that was neither bone nor flesh, and he drew
back again to strike. He had struck the steel buckle on O'Grady's belt.
This time--
A sudden hissing roar filled the air. Jan knew that he did not
strike--but he scarcely knew more than that in the first shock of the
fiery avalanche that had dropped upon them from the rock wall of the
mountain. He was conscious of fighting desperately to drag himself from
under a weight that was not O'Grady's--a weight that stifled the breath
in his lungs, that crackled in his ears, that scorched his face and his
hands, and was burning out his eyes. A shriek rang in his ears unlike any
other cry of man he had ever heard, and he knew that it was O'Grady's.
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