Against the little red rectangle of sky above the chasm, the pursuing Medusae were drifting down, small, darkly greenish disks against the scarlet.
“There’s no way!” he muttered to Jay Kalam, splashing down beside him.
“For once—none!
I suppose they’ll kill us, now.”
“But there is one way,” said Jay Kalam, voice swift and strained.
“If we’ve time to reach it.
Not safe.
Not pleasant.
A grim and desperate chance.
But better than waiting for them to slaughter us.
“Come!” he called, as Giles Habibula, the last, clambered, groaning and shivering, down into chill water.
“No time to waste!”
“Where?” demanded Hal Samdu, splashing after him through the yellow flood, Aladoree still clinging wearily to his back.
“There’s no way.”
“The flood-water,” Jay Kalam observed succinctly, “manages to find an exit.”
At a splashing run, he led the way to an intake of the flood-drains.
A yellow whirlpool, ten feet across, roaring down through a heavy metal grating.
“My bloody, mortal eye!” wheezed Giles Habibula.
“Must we dive into the blessed sewers?”
“We must,” Jay Kalam assured him. “Or wait for the Medusae to kill us.”
“Bless my dear old bones!” he wailed.
“To be sucked down and drowned like a miserable rat!
And then vomited out, sweet life knows, to be torn and swallowed by the wicked things in the yellow river.
Ah, Giles, it was a mortal evil day———”
“We must lift the lid,” urged Jay Kalam, “if we can!”
Hal Samdu had set down Aladoree, who stood shivering and weary, uncertain.
Almost swept off their feet by the swirling yellow water, the four gathered along one side of the circular black grating, grasped it, strained their muscles.
It did not move.
“A mortal hasp!” cried Giles Habibula, feeling along the edge.
Staggering in the mad current that buffeted his feet, Hal Samdu hammered and levered at the fastening with one of the tripod legs.
John Star, glancing up at the square of crimson sky, saw the dark circles of the Medusae, larger now, midway down.
The giant still beat and pried at the hasp, in vain.
John Star tried futilely to help him, and Jay Kalam.
The furious swirl of yellow water rushed over it, hindering their efforts, making it almost impossible even to stand.
“It was Eric Ulnar who warned them,” said Aladoree, her voice icy with a bitter scorn.
“One of them is carrying him.
I see him pointing at us.”
They renewed their efforts to break the hasp with clumsy tools, panting, too busy to look up even at death descending.
At last the twisted metal broke.
“Now!” muttered Hal Samdu.
They gripped the bars again, lifted.
The grate stirred a little, to their united strength, settled back under the pressure of the roaring torrent.
They tried again, Giles Habibula panting, purple-faced, Hal Samdu’s great muscles bulging, quivering with strain.
Even Aladoree added her efforts.
Still it did not rise.
The Medusaj were fast drifting down upon them.
Stealing an apprehensive glance, John Star saw a full score of them, some carrying black implements that must have been weapons, one bearing Eric Ulnar, gesticulating, seated in a swing of woven serpents.
“We must lift it!”
They tried again, in new positions, straining fiercely.
The grating came up suddenly, relatively light when above the grasp of mad water.