Chapter 28 - RUNNING

the gaunt man slipped over the back of his head and held his neck in the vise of bent elbow

against shoulder.

"Knife him, Danc'," snarled Soames.

Graydon suddenly twisted, bringing the New Englander on top of him. He was barely in time

for, as he did so, Dancret struck, his blade just missing Soames. Soames locked his legs

around his, trying to jerk him over in range of the little Frenchman. Graydon sank his teeth in

the shoulder pressing him. Soames roared with pain and rage; threshed and rolled trying to

shake off the grip of Graydon's jaws. Around them danced Dancret, awaiting a chance to

thrust.

There came a bellow from Starrett.

"The llama! It's running away! The llama!"

Involuntarily, Graydon loosed his teeth. Soames leaped up. Graydon followed on the instant,

shoulder lifted to meet the blow he expected from Dancret.

"Look, Soames, look!" the little Frenchman was pointing. "He's loose! Christ! There he

goes—wit' the gold—wit' the jewels—"

The moon had gathered strength, and under its flood the white sands were a silver lake in

which the hillocks stood like tiny islands. Golden hampers gleaming on its side, the white

llama was flitting across that lake of silver, a hundred paces away and headed for the cleft

through which they had come.

"Stop it!" shouted Soames, forgetting all else. "After it, Starrett! That way, Danc'! I'll head it

off!"

They ran out over the shining barren. The llama changed its pace, trotted leisurely to one of

the mounds, and bounded to its top.

"Close in! We've got it," cried Soames. The three ran to the hillock, on which the white beast

stood looking calmly around. They swarmed up the mound from three sides.

As their feet touched the sparse grass a mellow note rang out, one of those elfin horns

Graydon had heard chorusing so gayly about Suarra that first day. It was answered by others,

close and all about. Again the single note. And then the answering chorus swirled toward the

hillock of the llama, hovered over it, and dropped like a shower of winged sounds upon it.

Graydon saw Starrett stagger as though under some blow, then whirl knotted arms as though

warding off invisible attack. A moment the big man stood thus, flailing with frantic arms. He

cast himself to the ground and rolled down to the sands. The notes of the elfin horns swarmed

away from him, to concentrate upon Soames. He had thrown himself face downward on the

slope of the mound and was doggedly crawling to the top. He held one arm stiffly, shielding

his face.

Shielding his face against what?

All that Graydon could see was the hillock and on it the llama bathed in the moonlight,

Starrett at the foot of the mound and Soames now nearly at its crest. Dancret, upon the

opposite side, he could not see at all.

The horn notes were ringing in greater volume, scores of them, like the bugles of a fairy hunt.

What it was that made those sounds was not visible to him, nor did they cast any shadow in

the brilliant moonlight. But he heard a whirring as of hundreds of wings.