Twenty feet away men were rushing upon him.

His brain recovered itself with the swiftness of lightning.

A bullet had stunned him, but he was not badly hurt.

He jerked out his automatic, but before he could raise it, or even fire from his hip, the first of his assailants was upon him with a force that drove it from his hand.

They went down together, and as they struggled on the bare rock Aldous caught for a fraction of a second a scene that burned itself like fire in his brain.