"Yes, I drew them like you out of time when the Masters first attacked our dwelling!" Kim Idim exclaimed.
"You and Chiri wait here," Ethan ordered. And clutching the sword which he had unconsciously brought across time with him, he ran out and plunged into the fight.
Two of the white warriors were dressing the buckskin-clad frontiersman hard. Ethan fell upon the two from one side before they realized his presence.
Two terrific stabbing strokes—and the two warriors reeled back with their throats gaping and spurting red. Hank Martin, the tall trapper, spun around, and his leathery brown face lighted up as he recognized Ethan Drew.
"It's young Drew, pardners!" he called to the others. "Kim Idim's yanked him across time again, too!"
"Greetings, comrade!" yelled Pedro Lopez as he fought. The Spanish conquistador swore violently as his sword flashed. "Name of God, now we're all here we'll gut these cursed scum!"
"Cease your godless profanity, Lopez!" boomed the stern voice of John Crewe, the big Puritan, through the clashing conflict. "It is no time, when our lives are in peril, to take the Lord's name in vain."
"Osiris, will the dogs never quit attacking?" panted Ptah, the little Egyptian, stabbing furiously with his bronze shortsword.
But Swain Njallson, his blond hair flowing wildly from beneath his horned helmet, his icy blue eyes gleaming, uttered a deep, rumbling laugh as he smote with his great ax.
"Ho, comrade, this is living again!" he cried to Ethan.
All Ethan Drew's swordsmanship came swiftly back into his brain and muscles as he stabbed and hacked. There were still a half-dozen of the white warriors facing them, attacking fiercely at the urging of the red Masters behind them.
Pedro Lopez slipped on bloody grass and went down. Two warriors leaped in like cats to strike at the fallen Spaniard. But Hank Martin's rifle-butt crashed down on the helmet of one, and Lopez, on his knees, stabbed up in a ripping stroke that disemboweled the other.
"Haw! Haw!" guffawed the buckskin trapper. "Can't ye stand up and fight like a man, Pedro?"
"Let me at them!" roared the Spaniard, rushing forward like a maddened bull. "Sangre de Cristo, I'll"
"They're giving way!" boomed John Crewe's triumphant shout, his massive face flaming with battle-light.
The few remaining warriors were retreating, for the urging shouts of the red Masters had stopped—the unhuman red-skinned leaders had melted back into the forest and vanished.
But as Ethan and his comrades fiercely pressed these last opponents, a scream came from the house.
"Ethan!" shrilled Chiri's silver voice.
Ethan Drew spun around. He shouted hoarsely at what he saw. The four red Masters had penetrated the little metal house from the rear, were dragging Chiri and Kim Idim out of the back.
Yelling, Ethan ran back toward the house, his bloody sword raised. He burst through its two small chambers and out the door in the rear.
There were horses there—the Masters had mounted them and were dragging the stunned old man and the wildcat-struggling girl up with them. And as Ethan rushed wildly at them, the leader of the four Masters yelled an order.
