He sprang into a forward roll in the direction of the open grave, perhaps because that had been the last safe spot for him. He leaped over a stone ledge and circled a large mound. If he could just get far enough away he might lose them among the mounds, he thought, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He swerved as he heard them coming around the other side of the mound. As he turned back, he saw the rifle butt out of the corner of his eye and started to duck, but it was too late. He felt a terrible thud above his right eye and then the diamond-bright stars were sliding into darkness, as though the sky was a black velvet jeweler’s tray that someone had tipped to one side.

Sar

Sar

THE SMELL OF AMMONIA was thick in his nostrils and he watched an enormous hand recede and then it was back, slapping his face from side to side. He tried to slip back into the darkness, but they doused him with cold water and when he finally opened his eyes and tried to move, he found that he was tied to a chair. A round moonfaced image floated just out of focus and when it came closer it looked grotesquely flat and stretched, like a face painted on a child’s balloon. Then he heard a swish and he grunted involuntarily as his side erupted in pain. The balloon became a reddish moon and finally resolved itself into the piggish face of a giant Arab with a wrestler’s build and the dull mechanical eyes of a mental defective. The brute stepped away and the Scorpion could see a large rubber hose dangling from his huge hand. His sides ached as if a troupe of flamenco dancers had been using him for a stage floor and he wondered if any ribs were broken.