battleships circled the Mountains of Otz, pouring tons of projectiles
upon the temples, the gardens, and the courts, until every thern who
was not killed was driven for safety into the subterranean galleries.

"The therns know that they live at all only by the sufferance of
the black men. They were near to extermination that once and they
will not venture risking it again."

As she ceased talking a new element was instilled into the conflict.
It came from a source equally unlooked for by either thern or pirate.
The great banths which we had liberated in the garden had evidently
been awed at first by the sound of the battle, the yelling of the
warriors and the loud report of rifle and bomb.

But now they must have become angered by the continuous noise and
excited by the smell of new blood, for all of a sudden a great form
shot from a clump of low shrubbery into the midst of a struggling
mass of humanity. A horrid scream of bestial rage broke from the
banth as he felt warm flesh beneath his powerful talons.

As though his cry was but a signal to the others, the entire great
pack hurled themselves among the fighters. Panic reigned in an
instant. Thern and black man turned alike against the common enemy,
for the banths showed no partiality toward either.

The awful beasts bore down a hundred men by the mere weight of their
great bodies as they hurled themselves into the thick of the fight.
Leaping and clawing, they mowed down the warriors with their powerful
paws, turning for an instant to rend their victims with frightful
fangs.