Faintly from beyond the wall Jane heard a voice calling, but whose it was and what the words she could not distinguish. Then she saw Lu-don jerk upon another thong and wait in evident expectancy of some consequent happening. He did not have long to wait. She saw the thong move suddenly as though jerked from above and then Lu-don smiled and with another signal put in motion whatever machinery it was that raised the partition again to its place in the ceiling.
Advancing into that portion of the room that the partition had shut off from them, the high priest knelt upon the floor, and down tilting a section of it, revealed the dark mouth of a shaft leading below. Laughing loudly he shouted into the hole: “Return to thy father, O Dor-ul-Otho!”
Making fast the catch that prevented the trapdoor from opening beneath the feet of the unwary until such time as Lu-don chose the high priest rose again to his feet.
“Now, Beautiful One!” he cried, and then, “Ja-don! what do you here?”
Jane Clayton turned to follow the direction of Lu-don’s eyes and there she saw framed in the entranceway to the apartment the mighty figure of a warrior, upon whose massive features sat an expression of stern and uncompromising authority.
“I come from Ko-tan, the king,” replied Ja-don, “to remove the beautiful stranger to the Forbidden Garden.”
“The king defies me, the high priest of Jad-ben-Otho?” cried Lu-don.
“It is the king’s command—I have spoken,” snapped Ja-don, in whose manner was no sign of either fear or respect for the priest.
Lu-don well knew why the king had chosen this messenger whose heresy was notorious, but whose power had as yet protected him from the machinations of the priest. Lu-don cast a surreptitious glance at the thongs hanging from the ceiling. Why not? If he could but maneuver to entice Ja-don to the opposite side of the chamber!
“Come,” he said in a conciliatory tone, “let us discuss the matter,” and moved toward the spot where he would have Ja-don follow him.
“There is nothing to discuss,” replied Ja-don, yet he followed the priest, fearing treachery.
Jane watched them. In the face and figure of the warrior she found reflected those admirable traits of courage and honor that the profession of arms best develops. In the hypocritical priest there was no redeeming quality. Of the two then she might best choose the warrior. With him there was a chance—with Lu-don, none. Even the very process of exchange from one prison to another might offer some possibility of escape. She weighed all these things and decided, for Lu-don’s quick glance at the thongs had not gone unnoticed nor uninterpreted by her.
“Warrior,” she said, addressing Ja-don, “if you would live enter not that portion of the room.”
Lu-don cast an angry glance upon her. “Silence, slave!” he cried.
“And where lies the danger?” Ja-don asked of Jane, ignoring Lu-don.
The woman pointed to the thongs. “Look,” she said, and before the high priest could prevent she had seized that which controlled the partition which shot downward separating Lu-don from the warrior and herself.
Ja-don looked inquiringly at her. “He would have tricked me neatly but for you,” he said; “kept me imprisoned there while he secreted you elsewhere in the mazes of his temple.”
“He would have done more than that,” replied Jane, as she pulled upon the other thong. “This releases the fastenings of a trapdoor in the floor beyond the partition. When you stepped on that you would have been precipitated into a pit beneath the temple. Lu-don has threatened me with this fate often. I do not know that he speaks the truth, but he says that a demon of the temple is imprisoned there—a huge gryf.”
“There is a gryf within the temple,” said Ja-don. “What with it and the sacrifices, the priests keep us busy supplying them with prisoners, though the victims are sometimes those for whom Lu-don has conceived hatred among our own people. He has had his eyes upon me for a long time. This would have been his chance but for you. Tell me, woman, why you warned me. Are we not all equally your jailers and your enemies?”
“None could be more horrible than Lu-don,” she replied; “and you have the appearance of a brave and honorable warrior. I could not hope, for hope has died and yet there is the possibility that among so many fighting men, even though they be of another race than mine, there is one who would accord honorable treatment to a stranger within his gates—even though she be a woman.”
Ja-don looked at her for a long minute. “Ko-tan would make you his queen,” he said. “That he told me himself and surely that were honorable treatment from one who might make you a slave.”
“Why, then, would he make me queen?” she asked.
Ja-don came closer as though in fear his words might be overheard. “He believes, although he did not tell me so in fact, that you are of the race of gods. And why not? Jad-ben-Otho is tailless, therefore it is not strange that Ko-tan should suspect that only the gods are thus. His queen is dead leaving only a single daughter. He craves a son and what more desirable than that he should found a line of rulers for Pal-ul-don descended from the gods?”
“But I am already wed,” cried Jane. “I cannot wed another. I do not want him or his throne.”
“Ko-tan is king,” replied Ja-don simply as though that explained and simplified everything.
“You will not save me then?” she asked.
“If you were in Ja-lur,” he replied, “I might protect you, even against the king.”
“What and where is Ja-lur?” she asked, grasping at any straw.
“It is the city where I rule,” he answered. “I am chief there and of all the valley beyond.”
“Where is it?” she insisted, and “is it far?”
“No,” he replied, smiling, “it is not far, but do not think of that—you could never reach it. There are too many to
