All this time my rage had been growing until the chamber seemed to swim in a red mist. Now, as I realized that the fellow really intended trying the edge of his steel on my skin I went berserk. Wheeling, I gripped the chain with both hands, wrapping it around my wrists for more leverage. Then, bracing my feet against the floor and walls I began to strain with all my strength. All over my body the great muscles coiled and knotted; sweat broke out on my skin, and then with a shattering crash the stone gave way, the iron ring was torn out bodily, and I was catapulted on my back onto the floor, at the feet of my captors who roared with amazement and fell on me *en masse*.
I answered their bellows with one strident yell of blood-thirsty gratification, and heaving up through the melee, began swinging my heavy fists like caulking mallets. Oh, that was a rough-house while it lasted! They made no attempt to knife me, striving to swamp me with numbers. We rolled from one side of the chamber to the other, a gasping, thrashing, cursing, hammering mass, while with the yells, howls, earnest profanity, and impact of heavy bodies, it was a perfect bedlam. Once I seemed to catch a fleeting glimpse of the door thronged with the heads of women similar to the one I had seen, but I could not be sure; my teeth were set in a hairy ear, my eyes were full of sweat and stars from a vicious punch on the nose, and what with a gang of heavy forms romping all over me my sight was none too good.
Yet, I gave a good account of myself. Ears split, noses crumpled and teeth splintered under the crushing impact of my iron-hard fists, and the yells of the wounded were music to my battered ears. But that damnable chain about my waist kept tripping me and coiling about my legs, and pretty soon the bandage was ripped from my head, my scalp wound opened anew and deluged me with blood. Blinded by this I floundered and stumbled, and gasping and panting they bore me down and bound my arms and legs.
The survivors then fell away from me and lay or sat in positions of pain and exhaustion while I, finding my voice, cursed them luridly. I derived ferocious satisfaction at the sight of all the bloody noses, black eyes, torn ears and smashed teeth which were in evidence, and barked in vicious laughter when one announced with many curses that his arm was broken. One of them was out cold, and had to be revived, which they did by dumping over him a vessel of cold water that was fetched by someone I could not see from where I lay. I had no idea that it was a woman who came in answer to a harsh roar of command.
'His wound is open again,' said one, pointing at me. 'He'll bleed to death.'
'I hope he does,' snarled another, lying doubled up on the floor. 'He's burst my belly. I'm dying. Get me some wine.'
'If you're dying you don't need wine,' brutally answered the one who seemed a chief, as he spat out bits of splintered teeth. 'Tie up his wound, Akra.'
Akra limped over to me with no great enthusiasm and bent down.
'Hold your damnable head still,' he growled.
'Keep off!' I snarled. 'I'll have nothing from you. Touch me at your peril.'
He exasperatedly grabbed my face in his broad hand and shoved me violently-down. That was a mistake. My jaws locked on his thumb, evoking an ear-splitting howl, and it was only with the aid of his comrades that he extricated the mangled member. Maddened by the pain, he howled wordlessly, then suddenly gave me a terrific kick in the temple, driving my wounded head with great violence back against the massive bench leg. Once again I lost consciousness.
When I came to myself again I was once more bandaged, shackled by the wrists and ankles, and made fast to a fresh ring, newly set in the stone, and apparently more firmly fixed than the other had been. It was night. Through the window I glimpsed the stardotted sky. A torch which burned with a peculiar white flame was thrust into a niche in the wall, and a man sat on the bench, elbows on knees and chin on fists, regarding me intently. On the bench near him stood a huge gold vessel.
'I doubted if you'd come to after that last crack,' he said at last.
'It would take more than that to finish me,' I snarled. 'You are a pack of cursed weaklings. But for my wound and that infernal chain, I'd have bested the whole mob of you.'
My insults seemed to interest rather than anger him. He absently fingered a large bump on his head on which blood was thickly clotted, and asked: 'Who are you? Whence do you come?'
'None of your business,' I snapped.
He shrugged his shoulders, and lifting the vessel in one hand drew his dagger with the other.
'In Koth none goes hungry,' he said, 'I'm going to place this food near your hand and you can eat. But I warn you, if you try to strike or bite me, I'll stab you.'
I merely snarled truculently, and he bent and set down the bowl, hastily withdrawing. I found the food to be a kind of stew, satisfying both thirst and hunger. Having eaten I felt in somewhat better mood, and my guard renewed his questions, I answered: 'My name is Esau Cairn. I am an American, from the planet Earth.'
He mulled over my statements for a space, then asked: 'Are these places beyond the Girdle?'
'I don't understand you,' I answered.
He shook his head. 'Nor I you. But if you do not know of the Girdle, you cannot be from beyond it. Doubtless it is all fable, anyway. But whence did you come when we saw you approaching across the plain? Was that your fire we glimpsed from the towers last night?'
'I suppose so,' I replied. 'For many months I have lived in the hills to the west. It was only a few weeks ago that I descended into the plains.'
He stared and stared at me.
'In the hills? Alone, and with only a poniard?'
'Well, what about it?' I demanded.
He shook his head as if in doubt or wonder. 'A few hours ago I would have called you a liar. Now I am not sure.'
'What is the name of this city?' I asked.
'Koth, of the Kothan tribe. Our chief is Khossuth Skull-splitter. I am Thab the Swift. I am detailed to guard you while the warriors hold council.'
'What's the nature of their council?' I inquired.
'They discuss what shall be done with you; and they have been arguing since sunset, and are no nearer a solution than before.'
'What is their disagreement?'
'Well,' he answered. 'Some want to hang you, and some want to shoot you.'
'I don't suppose it's occurred to them that they might let me go,' I suggested with some bitterness.
He gave me a cold look. 'Don't be a fool,' he said reprovingly.
At that moment a light step sounded outside, and the girl I had seen before tiptoed into the chamber. Thab eyed her disapprovingly.
'What are you doing here, Altha?' he demanded.
'I came to look again at the stranger,' she answered in a soft musical voice. 'I never saw a man like him. His skin is nearly as smooth as mine, and he has no hair on his countenance. How strange are his eyes! Whence does he come?'
'From the hills, he says,' grunted Thab. Her eyes widened. 'Why, none dwells in the Hills, except wild beasts! Can it be that he is some sort of animal? They say he speaks and understands speech.'
'So he does,' growled Thab, fingering his bruises. 'He also knocks out men's brains with his naked fists, which are harder and heavier than maces. Get away from there.
'He's a rampaging devil. If he gets his hands on you he won't leave enough of you for the vultures to pick.'
'I won't get near him,' she assured him. 'But, Thab, he does not look so terrible. See, there is no anger in the gaze he fixes on me. What will be done with him?'
'The tribe will decide,' he answered. 'Probably let him fight a sabertooth leopard bare-handed.'
She clasped her own hands with more human feeling than I had yet seen shown on .
'Oh, Thab, why? He has done no harm; he came alone and with empty hands. The warriors shot him down without warning-and now-'
He glanced at her in irritation. 'If I told your father you were pleading for a captive-'
Evidently the threat carried weight. She visibly wilted.
'Don't tell him,' she pleaded. Then she flared up again. 'Whatever you say, it's beastly! If my father whips
