a long time, but he did not come. To-night one of my people seized the girl, Nalte, in Havatoo; and he came immediately to try to rescue her, the fool. I have known for a long time that they were in Havatoo. My spies have seen them there together. I do not know how he got here, but here he is—and here he stays, forever.'
He poked me in the belly with the point of his sword. 'How would you like to die, fool?' he snarled. 'A quick thrust through the heart, perhaps. That would mutilate you least. You will make a fine specimen. Come, now, what have you to say? Remember this will be the last chance you will have to think with your own brain; hereafter I shall do your thinking for you. You will sit in my banquet hall, and you will laugh when I tell you to laugh. You will see the two women who loved you, but they will shrink from the touch of your clammy hands, from your cold, dead lips. And whenever you see them they will be with Skor in whose veins flows the bright blood of life.'
My plight seemed quite hopeless. The sword at my belly was long, keen, and two-edged. I might have grasped it, but its edges were so sharp that it would have slipped through my fingers, severing them as it plunged into my body. Yet that I intended doing. I would not wait like a sheep the lethal blow of the butcher.
'You do not reply,' said Skor. 'Very well, we will have it over quickly!' He drew back his sword hand for the thrust.
Duare was standing behind him beside a table littered with the sort of junk to which Skor seemed partial—his crazy objects d'art. I was waiting to seize the blade when he thrust. Skor hesitated a moment, I presume to better enjoy my final agony; but in that he was disappointed. I would not give him that satisfaction; and so, to rob him of most of his pleasure, I laughed in his face.
At that moment Duare raised a heavy vase from the table, held it high above her, and crashed it down on Skor's head. Without a sound he sank to the floor.
I leaped across his body to take Duare into my arms, but with a palm against my breast she pushed me away.
'Do not touch me!' she snapped. 'If you want to get out of Kormor there is no time to be wasted. Come with me! I know where the girl you came to rescue is imprisoned.'
* * * * *
Her whole attitude toward me seemed to have changed, and my pride was piqued. In silence I followed her from the room. She led me into the corridor along which we had approached the room to which I had followed her and Skor. Opening a door at one side, she hurried along another corridor and stopped before a heavily bolted door.
'She is in here,' she said.
I drew the bolts and opened the door. Standing in the middle of the room beyond, looking straight at me, was Nalte. As she recognized me she gave a little cry of joy and, running toward me, threw her arms about me.
'Oh, Carson ! Carson !' she cried. 'I knew that you would come; something told me that you would surely come.'
'We must hurry,' I told her. 'We must get out of here.'
I turned toward the door. Duare stood there, her chin in the air, her eyes flashing; but she said nothing. Nalte saw her then and recognized her. 'Oh, it is you!' she exclaimed. 'You are alive! I am so glad. We thought that you had been killed.'
Duare seemed puzzled by the evident sincerity of Nalte's manner, as though she had not expected that Nalte would be glad that she was alive. She softened a little. 'If we are to escape from Kormor, though I doubt that we can, we must not remain here,' she said. 'I think that I know a way out of the castle—a secret way that Skor uses. He showed me the door once during some strange mood of his insanity; but he has the key to the door on his person, and we must get that before we can do anything else.'
We returned to the room where we had left Skor's body, and as I entered it I saw the jong of Morov stir and try to rise. He was not dead, though how he had survived that shattering blow I do not know.
I ran toward him and threw him down. He was still only half conscious and made little or no resistance. I suppose I should have killed him, but I shrank from killing a defenseless man—even a fiend like Skor. Instead I bound and gagged him; then I searched him and found his keys.
After that Duare led us to the second floor of the palace and to a large room furnished in the bizarre taste that was Skor's. She crossed the apartment and drew aside a grotesque hanging, revealing a small door behind.
'Here is the door,' she said; 'see if you can find a key to fit the lock.'
I tried several keys, and at last found the right one. The opened door revealed a narrow corridor which we entered after rearranging the hangings, and then closed the door behind us. A few steps brought us to the top of a spiral staircase. I went first, carrying Skor's sword which I had taken from him with his keys. The two girls followed closely behind me.
The stairway was lighted, for which I was glad, since it permitted us to move more rapidly and with greater safety. At the bottom was another corridor. I waited there until both girls stood beside me.
'Do you know where this corridor leads?' I asked Duare.
'No,' she replied. 'All that Skor said was that he could get out of the castle this way without any one seeing him—he always came and went this way. Practically everything that he did, the most commonplace things in life, he veiled with mystery and secrecy.'
'From the height of that stairway,' I said, 'I believe that we are below the ground level of the palace. I wish that we knew where this corridor ends, but there is only one way to find out. Come on!'
* * * * *
This corridor was but dimly illuminated by the light from the stairway, and the farther we went from the stairway the darker it became. It ran straight for a considerable distance, ending at the foot of a wooden stairway. Up this I groped my way only a few steps, when my head came in contact with a solid substance above me. I reached up and felt of the obstruction. It consisted of planking and was obviously a trap door. I tried to raise it, but could not. Then I searched around its edges with my fingers, and at last I found that which I sought—a latch. Tripping it, I pushed again; and the door gave. I opened it only an inch or two, but no light showed in the crack. Then I opened it wider and raised my head through the aperture.
Now I could see more, but not much more—only the dark interior of a room with a single small window through which the night light of Amtor showed dimly. Grasping the sword of the jong of Morov more tightly I ascended the stairway and entered the room. I heard no sound.
The girls had followed me and now stood just behind me. I could hear them breathing. We stood waiting, listening. Slowly my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, and I made out what I thought was a door beside the single window. I crossed to it and felt; it was a door.
Cautiously I opened it and looked out into one of the sordid streets of Kormor. I peered about in an effort to orient myself and saw that the street was one of those that extended directly away from the palace which I could see looming darkly behind its wall at my right.
'Come!' I whispered, and with the girls behind me I stepped out into the street and turned to the left. 'If we meet any one,' I cautioned, 'remember to walk like the dead, shuffle along as you will see me do. Keep your eyes on the ground; it is our eyes that will most surely betray us.'
'Where are we going?' asked Duare in a whisper.
'I am going to try to find the house through which I came into the city,' I replied; 'but I don't know that I can do so.'
'And if you can't?'
'Then we shall have to make an attempt to scale the city wall; but we shall find a way, Duare.'
'What difference will it make?' she murmured, half to herself. 'If we escape from here there will only be something else. I think I would rather be dead than go on any more.'
The note of hopelessness in her voice was so unlike Duare that it shocked me. 'You mustn't feel like that, Duare,' I expostulated. 'If we can get back to Havatoo you will be safe and happy, and I have a surprise there for you that will give you new hope.' I was thinking of the plane in which we might hope to find Vepaja, the country that I could see she had about despaired of ever seeing again.
She shook her head. 'There is no hope, no hope of happiness, ever, for Duare.'
Some figures approaching us along the dusty street put an end to our conversation. With lowered eyes and shuffling feet we neared them.
They passed, and I breathed again in relief.
