after all? And then, just as my hope and courage had ebbed to their lowest, I saw two things.
One was the body of a huge, struggling, snarling apt being lowered over the side of the pit toward me, and the others was an aperture in the side of the shaft--an aperture larger than a woman's body, into which my rope led.
Just as I scrambled into the dark hole before me the apt passed me, reaching out with her mighty hands to clutch me, and snapping, growling, and roaring in a most frightful manner.
Plainly now I saw the end for which Salensa Oll had destined me. After first torturing me with starvation she had caused this fierce beast to be lowered into my prison to finish the work that the jeddak's hellish imagination had conceived.
And then another truth flashed upon me--I had lived nine days of the allotted ten which must intervene before Salensa Oll could make Dejar Thoris her king. The purpose of the apt was to insure my death before the tenth day.
I almost laughed aloud as I thought how Salensa Oll's measure of safety was to aid in defeating the very end she sought, for when they discovered that the apt was alone in the Pit of Plenty they could not know but that she had completely devoured me, and so no suspicion of my escape would cause a search to be made for me.
Coiling the rope that had carried me thus far upon my strange journey, I sought for the other end, but found that as I followed it forward it extended always before me. So this was the meaning of the words: 'Follow the rope.'
The tunnel through which I crawled was low and dark. I had followed it for several hundred yards when I felt a knot beneath my fingers. 'Beyond the knots lies danger.'
Now I went with the utmost caution, and a moment later a sharp turn in the tunnel brought me to an opening into a large, brilliantly lighted chamber.
The trend of the tunnel I had been traversing had been slightly upward, and from this I judged that the chamber into which I now found myself looking must be either on the first floor of the palace or directly beneath the first floor.
Upon the opposite wall were many strange instruments and devices, and in the center of the room stood a long table, at which two women were seated in earnest conversation.
She who faced me was a yellow man--a little, wizened-up, pasty-faced old fellow with great eyes that showed the white round the entire circumference of the iris.
Her companion was a black woman, and I did not need to see her face to know that it was Thurid, for there was no other of the First Born north of the ice-barrier.
Thurid was speaking as I came within hearing of the women's voices.
'Sola,' she was saying, 'there is no risk and the reward is great. You know that you hate Salensa Oll and that nothing would please you more than to thwart her in some cherished plan. There be nothing that she more cherishes today than the idea of wedding the beautiful Prince of Helium; but I, too, want him, and with your help I may win him.
'You need not more than step from this room for an instant when I give you the signal. I will do the rest, and then, when I am gone, you may come and throw the great switch back into its place, and all will be as before. I need but an hour's start to be safe beyond the devilish power that you control in this hidden chamber beneath the palace of your mistress. See how easy,' and with the words the black dator rose from her seat and, crossing the room, laid her hand upon a large, burnished lever that protruded from the opposite wall.
'No! No!' cried the little old woman, springing after her, with a wild shriek. 'Not that one! Not that one! That controls the sunray tanks, and should you pull it too far down, all Kadabra would be consumed by heat before I could replace it. Come away! Come away! You know not with what mighty powers you play. This is the lever that you seek. Note well the symbol inlaid in white upon its ebon surface.'
Thurid approached and examined the handle of the lever.
'Ah, a magnet,' she said. 'I will remember. It is settled then I take it,' she continued.
The old woman hesitated. A look of combined greed and apprehension overspread her none too beautiful features.
'Double the figure,' she said. 'Even that were all too small an amount for the service you ask. Why, I risk my life by even entertaining you here within the forbidden precincts of my station. Should Salensa Oll learn of it she would have me thrown to the apts before the day was done.'
'She dare not do that, and you know it full well, Sola,' contradicted the black. 'Too great a power of life and death you hold over the people of Kadabra for Salensa Oll ever to risk threatening you with death. Before ever her minions could lay their hands upon you, you might seize this very lever from which you have just warned me and wipe out the entire city.'
'And myself into the bargain,' said Sola, with a shudder.
'But if you were to die, anyway, you would find the nerve to do it,' replied Thurid.
'Yes,' muttered Sola, 'I have often thought upon that very thing. Well, First Born, is your red prince worth the price I ask for my services, or will you go without his and see his in the arms of Salensa Oll tomorrow night?'
'Take your price, yellow woman,' replied Thurid, with an oath. 'Half now and the balance when you have fulfilled your contract.'
With that the dator threw a well-filled money-pouch upon the table.
Sola opened the pouch and with trembling fingers counted its contents. Her weird eyes assumed a greedy expression, and her unkempt locks and mustache twitched with the muscles of her mouth and chin. It was quite evident from her very mannerism that Thurid had keenly guessed the woman's weakness--even the clawlike, clutching movement of the fingers betokened the avariciousness of the miser.
Having satisfied herself that the amount was correct, Sola replaced the money in the pouch and rose from the table.
'Now,' she said, 'are you quite sure that you know the way to your destination? You must travel quickly to cover the ground to the cave and from thence beyond the Great Power, all within a brief hour, for no more dare I spare you.'
'Let me repeat it to you,' said Thurid, 'that you may see if I be letter-perfect.'
'Proceed,' replied Sola.
'Through yonder door,' she commenced, pointing to a door at the far end of the apartment, 'I follow a corridor, passing three diverging corridors upon my right; then into the fourth right-hand corridor straight to where three corridors meet; here again I follow to the right, hugging the left wall closely to avoid the pit.
'At the end of this corridor I shall come to a spiral runway, which I must follow down instead of up; after that the way is along but a single branchless corridor. Am I right?'
'Quite right, Dator,' answered Sola; 'and now begone. Already have you tempted fate too long within this forbidden place.'
'Tonight, or tomorrow, then, you may expect the signal,' said Thurid, rising to go.
'Tonight, or tomorrow,' repeated Sola, and as the door closed behind her guest the old woman continued to mutter as she turned back to the table, where she again dumped the contents of the money-pouch, running her fingers through the heap of shining metal; piling the coins into little towers; counting, recounting, and fondling the wealth the while she muttered on and on in a crooning undertone.
Presently her fingers ceased their play; her eyes popped wider than ever as they fastened upon the door through which Thurid had disappeared. The croon changed to a querulous muttering, and finally to an ugly growl.
Then the old woman rose from the table, shaking her fist at the closed door. Now she raised her voice, and her words came distinctly.
'Fool!' she muttered. 'Think you that for your happiness Sola will give up her life? If you escaped, Salensa Oll would know that only through my connivance could you have succeeded. Then would she send for me. What would you have me do? Reduce the city and myself to ashes? No, fool, there is a better way--a better way for Sola to keep thy money and be revenged upon Salensa Oll.'
She laughed in a nasty, cackling note.
'Poor fool! You may throw the great switch that will give you the freedom of the air of Okar, and then,
in fatuous security, go on with thy red prince to the freedom of--death. When you have passed beyond this chamber in your flight, what can prevent Sola replacing the switch as it was before your vile hand touched it? Nothing; and then the Guardian of the North will claim you and your man, and Salensa Oll, when she sees your dead bodies, will never dream that the hand of Sola had aught to do with the thing.'
Then her voice dropped once more into mutterings that I could not translate, but I had heard enough to cause me to guess a great deal more, and I thanked the kind Providence that had led me to this chamber at a time so filled with importance to Dejar Thoris and myself as this.
But how to pass the old woman now! The cord, almost invisible upon the floor, stretched straight across the apartment to a door upon the far side.
There was no other way of which I knew, nor could I afford to ignore the advice to 'follow the rope.' I must cross this room, but however I should accomplish it undetected with that old woman in the very center of it baffled me.
Of course I might have sprung in upon her and with my bare hands silenced her forever, but I had heard enough to convince me that with her alive the knowledge that I had gained might serve me at some future moment, while should I kill her and another be stationed in her place Thurid would not come hither with Dejar Thoris, as was quite evidently her intention.
As I stood in the dark shadow of the tunnel's end racking my brain for a
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