she was about to spring upon me with the knife.

"Tara—" I murmured.

Amazing little creature. Was it that subconsciously she realized the irony of her violence, and was ashamed that I should see it? Her hand opened and the knife fell to the rug at her side. Her flashing, steel-blue gaze like a little sliding sword clashed with mine. Then she called out an imperious command in the Zurian tongue. From the shadows of the door-oval three guards came leaping at me.

"Tara—wait! Listen—"

Her furious commands drowned my protests. She was lying back, panting, staring after me as the guards roughly dragged me away.

VII

I was not killed, as momentarily I had feared, but was flung into a cell. You might call it that—a small cave-like recess off one of the smaller corridors. It seemed a level below the apartment in which Tara had been. My captors flung me into it, shoved a heavy stone into the door-slit, barred the stone with a metal fastening and withdrew.

More than ever now, the light inherent to the metallic rock-masses of subterranean Zura was apparent—a soft luminous glow. Left alone, I looked around me. It was somewhat warmer in here. The air was fresh enough. I saw that it was seeping in through many little rifts, an inch or two in width—tiny fissures in the honeycombed walls. There was a couch here, of white skins. I threw myself on it with the sudden realization that I was exhausted, and hungry and thirsty. The latter two needs I could not supply—but presently I had drifted into sleep.

I was awakened by the realization that the door-slab was being drawn aside. It was Zogg, Tara's guard who had taken Alan and the others away. He came in with food and water—food that was a fatty, uncooked animal flesh. I drank the water greedily—water different in taste from anything I had had on earth, but it was palatable. The blubbery animal-flesh at first was nauseous, but my hunger made me manage it. I was stiff with chill, but the food warmed me.

"Thanks," I said.

Zogg had been standing by the door, watching me impassively. I added: "Those friends of mine—what did you do with them? Kill them?"

"Near here. No hurt them," he said. Was that irony on his weird, grimacing face? A string of little ornaments hung on his chest now, dangling from his 

 Prev. P 31/40 next