find her. When we returned the slave woman was still standing
where we had left her, staring with horrified eyes at the body of her
mistress.

"Tell her what she did was right," I said. "She may have saved the king.
Tell her to go to your house and wait for us."

The woman nodded eagerly when Miela told her what to do, and fell on her
knees before us.

"She says she will serve us always. She has been very badly treated,
Alan."

We sent the woman away, and with a last hasty glance around hurriedly left
the house alone with its single dead occupant. A large wooden mortar and
pestle, used for pounding rice, stood in the kitchen. I carried the pestle
away with me; it was nearly five feet long and quite heavy--an excellent
weapon.

We hastened up through the city--Miela half walking, half flying, and I
carrying this bludgeon and running with twelve-foot strides. But it was
now hardly more than three-quarters of an hour since we had passed this
way before, and there were still few people about to see us. Baar and his
men had started some twenty minutes before us, I figured, and we must
reach the castle before them.

I made extraordinary progress over the level country. But I could not run
uphill for long, and soon had to slow down to a walk. Miela kept closer to
me now. We approached the castle grounds.

"Where will the guards be, Miela? We must avoid them if we can. They might
try to stop us."

Miela did not know where they would be; but under the circumstances, as
Baar had told his men, she believed the guards would disappear from the
vicinity. This conjecture proved to be correct. The guards, not wishing to
be concerned in the affair at all, had simply disappeared. We saw nothing
of Baar and his men on the way up the mountain, although I had hoped we
might overtake them.

As we passed hurriedly through the palm gardens surrounding the castle I
saw its huge front doors were closed.

"Miela, we can't get in that way. A side entrance--or some other way--"

"I know," she said. "There is a smaller door below, and others on the
side."

We hastened on. Suddenly I gripped Miela by the arm.

"What's that--over there--see, beyond the grove?"

There seemed to be furtive figures lurking among the palms.

"Those cannot be Baar's men, Miela--there are too many. What can it--"

We had reached a little doorway under the front terrace. There was no time
to investigate these advancing figures. Baar and his men might alre