t shine full in the pinhole,
then one unit for one xat, and for twenty-five tals nine units.
Those last twenty-five tals were the longest twenty-five seconds
of my life. Would the lock click at the end of those seemingly
interminable intervals of time?
Twenty-three! Twenty-four! Twenty-five!
I shut off the light with a snap. For seven tals I waited--there
had been no appreciable effect upon the lock's mechanism. Could
it be that my theory was entirely wrong?
Hold! Had the nervous strain resulted in a hallucination, or did
the door really move? Slowly the solid stone sank noiselessly back
into the wall--there was no hallucination here.
Back and back it slid for ten feet until it had disclosed at its
right a narrow doorway leading into a dark and narrow corridor that
paralleled the outer wall. Scarcely was the entrance uncovered
than Woola and I had leaped through--then the door slipped quietly
back into place.
Down the corridor at some distance I saw the faint reflection of
a light, and toward this we made our way. At the point where the
light shone was a sharp turn, and a little distance beyond this a
brilliantly lighted chamber.
Here we discovered a spiral stairway leading up from the center of
the circular room.
Immediately I knew that we had reached the center of the base of
the Temple of the Sun--the spiral runway led upward past the inner
walls of the prison cells. Somewhere above me was Dejah Thoris,
unless Thurid and Matai Shang had already succeeded in stealing
her.
We had scarcely started up the runway when Woola suddenly displayed
the wildest excitement. He leaped back and forth, snapping at my
legs and harness, until I thought that he was mad, and finally when
I pushed him from me and started once more to ascend he grasped my
sword arm between his jaws and dragged me back.
No amount of scolding or cuffing would suffice to make him release
me, and I was entirely at the mercy of his brute strength unless
I cared to use my dagger upon him with my left hand; but, mad or
no, I had not the heart to run the sharp blade into that faithful
body.
Down into the chamber he dragged me, and across it to the side
opposite that at which we had entered. Here was another doorway
leading into a corridor which ran directly down a steep incline.
Without a moment's hesitation Woola jerked me along this rocky
passage.
Presently he stopped and released me, standing between me and the
way we h
|