further delay and fighting, responded. They wore
civilian blouses and trousers, but there was that something in their
alert carriage that proclaimed them trained fighting men. One of them
sat down with a grunt on the threshold, holding his hand to a bleeding
wound under his armpit. He appeared to be mortally wounded.

* * * * *

Most of the others carried minor wounds, showing that the palace
guards had put up a good battle in the sword-play. Both sides had
refrained from using the neuro-pistols for fear that the beams, which
readily penetrated walls at short range, might injure the princess.

"Let go!" Sira wrenched herself free. "Where is Tolto? Has Tolto
turned traitor? How did you get past Tolto?"

"Do not use that ugly word against me. I implore you!" Joro protested.
"What we are doing is out of loyalty to the monarchy--not treason. The
monarchy is of greater importance than individuals. Consider your duty
to the rule of your fathers! As for Tolto--"

He issued a curt command, and there was the sound of movement.
Presently four men staggered in, one to each leg, each arm, of the
most impressive giant Mars had ever produced--Tolto, to whom there was
no god but the one divinity: and Princess Sira was she. Slow of
perception, mighty of limb, he had come into her service from some
outlying agricultural region of the red planet. His tremendous muscles
were hers to command or destroy, as she wished. He would not have
consented to this invasion of her home, she knew!

And he had not. Joro had been too wise to try. A dose of _marchlor_ in
a glass of wine had done what fifty men could not have accomplished by
main strength. Tolto was in a drugged sleep.

Joro said: "He isn't hurt. We will simply send him back to his valley,
and you, my dear princess, will do your duty to your subjects!"

And there, though he probably did not know it, Prince Joro harked back
to the youth of the human race--the compensatory, atavistic principle
that gods, rulers, kings, must hold themselves in readiness as
sacrifices for the good of their subjects. Joro might have been a
tribal high priest invoking their dread rule in the dawn of time. The
Martians were, for all their scientific advancement, still the
descendants of those prehistoric human savages. Sira knew,
instinctively, that the people who loved her would nevertheless
approve of Joro's judgment.

CHAPTER IV

_Torture_

When Sime awoke