continual struggle for the guards to win their way up a long
flight of stairs, for ever the great stream of humanity grew denser
and more menacing.

* * * * *

Nelson felt a violent sense of revolt grip his being. "I must win
free," he thought. "If I fail, Alden dies, and--and--" For the first
time he realised how much he wanted to actually see Altara. Like a
clear cameo, an image of her had remained fresh in his memory. Except
for her Grecian garments she might have been a lovely, carefree
English or American girl.

"And these decadent swine would sacrifice her!" The thought was
sickening. Yet how could he prevent the pitiful tragedy?

Fortunately, a detachment of troops--tall, sinewy fellows with conical
helmets, crested with six-pointed stars--reenforced the guards just as
clawing hands began to snatch and tug at the prisoner's ragged
Atlantean chiton of blue cotton.

Almost before he realized it, Nelson was dragged inside a great gloomy
building and into a circular chamber where four eagle-featured elders
sat in council beneath the six-pointed star of Sem. On approaching,
the jehar in command sank on one knee and in humble salute raised both
hands to the tribunal.

"A tough looking desk sergeant they've got," muttered the prisoner to
himself as his eye met the chilling regard of a lean, yellow-faced
priest. "Wonder what I'm booked for?" Idiotically, he recalled being
summoned before a traffic court, years back. "Guess I don't get off
with vagrancy; it'll probably be everything from speeding to mayhem,
with maybe arson and well-poisoning thrown in."

The deliberations of this ominous court proved to be appallingly
short. The dour-faced elders merely put their heads together, muttered
a few sentences, then straightened up almost immediately. The chief
priest--he with the yellow face--thrust out his fist and made the
immemorial signal of death by jerking his thumb at the black marble
floor.

* * * * *

Before the outraged and astounded aviator could utter a word of
protest, powerful guards seized and hauled him off down a dark, narrow
passageway in which the fetid prison smell was very strong. Too wise
to struggle against overwhelming odds, yet appalled at the thought of
his impending doom, Nelson was dragged into a room where four or five
furtive, enslaved Atlanteans, made dumb by the removal of their
tongues, were engaged in a curious occupati