Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 100: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

890 half-sitting position. Baar’s wife lay be- side me dead, with the slave woman’s knife buried to the hilt in her back. Reaching over, I took the knife from the dead woman’s fingers, and with it cut the cords that bound my ankles. I sprang to my feet. The slave had retreated and stood shrinking against the side of the room, ter- rifled at what she had done. I paid no more attention to her for the moment, but has- tened to release Miela. We searched the house hurriedly, calling to Lua; but she did not answer, nor could we 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 car- ried the pestle away with me; it was nearly five feet long and quite heavy—an maa lent 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 be- fore us, I figured, and we must reach the castle before theme 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 ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. had told his men, she believed the guards would disappear from the vicinity, The guards, not wishing to be concerned in the This conjecture proved to be correct. 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. Miela by the arm. Suddenly I gripped | ‘“‘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 already be inside the castle. I slid through the doorway, every muscle tense. Miela had brought the knife from Baar’s shack, and with it clenched in her hand was close beside me. I wanted to make her stay outside, where she could fly away if danger threatened, but she pleaded to follow me, and J let her come. I needed her, since I had no idea of the interior ar- rangements of the building. We passed along a dim hallway and up a narrow flight of stone steps. Not a sound came to us; the interior of the castle was silent as a tomb. At the top of the steps we came almost directly into the inner patio of the building. Across a bed of tall flow- ers, nodding gently in a little morning breeze that swept down from above, I saw the head and shoulders of a man standing in the center of the courtyard; the lower part of his body was hidden by the flowers. I tried to duck out of sight, but he had seen me. He was not over forty feet away. I stepped back, ete conriicine: ire ikon In a single leap; but