The hands of the three prisoners were tied behind their backs, and
nooses were placed around their necks. Then they were dragged out into
the street. The merchant was not taken prisoner at all, simply killed
out of hand with the body left lying across his shattered threshold. A
thin-lipped, hooked-nosed officer spat in Larry's face as he was led
past the body of the dead merchant.
"Not for you will there be such an easy ending," he sneered. "An
example is to be made. You will die before crowds, in the Plaza of the
Four Virgins, and the process will be a slow one."
They were surrounded by a double rank of guards as they were led along
by the nooses about their necks. All three had been stripped to a loin
cloth, and the sun was scorching hot upon Larry's back and shoulders.
At least, he thought thankfully, Diana's long black hair gave her some
protection. There were jeers and hoots as they were led through the
crowded streets, but most of them came from members of the tyrant class
and from the few over-dressed and foppish Lunarians who aped their
masters. The mass of the people gazed in stony and somehow sympathetic
silence.
Into one of the tall white-and-gold palaces of the Lords of Gral-Thala
they were taken, and down into stone-walled dungeons far underground.
They were placed in a single cell. They stood with their backs against
the walls, arms out-stretched and wrists lashed to rings set in the
stone, able to move little more but their heads. Then, for a while,
they were left alone.
"Well," said Larry with grim humor, "here we are."
"So it seems!" Pyatt's voice was rasping and bitter. "I am indeed a
fool for ever having allowed Xylon to live in the Cavern of Chotan, in
spite of the kind-hearted ruling of the Elders."
"What will they do with us?" Larry asked. Pyatt hesitated, licking his
lips and glancing at Diana, but the girl answered for herself.
"We shall probably be skinned alive in the public square, dying slowly
under the torture," she said. "It is the favorite punishment of the
tyrants for those they particularly hate."
It was a day of triumph for the Lords of Gral-Thala. Xylon's triumphant
return with the information that would lead to the wiping out of the
always troublesome outlaws of the Lost Caverns, and the capture of the
three prisoners, made it a holiday for the ruling class of the valley.
They came in hundreds to see the three captives. The famous military
leader of the outlaws ... the girl who was considered a goddess by the
primitive Insect-men of the waste-land ... the the stranger from that
distant Earth whence their own ancestors had fled. They came to throng
the dungeon corridor and stare in at the trio of captives spread-eagled
against the wall of the cell.
Larry watched them through the barred door. For hours on end there were
always a few of them in the corridor, staring and jeering. Foppish men
in white and gold with their curled hair laden with scent. Haughty and
jewel-clad women whose sharp featured faces held even more cruelty than
their male companions. Many were attended by Lunarian slave girls whose
fettered hands held their trains up from the floor, and the bare backs
of the slave girls were usually marked with the crossing red marks of
whips. Larry knew, now, that the tales told in the Caverns about the
cruelty of the Lords of Gral-Thala had not been exaggerated.
* * * * *
Xylon came to see them after a while, opening the cell door and walking
in to stand sneering at them with his thumbs hooked in his jeweled
girdle.
"Colton sold you out for the promise of wealth and a place in the ranks
of our nobles," he said. "It will be a pleasure to watch you die." For
a moment he walked over to stand in front of Diana who looked back at
him with an expressionless face. "You are not a bad-looking wench. I
can take you for one of my slaves if you wish to be agreeable."
"I would rather go with an Insect-man!" the girl said with calm scorn.
Xylon shrugged and turned away.
"So be it. At that, it would be a pity to rob the crowd of the pleasure
of watching you die."
As near as Larry could judge it, the equivalent of an Earthly day had
passed before they were taken out of the cell. They were given an hour
to ease their stiffened muscles. Then the guards bound their wrists
before them, and by the trailing ends of the ropes led them out of the
dungeons and through the streets to a broad open space just at the foot
of the inclines that led down from the tunnel by which they had entered
the city.
The Plaza of the Four Virgins, named from the four gigantic statues of
polished stone that had been placed at its corners in some long ago
day before the Invaders came, was a vast paved space in front of an
ancient temple that was now used as a government building. In front of
the temple a metal scaffold had been erected with two heavy uprights
and a cross-piece. The rulers of Gral-Thala were sprawled in cushioned
ease on the steps of the temple, well guarded by their troops, and the
floor of the Plaza was filled with the common people of the city. These
latter were present in great number, a silent and ominously sullen mass.
The three prisoners were stood in a row on the scaffold. Their
hands were raised above their heads, and the ropes made fast to the
cross-piece so that they were held tautly erect and motionless. Sharp
laughter and occasional jests came from the nobles and their women
clustered on the steps, but as Larry looked out over the crowd in
the Plaza he saw faces that were grim and intent. The threat of the
electronic rifles of the guards would keep the unarmed mob from trying
to aid the prisoners, but there was no doubt where their sympathies lay.
Glancing up at the tyrants grouped on the temple steps, Larry suddenly
saw Colton. The former second officer of the _Sky Maid_ now wore the
white and gold robes of a noble of Gral-Thala. Xylon kept his promises!
Colton flushed uncomfortably when his glance met Larry's grim stare,
quickly turning his eyes away. He looked uncomfortable and ill-at-ease.
Larry glanced at him again a few minutes later and saw Colton staring
at Diana's bound and motionless form with definite misery in his eyes.
One of the nobles stepped to the front and began to address the crowd.
Shrill yells and catcalls drowned his words. The guards raged, but
the men in the front ranks of the mob were discreetly silent and they
could not reach or identify the culprits in the ranks behind. Many of
the nobles were muttering nervously among themselves, showing definite
signs of fear.
"There was never a scene like this in Pandonaria before!" Pyatt of
Kagan exulted from where he was bound beside Larry. "We may die, but
our death is likely to stir the people to such a pitch that the revolt
will soon come!"
Xylon, for all his faults, was made of sterner stuff than most of his
fellow nobles. He sneered down at the muttering crowd, then signed to
the officer commanding the guards.
"Pay no attention to the dogs," he commanded sharply. "Give these three
a taste of the whip before the flayers rip the skins from their bodies.
Begin with the girl."
A heavy-featured man in a black tunic stepped up to Diana, pulling the
lash of a heavy whip through his hands to test its suppleness. Before
he could strike there came a sudden interruption. A small car had been
speeding down the incline from the tunnel entrance and now a gilded
officer of the invaders leaped out and came running across the Plaza.
"Great news, oh Xylon and nobles of Gral-Thala!" he shouted. "One of
our patrols has captured a great force of outlaw warriors and their
insect allies, who were moving in to raid our nearer caves. Some more
Earthlings are with them!"
"Good, by Gorton!" exulted Xylon. "We will delay the execution of these
three till the others are here to see it."
Larry's last hope was gone. He had remembered Ripon's promise to
come after them if they had not returned quickly, and in the back of
his mind had been the thought that the doughty scientist might yet
accomplish a rescue in some way. Now that hope had vanished. He sighed,
and beside him Diana sagged visibly in her bonds.
"Guess it's the end," she said. "Good bye, Larry!"