Somewhere above me lay Dejah Thoris, and with her were Phaidor,
daughter of Matai Shang, and Thuvia of Ptarth. But how to reach them,
now that I had found the only vulnerable spot in their mighty prison,
was still a baffling riddle.
Slowly I circled the great shaft, looking for a means of ingress. Part
way around I found a tiny radium flash torch, and as I examined it in
mild curiosity as to its presence there in this almost inaccessible and
unknown spot, I came suddenly upon the insignia of the house of Thurid
jewel-inset in its metal case.
I am upon the right trail, I thought, as I slipped the bauble into the
pocket-pouch which hung from my harness. Then I continued my search for
the entrance, which I knew must be somewhere about; nor had I long to
search, for almost immediately thereafter I came upon a small door so
cunningly inlaid in the shaft’s base that it might have passed
unnoticed by a less keen or careful observer.
There was the door that would lead me within the prison, but where was
the means to open it? No button or lock were visible. Again and again I
went carefully over every square inch of its surface, but the most that
I could find was a tiny pinhole a little above and to the right of the
door’s center—a pinhole that seemed only an accident of manufacture or
an imperfection of material.
Into this minute aperture I attempted to peer, but whether it was but a
fraction of an inch deep or passed completely through the door I could
not tell—at least no light showed beyond it. I put my ear to it next
and listened, but again my efforts brought negligible results.
During these experiments Woola had been standing at my side gazing
intently at the door, and as my glance fell upon him it occurred to me
to test the correctness of my hypothesis, that this portal had been the
means of ingress to the temple used by Thurid, the black dator, and
Matai Shang, Father of Therns.
Turning away abruptly, I called to him to follow me. For a moment he
hesitated, and then leaped after me, whining and tugging at my harness
to draw me back. I walked on, however, some distance from the door
before I let him have his way, that I might see precisely what he would
do. Then I permitted him to lead me wherever he would.
Straight back to that baffling portal he dragged me, again taking up
his position facing the blank stone, gazing straight at its shining
surface. For an hour I worked to solve the mystery of the combination
that would open the way before me.
Carefully I recalled every circumstance of my pursuit of Thurid, and my
conclusion was identical with my original belief—that Thurid had come
this way without other assistance than his own knowledge and passed
through the door that barred my progress, unaided from within. But how
had he accomplished it?
I recalled the incident of the Chamber of Mystery in the Golden Cliffs
that time I had freed Thuvia of Ptarth from the dungeon of the therns,
and she had taken a slender, needle-like key from the keyring of her
dead jailer to open the door leading back into the Chamber of Mystery
where Tars Tarkas fought for his life with the great banths. Such a
tiny keyhole as now defied me had opened the way to the intricate lock
in that other door.
Hastily I dumped the contents of my pocket-pouch upon the ground before
me. Could I but find a slender bit of steel I might yet fashion a key
that would give me ingress to the temple prison.
As I examined the heterogeneous collection of odds and ends that is
always to be found in the pocket-pouch of a Martian warrior my hand
fell upon the emblazoned radium flash torch of the black dator.
As I was about to lay the thing aside as of no value in my present
predicament my eyes chanced upon a few strange characters roughly and
freshly scratched upon the soft gold of the case.
Casual curiosity prompted me to decipher them, but what I read carried
no immediate meaning to my mind. There were three sets of characters,
one below another: