As I turned, two things happened: I heard again, faintly, the screams
of a woman; and my face struck the noose dangling from the dense
shadows of the rafters.
The screams made little impression upon me, but the noose gave birth to
a new thought--not the thought that it was placed there to arouse, but
another. It suggested an avenue of momentary escape from the snakes;
nor was I long in availing myself of it.
I felt the snout of the snake touch my bare leg as I sprang upward
and seized the rope above the noose; I heard a loud hiss of rage as I
clambered, hand over hand, toward the gloomy shadows where I hoped to
find at least temporary refuge.
The upper end of the rope was fastened to a metal eye-bolt set in a
great beam. Onto this beam I clambered and looked down. The mighty
serpent was hissing and writhing below me. He had raised a third of his
body upward and was endeavoring to coil about the dangling rope and
follow me upward, but it swung away and eluded his efforts.
I doubted that a snake of his great girth could ascend this relatively
tiny strand; but, not caring to take the chance, I drew the rope up and
looped it over the beam. For the moment, at least, I was safe, and I
breathed a deep sigh of relief. Then I looked about me.
The shadows were dense and almost impenetrable, yet it appeared that
the ceiling of the room was still far above me; about me was a maze of
beams and braces and trusses. I determined to explore this upper region
of the room of the seven doors.
Standing upright upon the beam, I moved cautiously toward the wall. At
the end of the beam I discovered a narrow walkway that, clinging to the
wall, apparently encircled the room. It was two feet wide and had no
handrail. It seemed to be something in the nature of a scaffolding left
by the workmen who had constructed the building.
As I took my exploratory way along it, feeling each step carefully and
brushing the wall with my hand, I again heard the agonized scream that
had twice before attracted my attention if not my keenest interest;
for I was still more interested in my troubles than in those of some
unknown female of this alien race.
And a moment later my fingers came in contact with something that drove
all thoughts of screaming women from my mind. By feel, it was the frame
of a door or of a window. With both hands I examined my find. Yes, it
was a door! It was a narrow door about six feet in height.
I felt the hinges; I searched for a latch--and at last I found it.
Cautiously I manipulated it and presently I felt the door move toward
me.
What lay beyond? Some new and fiendishly conceived form of death or
torture, perhaps; perhaps freedom. I could not know without opening
that portal of mystery.
I hesitated, but not for long. Slowly I drew the door toward me, an eye
close to the widening crack. A breath of night air blew in upon me; I
saw the faint luminosity of a Venusan night.
Could it be possible that with all their cunning the Thorists had
inadvertently left this avenue of escape from this lethal chamber? I
could scarcely credit it, yet there was naught that I could do but go
on and chance whatever lay beyond.
I opened the door and stepped out upon a balcony which extended in both
directions until it passed from the range of my vision beyond the curve
of the circular wall to which it clung.
At the outer edge of the balcony was a low parapet behind which I now
crouched while I reconnoitered my new situation. No new danger seemed
to threaten me, yet I was still suspicious. I moved cautiously forward
upon a tour of investigation, and again an agonized scream rent the
silence of the night. This time it seemed quite close; previously, the
walls of the building in which I had been imprisoned had muffled it.
* * * * *
I was already moving in the direction of the sound, and I continued to
do so. I was searching for an avenue of descent to the ground below,
not for a damsel in distress. I am afraid that at that moment I was
callous and selfish and far from chivalric; but, if the truth be known,
I would not have cared had I known that every inhabitant of Kapdor,
male and female, was being destroyed.
Rounding the curve of the tower, I came in sight of another building
standing but a few yards distant; and at the same instant I saw
something that greatly aroused my interest and even my hope. It was a
narrow causeway leading from the balcony on which I stood to a similar
balcony on the adjoining structure.
Simultaneously the screams were renewed; they seemed to be coming from
the interior of the building I had just discovered. It was not the
screams, however, that lured me across the causeway, but the hope that
I might find there the means of descent to the ground.
Crossing quickly to the other balcony, I followed it to the nearest
corner; and as I rounded it I saw a light apparently shining from
windows on a level with it.
At first I was of a mind to turn back lest, in passing the windows, I
be discovered; but once again that scream burst upon my ears, and this
time it was so close that I knew it must come from the apartment from
which the light shone.
There was such a note of hopelessness and fear in it that I could no
longer ignore the demand it made upon my sympathies; and, setting
discretion aside, I approached the window nearest me.
It was wide open, and in the room beyond I saw a woman in the clutches
of a man. The fellow was holding her down upon a couch and with a
sharp dagger was pricking her. Whether he had it in his mind to kill
her eventually or not was not apparent, his sole purpose at the moment
seeming to be torture.
The fellow's back was toward me, and his body hid the features of the
woman; but when he pricked her and she screamed, he laughed--a hideous,
gloating laugh. I guessed at once the psychopathic type he represented,
deriving pleasure from the infliction of pain upon the object of his
maniacal passion.
I saw him stoop to kiss her, and then she struck him in the face; and
as she did so he half turned his head to avoid the blow, revealing his
profile to me; and I saw that it was Moosko, the Ongyan.
He must have partially released his hold upon her as he shrank aside,
for the girl half rose from the couch in an effort to escape him. As
she did so her face was revealed to me, and my blood froze in rage and
horror. It was Duare!
* * * * *
With a single bound I cleared the sill and was upon him. Grasping him
by the shoulder, I whirled him about; and when he saw my face he
voiced a cry of terror and shrank back, drawing his pistol from its
holster. Instantly I closed with him, grasping the weapon and turning
its muzzle toward the ceiling. He toppled backward across the couch,
carrying me with him, both of us falling on top of Duare.
Moosko had dropped his dagger as he reached for his pistol, and now I
tore the latter from his grasp and hurled it aside; then my fingers
sought his throat.
He was a large, gross man, not without strength; and the fear of
death seemed to increase the might of his muscles. He fought with the
desperation of the doomed.
I dragged him from the couch, lest Duare be injured, and we rolled upon
the floor, each intent upon winning a death hold upon the other. He was
screaming for help now, and I redoubled my efforts to shut off his wind
before his cries attracted the aid of any of his fellows.
He was snapping at me like a savage beast as he screamed, alternately
striking at my face and seeking to close upon my throat. I was
exhausted from all that I had passed through and from loss of sleep and
lack of food. I realized that I was weakening rapidly, while Moosko
seemed to my frenzied imagination to be growing stronger.
I knew that if I were not to be vanquished and Duare lost, I must
overcome my antagonist without further loss of time; and so, drawing
away from him to get greater distance for a blow, I drove my fist full
into his face with all my remaining strength.
For an instant he wilted, and in that instant my fingers closed upon
his throat. He struggled and writhed and struck me terrific blows; but,
dizzy and half stunned though I was, I clung to him until at last he
shuddered convulsively, relaxed, and sank to the floor.
If ever a man were dead, Moosko appeared so as I arose and faced Duare,
who, half sitting, had crouched upon the cot where she had been a
silent witness to this brief duel for possession of her.
"You!" she cried. "It cannot be!"
"It is," I assured her.
Slowly she arose from the couch as I approached it and stood facing me
as I opened my arms to press her to me. She took a step forward; her
hands went up; then she stopped in confusion.
"No!" she cried. "It is all a mistake."
"But you told me that you loved me, and you know that I love you," I
said, bewildered.
"That is the mistake," she said. "I do not love you. Fear, gratitude,
sympathy, nerves distraught by all that I had passed through, brought
strange words to my lips that I might not--not have meant."
I felt suddenly cold and weary and forlorn. All hope of happiness was
crushed in my breast. I turned away from her. I no longer cared what
happened to me. But only for an instant did this mood possess me. No
matter whether she loved me or not, my duty remained plain before me; I
must get her out of Kapdor, out of the clutches of the Thorists and, if
possible, return her to her father, Mintep, king of Vepaja.
I stepped to the window and listened. Moosko's cries had not attracted
succor in so far as I could perceive; no one seemed to be coming. And
if they had not come in response to Duare's screams, why should they be
attracted by Moosko's? I realized that there was now little likelihood
that any one would investigate.
I returned to the body of Moosko and removed his harness to which was
attached a sword that he had had no opportunity to draw against me;
then I retrieved his dagger and pistol. I now felt much better, far
more efficient. It is strange what the possession of weapons will do
even for one not accustomed to bearing them, and until I had come to
Venus I had seldom if ever carried a lethal weapon.
* * * * *
I took the time now to investigate the room, on the chance that it
might contain something else of use or value to us in our bid for
liberty. It was a rather large room. An attempt had been made to
furnish it ornately, but the result was a monument to bad taste. It was
atrocious.
At one end, however, was something that attracted my keenest interest
and unqualified approval; it was a table laden with food.
I turned to Duare. "I am going to try to take you away from Noobol," I
told her. "I shall try also to return you to Vepaja. I may not succeed,
but I shall do my best. Will you trust me and come with me?"
"How can you doubt it?" she replied. "If you succeed in returning me to
Vepaja you will be well repaid by the honors and rewards that will be
heaped upon you if my wishes prevail."
That speech angered me, and I turned upon her with bitter words on my
lips; but I did not utter them. What was the use? I once more focused
my attention upon the table. "What I started to say," I continued, "is
that I shall try to save you, but I can't do it on an empty stomach. I
am going to eat before we leave this room. Do you care to join me?"
"We shall need strength," she replied. "I am not hungry, but it is
wiser that we both eat. Moosko ordered the food for me, but I could not
eat it while he was present."
I turned away and approached the table where she joined me presently,
and we ate in silence.
I was curious to know how Duare had come to the Thorist city of Kapdor,
but her cruel and incomprehensible treatment of me made me hesitate
to evince any further interest in her. Yet presently I realized how
childish was my attitude--how foolish it was of me not to realize that
the strictness and seclusion of her previous life probably accounted
for her frightened and distant manner now--and I asked her to tell me
all that had happened since I had dispatched the angan with her toward
the Sofal and the moment that I had discovered her in the clutches of
Moosko.
"There is not much to tell," she replied. "You will recall how fearful
the angan was of returning to the ship lest he be punished for the
part he had taken in my abduction? They are very low creatures, with
illy developed minds that react only to the most primitive forces of
nature--self preservation, hunger, fear.
"When we were almost above the deck of the Sofal, the angan hesitated
and then turned back toward the shore. I asked him what he was doing,
why he did not continue on and place me aboard the ship; and he replied
that he was afraid. He said they would kill him because he had helped
to steal me.
"I promised him that I would protect him and that no harm would befall
him, but he would not believe me. He replied that the Thorists, who had
been his original masters, would reward him if he brought me back to
them. That much he knew, but he had only my word that Kamlot would not
have him killed. He doubted my authority with Kamlot.
"I pleaded and threatened but all to no purpose. The creature flew
directly to this hideous city and delivered me to the Thorists. When
Moosko learned that I had been brought here he exercised his authority
and claimed me as his own. The rest you know."
"And now," I said, "we must find a way out of Kapdor and back to the
coast. Perhaps the Sofal has not departed. It is possible that Kamlot
has landed a party to search for us."
"It will not be easy to escape from Kapdor," Duare reminded me. "As the
angan brought me here, I saw high walls and hundreds of sentries. There
is not much hope for us."