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When the reat spider-like creature, which she i to attack only to be met by powerful chelae which seized and held her so that she could not ed her throat toward a hideous ht have re time, since there was ample food for many days; but he did not do so Instead he explored the burrows He followed them into many subterranean chah walls to rooeniously devised traps, and he found poisoned food and other signs of the constant battle that the inhabitants of Manator waged against these repulsive creatures that dwelt beneath their hos

His exploration revealed not only the vast proportions of the network of runways that apparently traversed every portion of the city, but the great antiquity of the majority of them Tons upon tons of dirtti doard a tunnel of great size and length he sensed before him the thunderous rush of subterranean waters, and presently ca onward, no doubt, the length of a world to the buried sea of Oenerations of ulsios pushed their few handsful of dirt in the excavating of their vast labyrinth

For only a ly ais were in reality proor and singleness of design He followed such runways as appeared to terminate in the pits or other chambers of the inhabitants of the city, and these he explored, usually from the safety of a burrow's ht was not there He s and covered remarkable distances in short periods of ti rewarded with immediate success, he decided to return to the pit where his rykor lay chained and look to its wants As he approached the end of the burrow that ter just within the entrance of the runway that heit As he did so he saw the figure of a warrior appear suddenly in an opposite doorway The rykor sprawled upon the table, his hands groping blindly for aze in sudden astonisho wide and an ashen hue replace the copper bronze of his cheek He stepped back as though someone had struck him in the face For an instant only he stood thus as in a paralysis of fear, then he uttered a sain was it a catastrophe that Ghek, the kaldane, could not smile