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Quickly entering the room he crawled to the table top and affixed himself to the shoulders of his rykor, and there he waited; and who h he could not smile, possessed not a sense of humor? For a half-hour he sat there, and then there ca corridors of stone He could hear their arainst the rocky walls and he knew that they came at a rapid pace; but just before they reached the entrance to his prison they paused and advanced more slowly In the lead was an officer, and just behind him, wide-eyed and perhaps still a little ashen, the warrior who had so recently departed in haste At the doorway they halted and the officer turned sternly upon the warrior With upraised finger he pointed at Ghek

"There sits the creature! Didst thou dare lie, then, to thy dwar?"

"I swear," cried the warrior, "that I spoke the truth But a roveled, headless, upon this very table! And may my first ancestor strike me dead upon the spot if I speak other than a true word!"

The officer looked puzzled The men of Mars seldom if ever lie He scratched his head Then he addressed Ghek "How long have you been here?" he asked

"Who knows better than those who placed me here and chained me to a wall?" he returned in reply

"Saw you this warrior enter here a few minutes since?"

"I saw him," replied Ghek

"And you sat there where you sit now?" continued the officer

"Look thou to ht I sit!" cried Ghek "Art the people of thy city all fools?"

Three other warriors pressed behind the two in front, craning their necks to view the prisoner while they grinned at the discomfiture of their fellow The officer scowled at Ghek

"Thy tongue is as venomous as that of the she-banth O-Tar sent to The Towers of Jetan," he said

"You speak of the young woman as captured with me?" asked Ghek, his expressionless ht of the interest he felt

"I speak of her," replied the dwar, and then turning to the warrior who had summoned hiames Perhaps by that time thy eyes may have learned not to deceive thee"

The fellow cast a venolance at Ghek and turned away The officer shook his head "I do not understand it," he muttered "Always has U-Van been a true and dependable warrior Could it be-?" he glanced piercingly at Ghek "Thou hast a strange head that ends tell us of those ancient creatures that placed hallucinations upon the mind of their fellows If thou be such then maybe U-Van suffered from thy forbidden powers If thou be such O-Tar will knoell how to deal with thee" He wheeled about and motioned his warriors to follow him