set his jaw. Well, he would have to take a little more pelting, but he could shield the girl from that with his body. Until then he had not dared approach her too closely, even to defend her from the antennae. The hail of pitched rocks would have killed her as surely as the mouths of the plants themselves.
Winchester ran back to where the girl lay. One of the feelers had located her and was taking a turn around her waist. He chopped it in two with a single stroke of the ax, yanked the disgusting tip from about the girl's waist and flung it from him.
Disregarding the other feeler altogether, he picked the girl up bodily and started away, dreading each step, lest the pounding he was receiving on the back of the head and shoulder blades should cause him to stumble and fall at any moment.
Winchester and his burden were almost clear when he heard a great shouting. There followed the sound of thunder-guns, spitting out the bolts of artificial lightning to which the American had treated the guard in the corridor of Central Receiving Station.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw soldiers running and the flame of the guns. And he also saw the greasy clouds of smoke that spurted up when a phygrix went into extinction. His blood curdled at the unexpected shrieks those hideous plants uttered in the moment of their death.
Panting from exhaustion and weary to the point of fainting, Winchester paused and shifted his burden. He eased the position of her drooping head in the hollow of his arm. The girl opened her eyes dreamily and looked up at him. She was as oriental as Scheherezade or the infamous Tse Hsi!
Guards and officers appeared all around. There was a swish of yellow and Prince Lohan stepped forward extending his arms. Without a word Winchester yielded up his burden. Then, silently and slowly, he stripped himself of his padded coat and cast aside the heavy helmet.
He stood there facing the dreaded Lohan, face to face and eye to eye. A captain of the guard stepped back, a look of horror on his face. Here was disgrace piled on danger! A princess of the royal blood had been touched by a miserable convict!
CHAPTER X
Ray of Hope
"Stay!" cried Prince Lohan, with an imperious wave of his hand.
The captain of the guard, who had just rushed up with additional men dragging the bouncing rickshas behind them, lowered the muzzle of the gun with which he had been on the point of blasting down the insolent slave.
"I know this man of old," Prince Lohan said, "and would speak privately with him. Here, take the woman back to the car and have the maidservants dress her wounds. Go."
The officer bowed submissively and turned to do as he was told. He flicked a finger, and the other soldiers present backed away to a distance beyond earshot. Prince Lohan waited with impatience until the things he had ordered had been done.
"You were he," he said presently, looking intently into Winchester's eyes, "who was found wandering, unbranded, on the north lawn of my Alpine estate."
Winchester acknowledged it by a flicker of the eyelid and an almost imperceptible nod. Now that a second interview with his tormentor had come about, he was resolved to display no weakness or uncertainty. He would not kneel or bow or beg servile favors.
"Ah," said Lohan quietly, as if reading his mood at a glance. "So be it."
He paused for a moment, studying the man before him. Then, as if speaking of the most matter-of-fact things, he went on. If he noticed the slight start of surprise caused by his first few words, he gave no sign.
"It was said to you only this morning, I believe, that Slant-eye never forgets nor forgives. That is a true saying. I do neither. Though you have on several occasions assaulted my men, and killed at least one of them, today you have rendered me a service that will not be forgotten.
"You may be surprised that I have followed your career so closely. But I assure you there is little you have said or done which has not been recorded and duly reported to me. That is because I am much interested in your case.
"It is a rare one. Your tale was so incredible that the judge who examined you chose to believe the villagers instead, though they obviously lied. Upon reviewing the findings, I demoted him for his error and decapitated them for theirs. The severity of your own punishment has been diminished."
Winchester's face muscles throbbed.
"The reason I am able to accept your strange story is that, being a wearer of the royal yellow, I had access to the secret library in the Khanate. When his Potent Highness the Khan, son and successor to the Sacred Ghengiz, burned all the books in the world, he saved some of those dealing with history for his own enlightenment and pleasure.
"I find in some of them that there was such a place as Munich, and that such a war as you spoke of was fought. Furthermore, from the few bits of information we could glean from the mate you brought with you — "
For all his rigid determination, Winchester could not repress a second twitch at these words. Mate? What had Cynthia told them? What had they done with her? The momentary knitting of his brows did not go unremarked.
"Ah," said the prince, "you wonder about her. I keep forgetting that in the barbarous age in which you lived, not only was the impractical doctrine of democracy still alive, but the far sillier one of chivalry."
"Today you have benefited from it," said Winchester stiffly.
Prince Lohan gasped. It was the first time in his life he had been interrupted. His hand instinctively stole to his belt, where as a growing boy he had worn a whip to chastise the insolent. But he seemed suddenly to make allowances for the ancient age from which the man facing him had come.
"Let it pass," said Lohan coldly. "Suffice it that the woman who came with you is well and unharmed, though — let us say, not as comfortable as she might be. Her eventual disposition will depend to some extent on you."
"On me!" cried Winchester, with a short, bitter laugh. "What have I to do with it?"
Prince Lohan's eyes flared again. This convict emigrant from the far past was trying his patience to the uttermost, and patience was a virtue no Mongoloid had ever had need to cultivate. Yet he must have remembered that it was wily patience and persistent guile that had placed his kind in control. Once more he swallowed his rising anger.
"You have much to do with it. There is a place for you in this world, if you choose to occupy it. In spite of your antiquated notions, you have something in common with us. You fight for what you want; you do not submit tamely, as these other rabbits do. That is quite just and proper, for all good things rightly belong to the strong.
"But heretofore you have made the error of fighting those who are stronger. If you would combine discretion with your determination and resourcefulness, you will go far."
"Meaning," said Winchester slowly, "that if I play along, I can expect a few crumbs from the table?"
"You put it crudely," said Prince Lohan haughtily, "but that is the essence of it. The rewards, however, may be larger than you think."
Winchester was silent. It was a tempting proposition. Though Lohan had not troubled to conceal the hand of steel beneath the offered glove, his words had been vague and non-committal. He had not asked him to be a traitor to his own; only to cease resisting the lords and their minions.
"I'll try," said Winchester finally. "I'll try anything once."
"Good," said Lohan. He turned abruptly and stalked away.
Winchester stooped to pick up the discarded helmet and cloak. But the ring of soldiers in the distance closed in with angry shouts.
"Drop them!" screamed an officer, running up with drawn flame-gun. He bathed the objects in dazzling fire. The fabric went up in a single puff; the metal parts spewed green fire and subsided into shapeless blobs of blue scale.
"Know,