Kantar began thumping on the floor with the palm of his hand and shouting that he was being killed, the expression on the guard’s face grew serious, and he quickly opened the door.
Scarcely had he stepped inside when Grandon sprang. Seizing him from behind with a strangle hold, he jerked the guard backward, shutting off his wind. At the same time, Kantar stood up and quietly deprived him of his weapons.
“Close the door, Kantar, until we talk to this fellow,” said Grandon.
“Now,” said the Earth-man, when the gunner had complied, “we want to know where her Majesty of Reabon is imprisoned. If you go with us quietly and show us the place, you will live. If not, you will die. Nod your head if you agree.”
The guard, whose voice was completely shut off, nodded weakly, and Grandon loosened the hold on his throat, permitting him to breathe once more.
“Give me the scarbo, Kantar,” said Grandon, “and retain the tork and knife for yourself. Keep a good hold on the fellow’s harness, and do not hesitate to use your knife if he makes one move to betray us.”
“In such an event I will use it with great pleasure, Majesty,” said Kantar grimly.
Carefully opening the door, Grandon peered out. There was no one in the hallway.
“Where is the other guard?” he asked their captive.
“He patrols the forward corridor, Majesty,” replied the guard respectfully. “It is connected with this one by two smaller corridors that branch around the central hatchway. He does not come into this corridor except at my call.”
“Good. Then lead us to the Princess by the safest route. And remember, if we are discovered through fault of yours, you die.”
Thus admonished, the thoroughly cowed guard led them to a ladder which descended into the corridor from the side, and with Kantar gripping his harness with one hand and his keen knife with the other, softly ascended. They came on deck near the stern and quietly made their way forward, keeping in the shadow of the cabins in order not to be observed by the lookout at the masthead.
They had covered about half the distance to the forward cabin for which they were headed, when Grandon suddenly noticed a short, thick-set individual who had apparently just emerged from one of the cabins, carrying a bundle in his arms and hurrying toward one of the four small boats slung on this side of the craft.
After placing the bundle, which was nearly as long as himself, in the boat, the fellow, whom Grandon now recognized as San Thoy, climbed in himself and rapidly lowered the little craft to the water by means of the two ropes which passed through pulleys suspended on davits. He and his two companions flattened themselves against the cabin wall until the small boat had disappeared from view over the rail—then went forward once more.
Presently their conductor stopped before a door and whispered:
“This is her cabin.”
While Kantar watched their guide, Grandon tried the cabin door, and finding it unlocked, stepped inside. By the rays of the tiny overhead light which illuminated the little room, he could see at a glance that it was deserted. His brow clouded, and it would have gone ill with the yellow man who had led him to this cabin had he not noticed something on the floor which glinted in the light. He picked it up, and recognized it instantly as one of the jewels from Vernia’s coiffure.
Stepping out of the cabin once more, he seize the guard’s shoulder in a grip of iron.
“She is not here,” he said, sternly, and raised his scarbo as if he were about to lay the fellow’s head open.
“Spare me, Majesty,” implored the yellow man. “This was her cabin. I swear it.”
“Then how do you explain her absence: Speak quickly if you would live?”
“I see it all, Majesty,” said the guard suddenly. “We are too late!”
“Too late? What do you mean?”
“Your Majesty saw San Thoy with the bundle—San Thoy the debauched —who spends all his earnings for beautiful slave girls. He would dare much to possess the most beautiful woman of Zorovia.”
“Then we will follow San Thoy,” said Grandon, “and you will go with us. Perhaps you can give us an idea where he has gone. To the nearest boat, Kantar, and use your tork if the lookout sees us.”
“He will not see us, Majesty,” said the guard. “Of that I am sure, as San Thoy must have seen to it that he is either drugged or dead—probably the latter.”
True to the prediction of the yellow guard, there was no alarm from the masthead, nor from any other part of the ship as they lowered the boat to the water and cast off. It was equipped with a small sail, which they raised as soon as the fleet was far enough away to make it improbable that it would be observed.
“Now,” said Grandon, “which way do you think San Thoy sailed?”
“I can not be sure,” replied the guard, “But the nearest land is the Island of the Valkars. It has a small cove, accessible in a small boat, where the Huitsenni often stop for fresh water, and where hey have erected a small but strong shelter into which they may retire if surprised by a large force of the terrible inhabitants of the place. It may be that he has gone to this shelter for the night, intending to embark for some safer place tomorrow.”
“Can you guide us to it?”
“I can but try, Majesty. I am no navigator like San Thoy, who can probably win safely across the shoals into the cove without even the aid of a light. But the island is a large one, and I know the general direction. If I steer properly we should reach some part of its rugged coast in a short time.”
“Then,” said Kantar, grimly, “see that you steer properly if you would live to see tomorrow’s light.”
The mast lights of the fleet were twinkling faintly in the distance as the yellow man took the tiller, and swinging it around set his course. After taking the precaution of securing his prisoner’s ankles with a piece of rope, Kantar sat down a short distance ahead of him and managed to sail, while Grandon kept watch in the front of the craft.
They had not traveled far before the boom of breakers sounded ahead.
“There is the Island of the Valkars,” said the prisoner, “But I know not how to find the cove. If we should try to land anywhere else we would be almost certain either to be dashed to pieces on the rugged shore or sunk by the jagged teeth of one of the many hidden reefs which circle the island. If we do land in safety, we may be set upon in the darkness by the Valkars, and carried away to be devoured.”
“What are these Valkars?” asked Grandon.
“I, who have sailed every ocean of Zorovia, have never seen creatures more horrible.” said the yellow man. Endowed with human intelligence, they manufacture and use weapons and implements of metal, yet they are not human, nor even mammalian. They are amphibians. Twice we fought them off when we landed for water. I was a member of the landing party. Although we outnumbered them each time, we lost several men in each engagement. Some were torn to pieces and devoured before our eyes. Others of our slain and wounded were carried away.
“But that was not all. After our ship had left the island following the first engagement with the Valkars, those of our men who had been stabbed, cut, bitten, or scratched in the battle, though ever so slightly, began dying horrible deaths. Our mojak, who was wiser than most, had one of our Valkar prisoners slain, and according to an ancient custom, ordered every man who had received so much as a scratch to either drink a drop of its blood or eat a mouthful of its flesh. The men who complied with this order in time lived, but we did not know the reason until later.
“We took two captured Valkars to Huitsen, where they were examined by our most learned scientists. They found that these creatures secrete a venom from glands in their mouths, and before going into battle, smear their weapons and claws with it. In their blood, however, is a substance, a small quantity of which counteracts the effect of