Front matter (continued 2)

"Of course," Pyatt of Kagan said absently, "Gold is one of the most common metals in Gral-Thala. Our problem is the matter of the radium salts. I happen to know that they are stored in small boxes made of ura-lead, in one of the government storehouses. It would be easier to steal some direct from the mines, but there is no time for that because of the question of proper packing and handling. We must risk everything on a bold attempt to raid the warehouses."

"Suits me," Larry said quietly. Just then Diana gripped him by the arm and jerked him back against the wall of the nearest building.

"Look there!" she hissed.

Another litter was passing along the cross street just ahead of them. This litter went in evident haste, with lackeys swinging whips to clear the path and the passenger bending forward to urge his bearers to greater haste. The man who rode in the litter was Xylon!

The four outlaws stared at each other in grim and ominous surprise. There had been no doubt of the identity of the man who had just passed within a few yards of them.

"But what does that mean?" Larry gasped.

"It means that I have been a fool!" Pyatt snarled. "Xylon is evidently no outlaw who came to the caverns to seek shelter, but a spy sent out by the Lords of Gral-Thala. Now I understand the reason for that revolt among the Insect-men! He must have stirred it up in an attempt to kidnap Diana here because of her hold over those simple creatures. Now the location of the Lost Caverns is at last known to the tyrants, and there will be an attack in force."

"And Xylon knows that we are here in Pandonaria!" Diana exclaimed.

"Which means that all our lives hang by a thread no heavier than a woman's hair! We must get under cover at once! Then we will send word back to the Caverns by secret radio, that they may prepare for an assault. After that we will plan an attempt on the radium salts."

The outlaws of the Lost Caverns had certain confederates within the city, and they now took refuge in the house of a small merchant who was a distant cousin of Pyatt. Larry watched as Pyatt and the merchant crouched over the sending set concealed in a small closet built in the thickness of one of the walls, the arkon-bulbs flashing as they sent the warning to Chotan to be spread to the other caverns. At last Pyatt straightened up.

"At least that is done," he said. "Now we will wait two hours, which will be the time of the Third Meal. There will be few people on the streets, and the warehouse guards will be drowsy, and we will have our best chance."

Pyatt and Colton had gone somewhere else in the house, and Larry sat with Diana in a small room whose windows looked out on the green fields beyond the city. The girl had loosened her blue veil so that it hung in soft folds about her chin.

"This is the first time in my life I have been anywhere but in the Caverns and on the waste-land," she said moodily. "This valley of Gral-Thala is a pleasant place."

"You would like Earth even better."

"I suppose I would. Will you take me back to that Earth of yours when you return, Larry?"

"Not until the Gray Death is overcome! I would not want to take any chance of it striking you down."

"Do you love me, Larry?" she asked, without either coquetry or embarrassment.

"I guess I do. Of course, we've only known each other for a few hours—but I guess I do."

"I am glad," she said simply.

The two hours passed, and Pyatt came striding back into the room. They had given him one of the ray-guns brought ashore from the Sky Maid, and he carried it thrust in his girdle close to his hand.

"It is time to go," he said. "We must make our attempt now, win or lose. Where is Colton?"

"I thought he was with you."

"Haven't seen him in two hours!"

A hasty search of the merchant's house and small grounds revealed no trace of the missing officer. Pyatt stood glowering blackly and pulling at his chin.

"I don't like it," he said. "Yet, if the soldiers had taken him, they would have come for us as well."

A different thought was running through Larry's mind, a grim and unpleasant suspicion. He was remembering Colton's past history ... his general sullenness ... the greed that he had shown throughout the entire expedition. He was also remembering that he had seen Colton in deep conversation with Xylon a few hours before they had left Chotan.

"I am afraid," he said bitterly, "that Colton has sold us out to Xylon and the Lords of Gral-Thala for promise of reward. We had better get out of this house right away, before...."

Larry never finished that sentence. There was a roaring crash, and the door was shattered by the impact of a pair of electronic bolts fired by the soldiers who had crept up to the house. Armored figures came pouring in the door! Others were at the back. Pyatt of Kagan, fighting furiously, went down under press of numbers. Larry managed to get his ray-gun up and fire one blast that crumpled a charging trooper in mid stride, but then half a dozen gripped him and the brief fight was over. They were taken!

XV

The hands of the three prisoners were tied behind their backs, and nooses were placed around their necks. Then they were dragged out into the street. The merchant was not taken prisoner at all, simply killed out of hand with the body left lying across his shattered threshold. A thin-lipped, hooked-nosed officer spat in Larry's face as he was led past the body of the dead merchant.

"Not for you will there be such an easy ending," he sneered. "An example is to be made. You will die before crowds, in the Plaza of the Four Virgins, and the process will be a slow one."

They were surrounded by a double rank of guards as they were led along by the nooses about their necks. All three had been stripped to a loin cloth, and the sun was scorching hot upon Larry's back and shoulders. At least, he thought thankfully, Diana's long black hair gave her some protection. There were jeers and hoots as they were led through the crowded streets, but most of them came from members of the tyrant class and from the few over-dressed and foppish Lunarians who aped their masters. The mass of the people gazed in stony and somehow sympathetic silence.

Into one of the tall white-and-gold palaces of the Lords of Gral-Thala they were taken, and down into stone-walled dungeons far underground. They were placed in a single cell. They stood with their backs against the walls, arms out-stretched and wrists lashed to rings set in the stone, able to move little more but their heads. Then, for a while, they were left alone.

"Well," said Larry with grim humor, "here we are."

"So it seems!" Pyatt's voice was rasping and bitter. "I am indeed a fool for ever having allowed Xylon to live in the Cavern of Chotan, in spite of the kind-hearted ruling of the Elders."

"What will they do with us?" Larry asked. Pyatt hesitated, licking his lips and glancing at Diana, but the girl answered for herself.

"We shall probably be skinned alive in the public square, dying slowly under the torture," she said. "It is the favorite punishment of the tyrants for those they particularly hate."

It was a day of triumph for the Lords of Gral-Thala. Xylon's triumphant return with the information that would lead to the wiping out of the always troublesome outlaws of the Lost Caverns, and the capture of the three prisoners, made it a holiday for the ruling class of the valley. They came in hundreds to see the three captives. The famous military leader of the outlaws ... the girl who was considered a goddess by the primitive Insect-men of the waste-land ... the the stranger from that distant Earth whence their own ancestors had fled. They came to throng the dungeon corridor and stare in at the trio of captives spread-eagled against the wall of the cell.

Larry watched them through the barred door. For hours on end there were always a few of them in the corridor, staring and jeering. Foppish men in white and gold with their curled hair laden with scent. Haughty and jewel-clad women whose sharp featured faces held even more cruelty than their male companions. Many were attended by Lunarian slave girls whose fettered hands held their trains up from the floor, and the bare backs of the slave girls were usually marked with the crossing red marks of whips. Larry knew, now, that the tales told in the Caverns about the cruelty of the Lords of Gral-Thala had not been exaggerated.

Xylon came to see them after a while, opening the cell door and walking in to stand sneering at them with his thumbs hooked in his jeweled girdle.

"Colton sold you out for the promise of wealth and a place in the ranks of our nobles," he said. "It will be a pleasure to watch you die." For a moment he walked over to stand in front of Diana who looked back at him with an expressionless face. "You are not a bad-looking wench. I can take you for one of my slaves if you wish to be agreeable."

"I would rather go with an Insect-man!" the girl said with calm scorn. Xylon shrugged and turned away.

"So be it. At that, it would be a pity to rob the crowd of the pleasure of watching you die."

As near as Larry could judge it, the equivalent of an Earthly day had passed before they were taken out of the cell. They were given an hour to ease their stiffened muscles. Then the guards bound their wrists before them, and by the trailing ends of the ropes led them out of the dungeons and through the streets to a broad open space just at the foot of the inclines that led down from the tunnel by which they had entered the city.

The Plaza of the Four Virgins, named from the four gigantic statues of polished stone that had been placed at its corners in some long ago day before the Invaders came, was a vast paved space in front of an ancient temple that was now used as a government building. In front of the temple a metal scaffold had been erected with two heavy uprights and a cross-piece. The rulers of Gral-Thala were sprawled in cushioned ease on the steps of the temple, well guarded by their troops, and the floor of the Plaza was filled with the common people of the city. These latter were present in great number, a silent and ominously sullen mass.

The three prisoners were stood in a row on the scaffold. Their hands were raised above their heads, and the ropes made fast to the cross-piece so that they were held tautly erect and motionless. Sharp laughter and occasional jests came from the nobles and their women clustered on the steps, but as Larry looked out over the crowd in the Plaza he saw faces that were grim and intent. The threat of the electronic rifles of the guards would keep the unarmed mob from trying to aid the prisoners, but there was no doubt where their sympathies lay.

Glancing up at the tyrants grouped on the temple steps, Larry suddenly saw Colton. The former second officer of the Sky Maid now wore the white and gold robes of a noble of Gral-Thala. Xylon kept his promises! Colton flushed uncomfortably when his glance met Larry's grim stare, quickly turning his eyes away. He looked uncomfortable and ill-at-ease. Larry glanced at him again a few minutes later and saw Colton staring at Diana's bound and motionless form with definite misery in his eyes.

One of the nobles stepped to the front and began to address the crowd. Shrill yells and catcalls drowned his words. The guards raged, but the men in the front ranks of the mob were discreetly silent and they could not reach or identify the culprits in the ranks behind. Many of the nobles were muttering nervously among themselves, showing definite signs of fear.

"There was never a scene like this in Pandonaria before!" Pyatt of Kagan exulted from where he was bound beside Larry. "We may die, but our death is likely to stir the people to such a pitch that the revolt will soon come!"

Xylon, for all his faults, was made of sterner stuff than most of his fellow nobles. He sneered down at the muttering crowd, then signed to the officer commanding the guards.

"Pay no attention to the dogs," he commanded sharply. "Give these three a taste of the whip before the flayers rip the skins from their bodies. Begin with the girl."

A heavy-featured man in a black tunic stepped up to Diana, pulling the lash of a heavy whip through his hands to test its suppleness. Before he could strike there came a sudden interruption. A small car had been speeding down the incline from the tunnel entrance and now a gilded officer of the invaders leaped out and came running across the Plaza.

"Great news, oh Xylon and nobles of Gral-Thala!" he shouted. "One of our patrols has captured a great force of outlaw warriors and their insect allies, who were moving in to raid our nearer caves. Some more Earthlings are with them!"

"Good, by Gorton!" exulted Xylon. "We will delay the execution of these three till the others are here to see it."

Larry's last hope was gone. He had remembered Ripon's promise to come after them if they had not returned quickly, and in the back of his mind had been the thought that the doughty scientist might yet accomplish a rescue in some way. Now that hope had vanished. He sighed, and beside him Diana sagged visibly in her bonds.

"Guess it's the end," she said. "Good bye, Larry!"

XVI

From where he stood on the scaffold, Larry could see a number of the big transport cars coming down the incline. They were crowded with prisoners and guards, and he caught the gleam of the hard brown shells of Insect-men. Once unloaded from the cars, they all formed up in columns and came quickly across the Plaza. Behind the front rank of guards Larry saw Ripon, and some of the men from the Sky Maid, and many whom he recognized as leaders among the Lunarians of the Lost Caverns.

It was all over now. The prisoners trudged along like beaten men, utterly disheartened although they were but thinly guarded. The nobles grouped on the temple steps were laughing loudly, all their nervousness of a moment ago gone before the reassurance of this victory. Then, as the prisoners were halted in the Plaza directly before the double line of soldiers that guarded the temple, an officer beside Xylon leaned forward to point down at the commander of the patrol that was bringing in the prisoners.

"That man wears the insignia of an Ensign of the first rank," he shouted, "but there is no such man in the ranks of our officers! There is treachery here!"

Before the man's words had died away, Crispin Gillingwater Ripon had whipped a ray-gun out from under his cloak and smashed the officer's chest into a charred pulp with the deadly blast of the rays.

In an instant the Plaza was a wild turmoil. The pretended prisoners drew their hidden weapons. Those who had been masquerading as guards, using the armor they had taken from the soldiers they surprised and overwhelmed when they stormed the tunnel entrance, threw the uniforms aside and charged into the fight. The rippling crashes of the electronic guns rang out again and again, the murky flashes of the Earth-men's death rays stabbed into the fray, and a clicking horde of Insect-men charged home with their spiked clubs swinging.

In an instant the Plaza was in a wild turmoil.... The rippling crashes of the electronic guns rang out again and again. The murky flashes of Earth-men's death rays stabbed into the fray, and a clicking horde of Insect-men charged home with spiked clubs swinging.

For the first few moments the fighting centered around the scaffold. Xylon led a charge of picked men down to seize and keep the three prisoners bound there, Ripon came storming through to effect a rescue. When the mélee was over, Larry and Pyatt were free and Xylon had retreated back to the temple steps, but Diana had disappeared.

"We got the rest of the crew from the Sky Maid and all the men we could collect at Chotan and crept up to the tunnel mouth," Ripon panted as he thrust a ray-gun into Larry's hand. "We took the guards by surprise and killed them before they could warn the valley behind."

It had been a daring raid, and at first its sheer audacity had carried it near to complete victory. Now the superior numbers of the guards were beginning to tell, and more of the troops of Gral-Thala came pounding up at the double. The crash of the electronic guns became a steady roar, and bodies were thickly strewn about the blood-smeared surface of the Plaza of the Four Virgins. Then, with a long-drawn and sullen shout, the mass of watching Lunarians flung themselves on the soldiery. Hundreds died, but the others tore the guards to pieces with their naked hands and then snatched up their weapons. The people of Gral-Thala had risen against their oppressors at last!

With the uprising of the people, the battle ceased to be a fight and became a massacre. The troops were selling their lives, as dearly as they could, but thousands more citizens carrying improvised weapons were pouring in from every street and the thing was only a matter of time. Then, in the rear of the panic stricken mass of nobles who were fleeing into the temple to make a last stand, while the vengeful pack bayed at their heels, Larry suddenly saw Xylon!

The tyrant was standing beside one of the great stone columns that supported the portico of the temple. He held the half naked body of Diana before him as a shield. The girl's hands were still tied and she could not pull away. A swarm of Insect-men, who were bounding up the temple steps, halted as they saw Xylon hold an electronic pistol to the head of their goddess.

"Keep back or she dies!" he shouted. "She is hostage for our safety!"

Larry lifted his ray-gun, and then lowered it again with a groan. He dared not shoot with Diana's struggling body in the way. Nor had he any doubt that Xylon would kill the girl without compunction if attacked. Xylon began to edge back toward the temple door. Larry still stood indecisive, the others seemed frozen in their places. Then another white-and-gold figure darted out from the temple behind Xylon. The renegade Colton twisted the gun from Xylon's hand!

The thing was over in an instant. Xylon released Diana and turned on Colton with an oath, and the girl instantly dropped to the ground. Steel flickered in the sunlight. Xylon drove a long knife home between Colton's ribs, but before he could dart away Larry's ready ray-gun struck him down with its blast. His quivering body rolled slowly down the steps till the Insect-men reached it and literally tore it into bloody bits.

XVII

The dying Colton was sinking fast. His face was gray as he looked up with a faint smile at the others who were grouped around him.

"I never was much good," he said faintly. "Guess it just wasn't in the blood. Gold always led me into twisted paths, and I couldn't resist Xylon's offer. But it did something to me when I saw the way those devils were going to torture the girl. Well—I guess I paid my debt at the end."

"You've paid it—and you'll live to go back to Earth with us," Larry said. Colton shook his head, his eyes glazing.

"Don't try to kid me. I'm cashing in my checks," he said—and died.

Now that it was all over, Larry felt very tired. He put one arm around Diana, and leaned back against the base of the column. There was still some intermittent fighting going on where mobs of vengeful Lunarians had cornered some of their oppressors, but the victory was won. Ripon looked about at the carnage with a satisfied smile and them sheathed his ray-gun.

"It was a good fight!" he said. "I haven't had as much fun since the time I wrecked a saloon in Port Mahon. Now, young feller, you just take care of the lady here while I take a squad and get the radium salts from the store-house."

"And the Sky Maid?" Larry asked.

"That sour-puss Masterson has been standing over the men with a ray-gun in one hand and my last jug of rum in the other ever since you left. All the repairs are finished. We start back to Earth as soon as we can get our cargo aboard."

"Then the people of your planet will be saved?" Diana asked.

"They will be saved. And as soon as the Gray Death is checked I'll come back for you. Then the Moon will have to get along without its Goddess for a while."

"I'll be waiting," she said.