Now I could see more, but not much more—only the dark interior of a room with a single small window through which the night light of Amtor showed dimly. Grasping the sword of the jong of Morov more tightly, I ascended the stairway and entered the room. I heard no sound.
The girls had followed me and now stood just behind me. I could hear them breathing. We stood waiting, listening. Slowly my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, and I made out what I thought was a door beside the single window. I crossed to it and felt; it was a door.
Cautiously I opened it and looked out into one of the sordid streets of Kormor. I peered about in an effort to orient myself and saw that the street was one of those that extended directly away from the palace which I could see looming darkly behind its wall at my right.
"Come!" I whispered, and with the girls behind me I stepped out into the street and turned to the left. "If we meet any one," I cautioned, "remember to walk like the dead, shuffle along as you will see me do. Keep your eyes on the ground; it is our eyes that will most surely betray us."
"Where are we going?" asked Duare in a whisper.
"I am going to try to find the house through which I came into the city," I replied; "but I don't know that I can do so."
"And if you can't?"
"Then we shall have to make an attempt to scale the city wall; but we shall find a way, Duare."
"What difference will it make?" she murmured, half to herself. "If we escape from here there will only be something else. I think I would rather be dead than go on any more."
The note of hopelessness in her voice was so unlike Duare that it shocked me. "You mustn't feel like that, Duare," I expostulated. "If we can get back to Havatoo you will be safe and happy, and I have a surprise there for you that will give you new hope." I was thinking of the plane in which we might hope to find Vepaja, the country that I could see she had about despaired of ever seeing again.