As the hours, the days, dragged past, though, I bent all my mental efforts toward the keeping of my sanity, and though at times my brain reeled beneath our terrible predicament, I desperately forced my thoughts into other channels. From where I sat I could gaze out into the great corridor outside the room, and that at least gave me something moving to contemplate, as through it swept the never-ceasing hordes of the serpent-people, a rush of activity that dwindled never until the rising of the darkest of the three suns marked the coming of the night, the sleep-period of the serpent-people. The light of that darker sun was so far dimmer than that of the other two that as this world turned between the three one-third of each day was spent in a dusky red darkness, a strange night in which all activity in the vast serpent-city about us seemed to cease, only our room's two serpent-guards and some others here and there outside remaining alert, our two room-guards being replaced at the beginning of each night by two others who alternated with them in their duties.
It was these things alone, though, the coming of night and the changing of our guards, the cessation and recommencement of the activity in the corridor outside, the waning and waxing of the crimson light that fell through the great building's flickering blue vibration-walls, that alone marked for us the passage of time. Day was following day while we sat on there in living death, unmoving as stones, and I knew that with each day the great fleet of the serpent-creatures I had glimpsed in the clearing would be approaching nearer to completion, as would the colossal death-beam cone with which they meant to wipe out all the races of all the galaxy's worlds. And we, on whom had rested the one chance of our universe, had failed—we were prisoners. I could not believe that Jhul Din, with his two or three followers, had managed to get through the great vibration-wall about this universe and speed to the Andromeda universe for help. Our last hope was gone, and the last hope of our galaxy with it, prisoned as we were in the helpless flesh of our own bodies, from which there could be no escape, lacking even the power to destroy ourselves and end our endless torture.
The passing days became blurred and confused in my mind, as we sat on there, and I felt that my brain was beginning to give at last beneath the awful strain. Time still I could roughly measure, though, by the waning of activity in the corridor outside, by the darkening of the crimson light that slanted through the pale blue walls. I think that it was on the tenth day of our imprisonment that I watched that light darkening, as always, wondering for how many times I was to see it thus, for how many days, years, ages, we were to lie in this living death, in the serpent-creatures' museum. As I watched, the passing throngs in the corridor outside were thinning, disappearing, with the coming of the dusky night, and soon there was almost complete silence about us, only the low hissing of the two serpent-guards, near the room's door, as they conversed there, breaking the stillness. Then suddenly my brooding thoughts were broken into by sharp surprize as I glimpsed a big, stealthy shape that showed itself for a moment in the corridor outside, and then dodged swiftly back.
With a sudden flame of excitement leaping in me for the first time since our imprisonment, I gazed toward the door, eyes unmoving as always. A moment more and the dark, erect shape that I had glimpsed outside came slowly into view once more, peering around the door's edge at the two serpent-guards, who for the moment were turned away from it. Seeing this, the lurking shape came slowly into the room, through the door from the shadows of the corridor, and as it did so I saw it clearly, and well it was for me that I could not speak or surely I would have shouted aloud. For it was Jhul Din!
A great wave of hope flooded through my brain as I saw the big Spican move stealthily inside, a thick metal bar in his grasp, his eyes roving about the dusky-lit great room. Then, as they fell upon our own case, upon us sitting motionless, I saw him gasp. A moment he surveyed us, my eyes staring stonily straight into his own as we sat still rigid and unmoving, and then he had turned, was moving silently toward the two unsuspecting guards. Closer he crept toward them, while I watched in an agony of suspense, and then as he reached them, raised his great bar above his head, the two creatures, warned by some slight sound, whirled suddenly around and confronted him!
Instantly the death-tubes they held came up, but in the moment that they did so Jhul Din's bar had smashed down upon them in a great, crushing blow that laid both lifeless on the blue force-floor. Then the Spican sprang to our case, opening its side and lifting us out, seeking with rough restorative measures to revive us. Yet we lay as silent and rigid as ever, and I saw despair creep into his eyes, I could have shouted to him in my agony of mind had not my muscles been as far-severed from my brain's control as ever. Then the Spican raised from his fruitless efforts, gazed despairingly about, until his eyes fell upon the niche in the wall that held the tubes of red and green fluid. With a leap he was upon them, bringing them and the needle back toward us.
A moment he studied them, in doubt, then inserted the needle in the green fluid and pierced my forearm with it. I could have screamed to him his mistake had I had power of speech, for the green fluid injected into me had no effect upon me whatever, since I lay already beneath its force. Seeing this he swiftly made trial of the red fluid, injecting this in the same manner into my body, and then, as he gazed anxiously down upon my rigid figure, I felt a sudden warmth flooding through me, and for the first time in all those days became aware of my body, felt muscles and limbs moving in answer to my will's commands, felt heart and breathing starting after their long cessation. Then I was staggering up to my feet, the Spican's great arm about me, reeling upward with muscles utterly strange and cramped after those days of living death.
"Jhul Din!" I cried, my voice strange to my own ears after that time of speechlessness, and he gripped my arm reassuringly.
"Steady, Dur Nal," he said. "You're out of that now, and we'll win clear of this hellish city yet."