Nearer it came, and yet nearer. My throat was parched, and I shut fast my lips lest a womanish shriek shame me forever.
At last it reached my resting-place, stood upright, and craftily touched my shackled hands and feet.
Then the Thing, half beast and half human, bent over me, and its teeth met in the flesh of my right arm.
The vengeance of Agno, High Priest of Edba and of Hed, had fallen. The whole sickening knowledge pulsed through my soul, even as the agony of my wound racked my spent body.
My doom was sealed.
I was to be eaten alive by the Mad Man of the Moon, that the gods of the people of the Walled City might be avenged.
Suddenly the Thing let go its hold and raised its shaggy head, and I noted, even in the stupor of horror that had come upon me, that it was listening.
Then a man stepped out from the thorny hedge into the cleared circle—a man naked and quite unarmed.
I saw, as in a dream, the breadth of his massive shoulders, and that he was mighty above his fellows, and as I looked, the truth came to me, and I knew that this was Zobo, the commander of the bodyguard of Lah, the Queen.