"We found these two rebels skulking about the laboratory, Master. We brought them that you might put them to the question."
"Take them away!" fumed Harg. "I have no time for them now. Destroy them as a lesson to all rebels."
"But, Master, they may know—"
Harg, thoroughly enraged now, stamped his foot in sheer spite. "Destroy them, I told you! Cast them outside the dome!"
Larry and Sandra looked at each other in swift relief. They had seen, if Harg had not, the quick recognition in the captives' eyes as they entered the room; had feared that under the questioning their part in the rebellion would be learned. Then all, indeed, would have been in vain. It was unfortunate that two Underlings must die, but it was better that two should perish than that a plan should fail.
"Well, get along!" Harg told the guards. "Throw them through the Ground Gate—No, wait a minute!" He glared malevolently at Larry. "Take this savage with you; let him behold the agony of their destruction. It will teach him that one does not safely taunt Harg-Ofortu! The woman stays with me."
Sandra's glance stayed Larry's movement. Her lips moved silently but he caught their message. He allowed the guards to lead him, with the two captives, out of the room and down one of the interminable passages of the labyrinth.
Even here he continued to count turnings, memorize passages, so that he might know his way back to the laboratory and—more important still—to the dome control turret. They walked in silence, coming at last to the huge, doubly barred and intricately locked door which was deepset in the impervite perimeter of the Dome.
Here, for the first time, the proud hauteur of the captive Underlings broke. Until this time they had maintained their courage; now, as one guard disengaged the locks, a glazed look of fear crept into their eyes. The great door swung open, a tendril of outside air, chill and thin as hoar frost, stirred the fusty atmosphere of the labyrinth. And one of the captives cried out desperately, fell to his knees groveling, pleading, pawing at the guard's spindling shanks with futile hands.
"Down, slave!" came the guard's contemptuous command. But it was not his words that salvaged the blubbering Underling. It was the other Underling who stepped to his comrade's side, laid a firm hand on his shoulder. And—