And cautiously they crept through the doorway into the first of a series of connecting chambers which comprised the inner sanctum of Lanka's regent.
All the great courts lay silent. From afar, as if muted by granite blankets, still fitfully came to them the sound of distant fighting. But no footstep, no voice, marred the quiet of this refuge—No!—There was the murmur of voices! Ramey gripped his comrade's arm, whispered:
"In there! It sounds like—"
Lake nodded, eyes glinting. "Yes! Sheila!"
Feverishly, they crossed the last open space to the doorway beyond which they had heard the girl's voice. Revolvers drawn and ready, they inched open this ultimate barrier. As they did so, the faintly-heard drone turned into speech. Ringing defiance in Sheila's sweet, familiar tones.
"No! If I were the last Earth woman left alive and your brother the last male of a thousand worlds, still would my answer be the same! I want no part of Lord Ravana!"
Came the voice of another, a slow, throbbing voice Ramey Winters knew only too well. It was a voice which at once cajoled and taunted.
"Because there is—another, O Lady Sheilacita?"
"Perhaps."
"But if this one were to turn away from thee, and seek his pleasure in another? Say, for example—" In his mind's eye Ramey, though those who spoke were still invisible to him because of a heavy arras veiling the half-open doorway, could envision the languorous lids of the Lady Rakshasi drooping with heavy suggestion—"for example, myself? Then would your faithfulness waver?"