When she regained consciousness, Jean found herself under an archway in the court below. The great square was jammed with howling Martians. A long red carpet stretched from the archway to the platform in the center of the square. The sting of a sharp odor in her nostrils told Jean how she had been revived.
A priest on either side now supported her. They moved forward from the building toward the platform. Evidently, she could either walk or be dragged. She preferred to walk. She raised her head high and matched the priests step for step.
The crowd pressed close to the red carpet on either side. Unbroken lines of guards held the Martians back. To Jean, they seemed things out of a nightmare.
They reached the steps leading up to the platform. Five steps. She counted them as she ascended.
The marble block.
The priests laid her along its length. The golden manacles were removed. Each priest took an arm and held her to the slab with the tall masked figure raising his knife and looking down at her. The knife arched.
Then, halfway in its descent toward her bared breast, it stopped. The masked figure looked upward toward the high wall of the building. He shrank backward—pointed with the knife as he cringed away.
A dramatic gesture that turned every eye in the square toward a small balcony high on the wall. A cry went up. A single word.
"Fanton!"
The true Lord of the Northern Hemisphere stood with his arms out-stretched imperiously over the crowd below. He held this position until the roaring died away and a whisper could have been heard in the great square. Then he spoke.