"She says she will serve us always. She has been very badly treated, Alan."
We sent the woman away, and with a last hasty glance around hurriedly left the house alone with its single dead occupant. A large wooden mortar and pestle, used for pounding rice, stood in the kitchen. I carried the pestle away with me; it was nearly five feet long and quite heavy—an excellent weapon.
We hastened up through the city—Miela half walking, half flying, and I carrying this bludgeon and running with twelve‑foot strides. But it was now hardly more than three‑quarters of an hour since we had passed this way before, and there were still few people about to see us. Baar and his men had started some twenty minutes before us, I figured, and we must reach the castle before them.
I made extraordinary progress over the level country. But I could not run uphill for long, and soon had to slow down to a walk. Miela kept closer to me now. We approached the castle grounds.
"Where will the guards be, Miela? We must avoid them if we can. They might try to stop us."
Miela did not know where they would be; but under the circumstances, as Baar had told his men, she believed the guards would disappear from the vicinity. This conjecture proved to be correct. The guards, not wishing to be concerned in the affair at all, had simply disappeared. We saw nothing of Baar and his men on the way up the mountain, although I had hoped we might overtake them.
As we passed hurriedly through the palm gardens surrounding the castle I saw its huge front doors were closed.
"Miela, we can't get in that way. A side entrance—or some other way—"
"I know," she said. "There is a smaller door below, and others on the side."
We hastened on. Suddenly I gripped Miela by the arm.