"How far is it from here to Shan?" Jim put in.
"Twenty Earth-miles perhaps," old Prytan stammered. "If Curtmann and his men should start now—"
"Maybe they won't," I said. "The storm is still going strong."
"Where is Venta?" Prytan stared helplessly about the room. "She said she would bring us food. What use of that? We have no time to eat it now." He suddenly raised his shaking old voice. "Venta. Venta, where are you?"
There was no answer from the nearby interior door-oval through which Venta had gone. Just blank, stark silence. Horror struck at me.
Jim and I were on our feet. Jim gasped, "I'll go see." But before he could move, we heard a woman's moan, followed again by silence!
Jim broke it with an oath. I tossed little Meeta into the air with a flip of my hand as I ran toward the crude kitchen, out there beyond the dim door-oval.
Thank God, it was not Venta. On the packed loam of the floor an old serving woman lay sprawled. Her throat was a ghastly welter of crimson, and near her a Midge lay dead.
The old woman was still alive. She tried faintly to gasp in English as I bent over her.
"He—took her—Venta—"