"Tell me, king, who guards the door?"
"Eighteen of the Red Slayers. But how come you, stealing through the gardens by night and scaling the walls of the palace?"
Brule sneered. "The guards of Valusia are blind buffaloes. I could steal their girls from under their noses. I stole amid them and they saw me not nor heard me. And the walls—I could scale them without the aid of vines. I have hunted tigers on the foggy beaches when the sharp east breezes blew the mist in from seaward and I have climbed the steeps of the western sea mountain. But come—nay, touch this armlet."
He held out his arm and, as Kull complied wonderingly, gave an apparent sigh of relief.
"So. Now throw off those kingly robes; for there are ahead of you this night such deeds as no Atlantean ever dreamed of."
Brule himself was clad only in a scanty loin-cloth through which was thrust a short, curved sword.
"And who are you to give me orders?" asked Kull, slightly resentful.
"Did not Ka-nu bid you follow me in all things?" asked the Pict irritably, his eyes flashing momentarily. "I have no love for you, lord, but for the moment I have put the thought of feuds from my mind. Do you likewise. But come."
Walking noiselessly, he led the way across the room to the door. A slide in the door allowed a view of the outer corridor, unseen from without, and the Pict bade Kull look.
"What see you?"