Through the glaring room flickered a tiny red serpentine creature which the Duca hurled from a crystalline tube in his hand. As the minute snake struck Elana’s breast, she gave a choked cough, and then, as she half turned to smile at both Naida and Kirby over her shoulder, her eyes went blank, and she collapsed gently to the polished stones of the floor—dead.
A second later came squirming out from under her the ghastly, glimmering little snake which had struck.
Slowly, while every mortal in the room stood paralyzed, Kirby stepped forward and set his heel upon the writhing thing. When he raised his boot, the snake was only a blotch on the floor.
The Duca was standing as still as girls and caciques. The laughter with which he had started to greet what he had thought would be Kirby’s extermination had faded to a look of wonder—and fear. He was an easy mark.
Up to him Kirby rolled, and with all the force of soul and muscular body, drove his fist into the Duca’s face.
“By God,” he roared, “you want war, and you shall have it!”
The Duca was simply out—not dead. Since Kirby did not want him dead, he did not strike again, but swung back from the sprawled body, faced Naida, and pointed to the tower door.
“Up there!” he snapped. “Seize the tower. I have a reason!”
At the Duca’s crashing downfall, had come to the caciques a tension which made Kirby know they would not be dummy figures much longer. His eyes never left them.