Chapter XV

The hands of the three prisoners were tied behind their backs, and nooses were placed around their necks. Then they were dragged out into the street. The merchant was not taken prisoner at all, simply killed out of hand with the body left lying across his shattered threshold. A thin-lipped, hooked-nosed officer spat in Larry's face as he was led past the body of the dead merchant.

"Not for you will there be such an easy ending," he sneered. "An example is to be made. You will die before crowds, in the Plaza of the Four Virgins, and the process will be a slow one."

They were surrounded by a double rank of guards as they were led along by the nooses about their necks. All three had been stripped to a loin cloth, and the sun was scorching hot upon Larry's back and shoulders. At least, he thought thankfully, Diana's long black hair gave her some protection. There were jeers and hoots as they were led through the crowded streets, but most of them came from members of the tyrant class and from the few over-dressed and foppish Lunarians who aped their masters. The mass of the people gazed in stony and somehow sympathetic silence.

Into one of the tall white-and-gold palaces of the Lords of Gral-Thala they were taken, and down into stone-walled dungeons far underground. They were placed in a single cell. They stood with their backs against the walls, arms out-stretched and wrists lashed to rings set in the stone, able to move little more but their heads. Then, for a while, they were left alone.

"Well," said Larry with grim humor, "here we are."

"So it seems!" Pyatt's voice was rasping and bitter. "I am indeed a fool for ever having allowed Xylon to live in the Cavern of Chotan, in spite of the kind-hearted ruling of the Elders."

"What will they do with us?" Larry asked. Pyatt hesitated, licking his lips and glancing at Diana, but the girl answered for herself.

"We shall probably be skinned alive in the public square, dying slowly under the torture," she said. "It is the favorite punishment of the tyrants for those they particularly hate."

It was a day of triumph for the Lords of Gral-Thala. Xylon's triumphant return with the information that would lead to the wiping out of the always troublesome outlaws of the Lost Caverns, and the capture of the three prisoners, made it a holiday for the ruling class of the valley. They came in hundreds to see the three captives. The famous military leader of the outlaws ... the girl who was considered a goddess by the primitive Insect-men of the waste-land ... the the stranger from that distant Earth whence their own ancestors had fled. They came to throng the dungeon corridor and stare in at the trio of captives spread-eagled against the wall of the cell.

Larry watched them through the barred door. For hours on end there were always a few of them in the corridor, staring and jeering. Foppish men in white and gold with their curled hair laden with scent. Haughty and jewel-clad women whose sharp featured faces held even more cruelty than their male companions. Many were attended by Lunarian slave girls whose fettered hands held their trains up from the floor, and the bare backs of the slave girls were usually marked with the crossing red marks of whips. Larry knew, now, that the tales told in the Caverns about the cruelty of the Lords of Gral-Thala had not been exaggerated.

* * * * *

Xylon came to see them after a while, opening the cell door and walking in to stand sneering at them with his thumbs hooked in his jeweled girdle.

"Colton sold you out for the promise of wealth and a place in the ranks of our nobles," he said. "It will be a pleasure to watch you die." For a moment he walked over to stand in front of Diana who looked back at him with an expressionless face. "You are not a bad-looking wench. I can take you for one of my slaves if you wish to be agreeable."

"I would rather go with an Insect-man!" the girl said with calm scorn. Xylon shrugged and turned away.

"So be it. At that, it would be a pity to rob the crowd of the pleasure of watching you die."

As near as Larry could judge it, the equivalent of an Earthly day had passed before they were taken out of the cell. They were given an hour to ease their stiffened muscles. Then the guards bound their wrists before them, and by the trailing ends of the ropes led them out of the dungeons and through the streets to a broad open space just at the foot of the inclines that led down from the tunnel by which they had entered the city.

The Plaza of the Four Virgins, named from the four gigantic statues of polished stone that had been placed at its corners in some long ago day before the Invaders came, was a vast paved space in front of an ancient temple that was now used as a government building. In front of the temple a metal scaffold had been erected with two heavy uprights and a cross-piece. The rulers of Gral-Thala were sprawled in cushioned ease on the steps of the temple, well guarded by their troops, and the floor of the Plaza was filled with the common people of the city. These latter were present in great number, a silent and ominously sullen mass.

The three prisoners were stood in a row on the scaffold. Their hands were raised above their heads, and the ropes made fast to the cross-piece so that they were held tautly erect and motionless. Sharp laughter and occasional jests came from the nobles and their women clustered on the steps, but as Larry looked out over the crowd in the Plaza he saw faces that were grim and intent. The threat of the electronic rifles of the guards would keep the unarmed mob from trying to aid the prisoners, but there was no doubt where their sympathies lay.

Glancing up at the tyrants grouped on the temple steps, Larry suddenly saw Colton. The former second officer of the _Sky Maid_ now wore the white and gold robes of a noble of Gral-Thala. Xylon kept his promises! Colton flushed uncomfortably when his glance met Larry's grim stare, quickly turning his eyes away. He looked uncomfortable and ill-at-ease. Larry glanced at him again a few minutes later and saw Colton staring at Diana's bound and motionless form with definite misery in his eyes.

One of the nobles stepped to the front and began to address the crowd. Shrill yells and catcalls drowned his words. The guards raged, but the men in the front ranks of the mob were discreetly silent and they could not reach or identify the culprits in the ranks behind. Many of the nobles were muttering nervously among themselves, showing definite signs of fear.

"There was never a scene like this in Pandonaria before!" Pyatt of Kagan exulted from where he was bound beside Larry. "We may die, but our death is likely to stir the people to such a pitch that the revolt will soon come!"

Xylon, for all his faults, was made of sterner stuff than most of his fellow nobles. He sneered down at the muttering crowd, then signed to the officer commanding the guards.

"Pay no attention to the dogs," he commanded sharply. "Give these three a taste of the whip before the flayers rip the skins from their bodies. Begin with the girl."

A heavy-featured man in a black tunic stepped up to Diana, pulling the lash of a heavy whip through his hands to test its suppleness. Before he could strike there came a sudden interruption. A small car had been speeding down the incline from the tunnel entrance and now a gilded officer of the invaders leaped out and came running across the Plaza.

"Great news, oh Xylon and nobles of Gral-Thala!" he shouted. "One of our patrols has captured a great force of outlaw warriors and their insect allies, who were moving in to raid our nearer caves. Some more Earthlings are with them!"

"Good, by Gorton!" exulted Xylon. "We will delay the execution of these three till the others are here to see it."

Larry's last hope was gone. He had remembered Ripon's promise to come after them if they had not returned quickly, and in the back of his mind had been the thought that the doughty scientist might yet accomplish a rescue in some way. Now that hope had vanished. He sighed, and beside him Diana sagged visibly in her bonds.

"Guess it's the end," she said. "Good bye, Larry!"