accustomed to making prisoners. Whilethe attention of all the guards was absorbed in the appearance andsubsequent wreck of the _Viking_, Angus had managed to snap his ownbonds and was now unhurriedly freeing Gerry's wrists.
Gerry ran to Closana and untied her hands, while Angus freed the nearestother prisoner who was a stocky and broad shouldered Green Man with aheavily lined face. As soon as his hands were free, the latter wheeledto face them.
"My thanks, _hiziren_!" he panted, "now go while you can. You are moreeasily spotted in a crowd than I. Hurry! I will free as many of theseothers as possible. Get into the city, and try to reach the place mencall 'The Square of the Dragon.' Say that Sarnak sent you. Hurry!"
Even though he was carrying Closana in his arms, Gerry's Earthly musclesallowed him to run in mighty six-foot bounds. Angus went leaping alongbefore him. So great was the confusion that they were half way acrossthe plain to the city before anyone noticed them at all. Then a shoutingofficer of the Scaly Ones threw himself in front of them with his drawnsword in his hand.
The big engineer roared like an angry bull, and leaped clean over theman. Before the scaly warrior could turn the Scot had him from behind.An instant later Angus had the sword and was racing ahead, while theVenusian lay sprawled in the mud with his neck broken and his long headtwisted grotesquely awry.
The half dozen guards posted in the arch of the gate stared indecisivelyat the white skinned trio racing toward them. Angus had a sword in eachhand by this time, and he leaped at the guards with a shout. Thefugitive broke through the line of swordsmen by sheer momentum anddashed into the city. There was no pursuit. The first of the panicstricken throng rushing back for the shelter of the city reached thegate a moment later, and the guards were swamped by a jostling mob ofmingled Scaly Ones and Green Men.
Gerry and his two companions darted into the nearest of the many narrowalleys that twisted about this part of the city. They dodged from onedingy thoroughfare to the next. When they met a woman of the GreenPeople, Gerry unceremoniously tore off her robe and shielding veil andflung them to Closana to hide her own tawny skin and golden hair. Later,when he and Angus had also disguised themselves in the rough garmentsworn by the poorer folk of this city of Vaaka-hausen, they were able towalk quietly down the streets without fear of detection unless they meta patrol at close range.
At last they came to a dingy plaza that was surrounded by ramshacklebuildings of great age. It had probably once been a prosperous andfashionable part of the city, centuries ago, before the Scaly Onesoverran the land of Giri. Now grass grew up between the paving stones,and the roofs of the dingy buildings sagged close to the breaking point,and piles of festering rubbish lay along the gutters. The place was aslum of the sort that had not existed on the more enlightened planets ofEarth and Mars for many generations. A canal flowed along one side ofthe square, and in the center of the plaza stood the eroded and ancientblack marble statue of a rearing dragon.
"This must be the place!" Angus muttered from the shadows of the hoodthat he had drawn up over his head.
* * * * *
As they hesitated, a few people peered furtively out at them from thebroken windows and sagging doors of the houses around the square. Then aman came toward them. He was bent and crippled, a beggar wearing filthyrags. His matted hair hung down over his eyes, and his whole body seemedcovered with the caked filth of one who had never thought of washing. Asthe man came forward with a sort of limping shuffle, Gerry instinctivelylaid his hand on the hilt of the sword he carried concealed under hiscloak, while Closana drew the concealing veil more closely over herface.
"Alms, _hiziren_! A little charity of your generosity!" the beggarwhined as he came closer.
"What place is this?" Gerry asked, trying to give his voice the softtone and lisping accent characteristic of the Green Men.
The beggar limped a little closer and peered up into the shadows ofGerry's hood. What he saw seemed to satisfy him.
"Take your hand from your sword hilt, friend!" he said in a low voicequite unlike his previous whine, "what place do you seek?"
"The Place of the Dragon."
"This is it. Who sent you?"
"Sarnak sent us."
"It is good." The beggar pointed down a flight of worn stone steps thatled to the canal whose surface was some eight or ten feet below thelevel of the plaza. "Go down there, below the bridge, and tap on thestone that bears a rusted iron ring. You will find friends. Go quickly,while there are no strangers to observe you."
"Do you trust that man?" Angus whispered in English as they turned away.Gerry shrugged.
"We've got to. It's our only chance, We're too easy to recognize, inspite of these clothes, to stay free in this city for long."
The black waters of the canal flowed sluggishly along between slimystone walls. Refuse drifted on the surface. The water itself had a fouland penetrating odor. Gerry walked down the steps, and then along thewalk that stretched beside the water at one edge of the canal until hewas under an arch that served as a bridge to support the street above.The arch was wide enough so that they were now completely hidden fromthe view of anyone in the plaza above.
On one of the stones of the arch, at about the height of his shoulder,Gerry saw a rusted iron ring. He tapped on that stone with the hilt ofhis sword. He heard a faint click, and though there was no visiblechange in the surface of the pitted stone wall before him he heard awhispered question:
"_Who knocks?_"
"Friends," Gerry replied.
"Who sent you?"
"Sarnak sent us."
There was a low, metallic jingle. A section of the wall about the heightof a man and some three feet wide swung quietly inward. As soon as thethree of them had stepped through the opening into a small room that wasbuilt in the interior of the arch, the door swung shut behind them.
* * * * *
There were half a dozen men in this low roofed and stone walled chamber.All were of the Green People, dressed as ragged beggars but with thebearing and appearance of warriors. Drawn steel gleamed in their hands.Their faces were heavy with suspicion. One of the men had gone to standwith his back against the closed door behind them.
"Who are you, that come using the name of Sarnak?" snapped the leader.
Suspicion became blended with puzzled surprise as Gerry and Angus threwback their hoods and the outlaws saw their white skins. Hastily Gerrytold the tale of the dakta hunt and of their subsequent escape.
"So Sarnak got away!" the leader of the Green Men exulted. "Ho! That isthe best news that we of the Dragon's Teeth have heard in many weeks!All right, Slag, take these strangers through to the inner places."
One of the Green Men beckoned to Gerry to follow him down a narrowflight of steps at the back of the room. It ended in a circular pool ofwater like a large well, the steps going on down below the surface.Their guide opened a cupboard built into the wall and took out fourglass helmets. The helmets were attached to leather pads that fittedtightly about the shoulders and chest, with straps to hold them inplace. A cylindrical metal tank was attached to the back of each helmet,with a tube that led to a valve at the side. The guide also took outsome heavily leaded sandals.
"Put on these helmets and then open the valves," he explained, "thenfollow me down the steps. Be careful not to fall in the darkness. Afterwe get around the first bend in the corridor below there will be light."
Gerry put the globular glass helmet over his head, opening the valve assoon as he had adjusted the straps. The air in the helmet immediatelytook on a faintly chemical odor, but it was pleasant and in no wayoppressive. As soon as all of them were ready, the man called Slagbeckoned and then started down the steps.
Warm black water rose to Gerry's knees, then to his waist. As it came upto his shoulders he saw the top of Slag's helmet disappear below thesurface ahead of him. For a moment the smooth surface of the water waslevel with Gerry's eyes as it rose around his own helmet. Then hestepped down into a darkness
as black and impenetrable as though he wereimmersed in ink.
Gerry guided himself with his left hand on the slime covered stones ofthe wall beside him. He reached back with his other hand to steadyClosana who was just behind. All together he counted thirty steps,feeling carefully with his feet each time, before the floor leveled off.The wall curved around to the right. Gerry followed it, rounded a bend,and was no longer in darkness.
They stood in a straight passage that was lined with blocks of polishedstone. Metal plates, set in the ceiling at regular intervals, glowedwith a greenish-yellow light that was nearly as bright as the cloudyVenusian daylight. The place was completely filled with water.
It was an eerie sensation! Slag was standing a few feet ahead, grinningat them through the glass of his helmet, but now he turned and walkedslowly down the corridor. Gerry followed