The hangar guards sought to detain and question me. I do not recall what I told them; I know that I must have lied to them, for they let me run out a swift one-man flier and an instant later I was racing through the night toward the palace of Tor Hatan. As it stands but little more than two haads from the barracks, I was there in but a few moments, and, as I landed in the garden, which was now brilliantly lighted, I saw a number of people congregated there, among whom were Tor Hatan and Sil Vagis. As I leaped from the deck of the flier, the former came angrily toward me. "So it is you!" he cried. "What have you to say for yourself? Where is my daughter?" "That is what I have come to ask, Tor Hatan," I replied. "You are at the bottom of this," he cried. "You abducted her. She told Sil Vagis that this very night you had demanded her hand in marriage and that she had refused you." "I did ask for her hand," I said, "and she refused me. That part is true; but if she has been abducted, in the name of your first ancestor, do not waste time trying to connect me with the diabolical plot. I had nothing to do with it. How did it happen? Who was with her?" "Sil Vagis was with her. They were walking in the garden," replied Tor Hatan. "You saw her abducted," I asked, turning to Sil Vagis, "and you are here unwounded and alive?" He started to stammer. "There were many of them," he said. "They overpowered me." "You saw them?" I asked. "Yes." "Was I among them?" I demanded. "It was dark. I could not recognize any of them; perhaps they were disguised." "They overpowered you?" I asked him. "Yes," he said. "You lie!" I exclaimed. "Had they laid hands upon you they would have killed you. You ran away and hid, never drawing a weapon to defend the girl." "That is a lie," cried Sil Vagis. "I fought with them, but they overpowered me." I turned to Tor Hatan. "We are wasting time," I said. "Is there no one who can give us a clue as to the identity of these men and the direction they took in their flight? How and whence came they? How and whence did they depart?" "He is trying to throw you off the track, Tor Hatan," said Sil Vagis. "Who else could it have been but a disgruntled suitor? What would you say if I should tell you that the metal of the men who stole Sanoma Tora was the metal of the warriors of Hastor?" "I would say that you are a liar," I replied. "If it was so dark that you could not recognize faces, how could you decipher the insignia upon their harness?" At this juncture another officer of the 91st Umak joined us. "We have found one who may, perhaps, shed some light upon the subject," he said, "if he lives long enough to speak." Men had been searching the grounds of Tor Hatan and that portion of the city adjacent to his palace, and now several approached bearing a man, whom they laid upon the sward at our feet. His broken and mangled body was entirely naked, and as he lay there gasping feebly for breath, he was a pitiful spectacle.