"Yes, Tugh. You have the dial set for the proper night and hour?" "Of course. I make no mistake. Did I not invent these dials?" The cage slackened through a day of sunlight; plunged into a night; and slid to its soundless, reeling halt.... Tina drew Larry to the door and opened it upon a fragrant garden, somnolently drowsing in the moonlight. "This is my world, Larry," she said. "And here is my home." * * * * * Tugh was with them as they left the cage. He said: "This is the tri-night hour of the very night you left here. Princess Tina. You see, I calculated correctly." "Where did you leave Harl and the two visitors?" she demanded. "Here. Right here." Across the garden Larry saw three dark forms coming forward. They were three small Robots of about Tina's stature--domestic servants of the palace. They crowded up, crying: "Master Tugh! Princess!" "What is it?" Tugh asked. The hollow voices echoed with excitement as one of them said: "Master Tugh, there has been murder here! We have dared tell no one but you or the Princess. Harl is murdered!" Larry chanced to see Tugh's astonished face, and in the horror of the moment a feeling came to Larry that Tugh was acting unnaturally. He forgot it at once; but later he was to recall it forcibly, and to realize that the treacherous Tugh had planned this with these Robots. "Master Tugh, Harl is murdered! Migul escaped and murdered Harl, and took the body away with him!" Larry was stricken dumb. Tugh seized the little Robot by his metal shoulders. "Liar! What do you mean?" Tina gasped, "Where are our visitors--the young man and the girl?" "Migul took them!" "Where?" Tina demanded. "We don't know. We think very far down in the caverns of machinery. Migul said he was going to feed them to the machines!" CHAPTER XVI _The New York of 2930_ Larry stood alone at an upper window of the palace gazing out at the somnolent moonlit city. It was an hour or two before dawn. Tina and Tugh had started almost at once into the underground caverns to which Tina was told Migul had fled with his two captives. They would not take Larry with them; the Robot workers in the subterranean chambers were all sullen and upon the verge of a revolt, and the sight of a strange human would have aroused them dangerously. "It should not take long," Tina had said hastily. "I will give you a room in which to wait for me." "And there is food and drink," Tugh suavely urged. "And most surely you need sleep. You too Princess," he suddenly added. "Let me go into the caverns alone: I can do better than you; these Robots obey me. I think I know where that rascally Migul has hidden." "Rascally?" Larry burst out. "Is that what you call it when you've just heard that it committed murder? Tina. I won't stay: nor will I let--" "Wait!" said Tina. "Tugh, look here--"