The girl's brown eyes filled with sudden tears. "Yorgh, if this is one of your stories--" "Sssh!" he hushed her, slipping an arm about her shoulders. "You've been out too long already. Meet me tonight, here!" He slipped back into the pathway and hurried off. Vaneen's tears made him uncomfortable and he tried hard not to feel guilty. She had been having a miserable time, no doubt, but had he any choice but to make himself pleasant to Jayn? * * * * * That evening he was careful to let himself be seen with Jayn whispering frequently in his ear during the story-telling. She was beginning to hint that he might like to stay in the village for good, but Yorgh's expressions suggested much more. Later, after dark, he crept cautiously into the hall with a short length of bed slat tucked in his belt. He had not been allowed a knife except at meals. As he padded to the foot of the stone stairs, a shadow detached itself from the wall near the main door. Yorgh sensed rather than saw the spear that reached out a moment later to prod him just below the ribs. "Sssh! Quietly!" he whispered. "Jayn expects me." The guard grunted, but lowered his spear as if far from surprised. Before he could think the matter over further, Yorgh made a show of enlisting his aid. "She teased by not saying which is her room," he claimed, snickering sheepishly. "She is having her joke with me because I said I would be man enough to find it." "Such a joke is only the beginning, friend," the guard assured him. "Up the opposite stairs and to the end of the hall. Come, I will point the way." "Slowly," pleaded Yorgh. "I don't see as well in the dark as you people." He saw clearly enough, however, to note that the man wore only a woolen cap, with no leather to protect his head. Yorgh struck him a chopping blow with the piece of slat. He caught the spear in one hand, though he almost fumbled it in the dark, and dropped his weapon as quietly as possible to catch the sagging body in his other arm. I'd better store him out of the way, he thought, heaving the man onto his shoulder. He crept back up the stairs with his burden, having one nervous moment when he opened the wrong door to the tune of several raucous snores. The sweat itched on his forehead by the time he got the door quietly closed and made sure the next was the one to his own room. He left the guard comfortably bound, and gagged with a strip of blanket, and traversed the stairway for the third time, wearing a good bronze knife in his belt. Near the door, he groped about until he found the spear and his club. The latter he thrust again into his waistband. The door made little noise, though it sounded to Yorgh like the bleating of a dozen wollies. Once in the dark street, he padded quickly around the corner of the building, moving with assurance gained from counting the steps in daylight. He left the spear in the grass there, lest it embarrass him later by rattling against something.