The two hours passed, and Pyatt came striding back into the room. They had given him one of the ray-guns brought ashore from the _Sky Maid_, and he carried it thrust in his girdle close to his hand. "It is time to go," he said. "We must make our attempt now, win or lose. Where is Colton?" "I thought he was with you." "Haven't seen him in two hours!" A hasty search of the merchant's house and small grounds revealed no trace of the missing officer. Pyatt stood glowering blackly and pulling at his chin. "I don't like it," he said. "Yet, if the soldiers had taken him, they would have come for us as well." A different thought was running through Larry's mind, a grim and unpleasant suspicion. He was remembering Colton's past history ... his general sullenness ... the greed that he had shown throughout the entire expedition. He was also remembering that he had seen Colton in deep conversation with Xylon a few hours before they had left Chotan. "I am afraid," he said bitterly, "that Colton has sold us out to Xylon and the Lords of Gral-Thala for promise of reward. We had better get out of this house right away, before...." Larry never finished that sentence. There was a roaring crash, and the door was shattered by the impact of a pair of electronic bolts fired by the soldiers who had crept up to the house. Armored figures came pouring in the door! Others were at the back. Pyatt of Kagan, fighting furiously, went down under press of numbers. Larry managed to get his ray-gun up and fire one blast that crumpled a charging trooper in mid stride, but then half a dozen gripped him and the brief fight was over. They were taken! 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.