"Hence will ye give credence when I declare to you, in the name of Zitu, that this night the woman whose union with me was blessed by thyself appeared to me, saying my home in the mountains of Aphur had been assailed by a Zollarian band, and that she had been carried from it with our child--and ye will credit me still further in that I left the body and went to my house, and found things even as she had described them, and that I followed her to the shore of the outer ocean, and aboard a ship, whereupon was Kalamita, the Zollarian woman of whom thou knowest--and that even now she is carried to Zollaria captive, to be returned to Tamarizia and my house only for a price." He paused and caught a heavy breath, the fingers of his left hand toying with the jeweled hilt of his sword. "Zitu," stammered the high priest, advancing a step to lay a withered hand on Jason's shoulder--"may he befriend thee, and guard the woman I know thou lovest. In what way may I aid thee, Jason?" "In no way, save that I desired your acquaintance with the knowledge. I go now to Jadgor, and Lakkon, her father," Croft replied. "Grant us thy prayers, Zud, and those of the Gayana, since once she lay among them waiting to be my bride." He turned to the door, crashing it back with a wholly unneeded force, and strode off, clanking down the passage, leaving old Zud staring after, out of troubled, aged eyes. CHAPTER IV JASON TAKES THE TRAIL At another door he stopped, wrenching it open and laying hands upon a cord that hung within it. He jerked upon it, released it, and stood waiting with hands clenched as though in impatience, until there rose slowly into sight a platform, upon which he stepped. The platform sank slowly, carrying him downward inside a rock-faced shaft, which ended in a dimly lighted chamber, where blue men strained about a capstan and windlass by means of which the primitive lift was controlled. "Hai! The Mouthpiece of Zitu requires a motur and one to drive it," Croft addressed the man in charge. The fellow saluted and turned away. I saw there were several moturs parked against one of the chamber walls. And too, I recalled that Croft had found a similar arrangement in the pyramid of Himyra when first he called on Magur, save that then the room had been used to house the carriages and gnuppas of the priests. Croft strode toward one of the waiting cars, and a man appeared. As Jason climbed to a seat he took his place at the wheel and the engine roared. Blue men set open a heavy door and stood aside. Through it the car darted out of the base of the pyramid to reach the street beyond it. "To the palace of Jadgor, and hasten!" Jason cried.