At that moment Duare raised a heavy vase from the table, held it high above her, and crashed it down on Skor's head. Without a sound he sank to the floor. I leaped across his body to take Duare into my arms, but with a palm against my breast she pushed me away. "Do not touch me!" she snapped. "If you want to get out of Kormor there is no time to be wasted. Come with me! I know where the girl you came to rescue is imprisoned." * * * * * Her whole attitude toward me seemed to have changed, and my pride was piqued. In silence I followed her from the room. She led me into the corridor along which we had approached the room to which I had followed her and Skor. Opening a door at one side, she hurried along another corridor and stopped before a heavily bolted door. "She is in here," she said. I drew the bolts and opened the door. Standing in the middle of the room beyond, looking straight at me, was Nalte. As she recognized me she gave a little cry of joy and, running toward me, threw her arms about me. "Oh, Carson! Carson!" she cried. "I knew that you would come; something told me that you would surely come." "We must hurry," I told her. "We must get out of here." I turned toward the door. Duare stood there, her chin in the air, her eyes flashing; but she said nothing. Nalte saw her then and recognized her. "Oh, it is you!" she exclaimed. "You are alive! I am so glad. We thought that you had been killed." Duare seemed puzzled by the evident sincerity of Nalte's manner, as though she had not expected that Nalte would be glad that she was alive. She softened a little. "If we are to escape from Kormor, though I doubt that we can, we must not remain here," she said. "I think that I know a way out of the castle--a secret way that Skor uses. He showed me the door once during some strange mood of his insanity; but he has the key to the door on his person, and we must get that before we can do anything else." We returned to the room where we had left Skor's body, and as I entered it I saw the jong of Morov stir and try to rise. He was not dead, though how he had survived that shattering blow I do not know. I ran toward him and threw him down. He was still only half conscious and made little or no resistance. I suppose I should have killed him, but I shrank from killing a defenseless man--even a fiend like Skor. Instead I bound and gagged him; then I searched him and found his keys. After that Duare led us to the second floor of the palace and to a large room furnished in the bizarre taste that was Skor's. She crossed the apartment and drew aside a grotesque hanging, revealing a small door behind it. "Here is the door," she said; "see if you can find a key to fit the lock."