"Let's get busy, then!" I exclaimed. "Have you a plan?" "Yes," she replied. "With the rope we can lower ourselves to the castle roof and from there to the courtyard. There is no one watching the gate; the kazars are gone. If we are discovered we shall have to trust to our legs, but there are only three or four of Skor's retainers left in the castle and they are not very alert when he is not here." "I have my weapons," I reminded her. "Skor did not take them from me, and if any of his people try to stop us I will kill them." She shook her head. "You cannot kill them," she whispered, shuddering. "What do you mean?" I demanded. "Why can I not kill them?" "Because they are already dead." * * * * * I looked at her in astonishment as the meaning of her words slowly filtered to my shocked brain to explain the pitiful creatures that had filled me with such disgust on the previous day. "But," I exclaimed, "how can they be dead? I saw them move about and obey the commands of Skor." "I do not know," she replied; "it is Skor's terrible secret. Presently you will be as they, if we do not escape; and the girl who came with you, and I--after a while. He will keep us a little longer in the flesh for the purpose of his experiments. Every day he takes a little blood from me. He is seeking the secret of life. He says that he can reproduce body cells, and with these he has instilled synthetic life into the poor creatures that he has resurrected from the grave. But it is only a parody on life; no blood flows in those dead veins, and the dead minds are animated only by the thoughts that Skor transmits to them by some occult, telepathic means. "But what he most desires is the power to reproduce germ cells and thus propagate a new race of beings fashioned according to his own specifications. That is why he takes blood from me; that is why he wanted the girl you call Duare. When our blood has become so depleted that death is near, he will kill us and we will be like these others. But he would not keep us here; he would take us to the city where he rules as jong. Here he keeps only a few poor, degraded specimens; but he says that in Kormor he has many fine ones." "So he _is_ a jong? I doubted it." "He made himself a jong and created his own subjects," she said. "And he kept you only to draw blood from you?" "Yes. He is not like other men; he is not human." "How long have you been here?" "A long time; but I am still alive because Skor has been away most of the time in Kormor." "Well, we must get away, too, before he returns. I want to search for Duare." I went to one of the windows, none of which was barred, and looked down on the castle roof below, a distance of about twenty feet. Then I got the rope and examined it carefully. There were several pieces, in all about forty feet--more than enough; also it was stout rope. I tied the pieces together and then returned to the window. The girl was at my elbow.