The professor was hustled into a door at the ground level of this building, and down a spiral ramp into a dimly lighted room where a number of men, some of the round-bodied yellow race, and others of the white lunar race, were chained by collars around their necks to rings in the wall. He was promptly clapped into a vacant place, and a burly jailer whose touch was far from gentle, snapped and locked a metal collar around his neck. “You will feed this contemptible maggot,” said Lin Ching to the jailer. “Then report to me.” The burly fellow saluted, and Lin Ching withdrew. Presently the jailer went out and returned with a bowl and a cup which he set before the professor. The bowl contained some chunks of stewed fungus of a leathery texture though not unpleasant flavor, and the cup, water with a slightly alkaline taste. The savant was both hungry and thirsty, and disposed of his meagre rations with gusto before Lin Ching came to him. “Now, O pestilent spawn of a grub,” said Lin Ching, seizing the professor’s neck chain which the jailer had unfastened from the wall, and giving it a vicious jerk, “we will learn the fate of one who defies the servants of the mighty P’an-ku.” After being dragged up the spiral ramp and half choked from the pressure of his metal collar, Professor Ederson was hustled through a maze of hallways and passageways to a place where Kwan Tsu Khan stood before a great, diamond-shaped doorway, guarded by two armored warriors who carried spears with heads like long-toothed buzz saws, while from the belt of each there depended a sword on the left and a ray-projector on the right. The Khan waited until a brilliantly robed major domo bade him enter—then took the prisoner’s chain from the hands of Lin Ching and led him into a large, brilliantly lighted audience chamber, the walls of which were magnificently decorated with gaudily colored bas-reliefs of hunting and battle scenes in which the round-bodied moon men and strange animals and dragons figured conspicuously. Seated on a massive cushioned throne, placed on a raised platform at the far end of the room, his great round belly cradled between his spindly knees, was P’an-ku, ruler of the yellow skinned moon men. Standing to the right and left of the dais were guards, richly clad courtiers, and liveried attendants. The Khan slowly led his prisoner to a place before the throne. Then, dropping to his knees, he pressed his forehead and the palms of his hands to the floor. “Rise, Kwan Tsu Khan,” said P’an-ku. “What have you here?” “I have brought you the first captive of war from Du Gong, O Lord of the Universe,” replied Kwan Tsu Khan. “You are slightly in error, Kwan Tsu Khan,” replied P’an-ku, twisting one end of his drooping moustache, and leering. “You have brought the _second_ prisoner of war from Du Gong. The first is already chained in our deepest dungeon for such time as we care to keep him there, while devising a lingering death suitable to his case.”