The woman said quickly: "The Lady Elza would be glad of my companionship." She shot a swift glance to Elza. What it was meant to convey, I could not have said. Perhaps Elza understood it, or thought she did. She spoke up. "I would like to have you very much, indeed." She added to Tarrano, and there was on her face a look of feminine guile: "You, of course, could not refuse me so small a favor? After all your protestations----" He gestured impatiently. "Very well." And he added to Tara: "You will serve the Lady Elza as she directs." He stalked away into the darkened passage. In the gloom there, he stopped and again faced us; the light from a small blue tube in there illumined him dimly. He was smiling ironically. "I shall maintain the instruments for you. The mirrors will show you Georg and Maida. They are just about arriving at the Mountain Station. Watch them! You will see how far they progress with their wonderful speeches." He left us. We heard his measured tread as he stalked down the tower incline. The barrage about the tower was lifted momentarily as he went out. Then it came on again, with its glow beyond our casements, and its low electrical whine. I was just turning back to the room when a sound behind me made me face sharply about. My heart leaped into my throat. The woman Tara had produced from about her person a weapon of some kind. She thought she was unobserved, but from the angle at which I stood, I saw her. A gleaming metal object was in her hand. And then she launched it--a small flat disc of metal, thin, and with its circular edge keen as a knife-blade. Whirling with a very soft hum hardly audible, it left her hand and floated upward across the room. Circling the casements up near the ceiling, and then heading downward straight for Elza! And I saw, too, that the woman was guiding it by a tiny radio-control. The thing was so unexpected that I stood gaping. But only for an instant. I saw the deadly whirling knife-disc sailing for Elza.... It would strike her ... shear her white throat.... With a shout of horror and anger, I leaped for the woman. But Wolfgar, too, had seen the disc and he went into action quicker than I. The divan was beside him. He snatched up a pillow; flung it upward at the disc. The soft pillow struck the disc; together, entangled, they fell harmlessly to the floor. I was upon the woman, snatching the handle of the control-wire from her hand, wrenching its connection loose from her robe. Under my onslaught, she fell; and I kneeled beside her, gripping her while she tore at me and screamed with hysterical, murderous frenzy. CHAPTER XIII _Love--and Hate_