But he rose obediently, and stepped from the balcony to the upraised dais. Around his neck the Red Woman wound her arms--white arms stained red by the lurid light. A flash! I did not see from whence it came; but within me some subconscious impulse made me drop to the floor. The light from overhead was out. Momentary darkness. A woman's scream of terror. Then others. The sound of running feet; bodies falling. Panic in the crowd. Confusion everywhere. Then light from somewhere came on. People were tramping me. I fought them off, climbed to my feet. On the dais the Red Woman lay dead. Huddled in a heap, with a brand of black searing her forehead. _Slaans_ were leaping about the room--huge, half-naked men--brandishing primitive knives. Flashing steel, buried in the backs of the fleeing merry-makers. Other figures--Earth men they seemed--gripping the _slaans_, staying their murderous fury. Tarrano? I did not see him at first. The air above the floor of the pavilion was full of snapping sparks--a battle of some unknown rays. The mirrors were shattered: glass from them was falling about me. Then, in the semi-gloom on the balcony, Tarrano's figure materialized. Invisible before, the hostile rays upon it now made it apparent. But Tarrano seemed proof against the rays. I could see he was unharmed; and as he stood there, no doubt using a curved, duplicating beam, the like of which I have seen used in warfare, the image of him seemed to shift. Then it doubled--two images, one here, one further down the balcony. Then still others--appearing and disappearing, always in different places, until no one could have said where the man himself really was. A dozen Tarranos, each enveloped in hostile sparks, each with his face grinning at us in mockery. Abruptly, I heard Georg's voice shout above the din: "Elza! Elza is gone!" The images of Tarrano faded. He, too, was gone. And then I saw Maida on the balcony, standing with upraised arms. Her voice rang out. "Down with Tarrano! Death to Tarrano!" And then her pleading command: "_Slaans_, no more bloodshed! Be loyal, _slaans_, to your Princess Maida!" And Georg calling: "Loyalty, everyone, to your Princess Maida. Loyalty! Loyalty!" CHAPTER XXIII _First Retreat_ I must recount now what Elza later told me, going back to those moments when Elza sat upon the balcony watching Tarrano and the Red Woman. The significance of what had been transpiring at the Water Festival was not clear to Elza; she did not know what was impending, but as she sat there with Tarrano beside her, a sense of danger oppressed her. Danger which lay like a weight upon her heart. Yet several times she found herself laughing--hilarious; and from Maida's warning glance, and the steadying odor which Maida wafted to her, she knew that Tarrano was using the alcholite fumes to intoxicate her.