Komodoflorensal laughed aloud. "You seem to think that to escape a Minunian city it is only necessary to walk out and away. It cannot be done. What of the sentries? What of the outer patrols? You would be discovered before you were halfway down the outside of the dome, provided that you could get that far without falling to your death." "Then perhaps the shaft would be safer," said Tarzan. "There would be less likelihood of discovery before we reached the bottom, for from what I could see it is as dark as pitch in the shaft." "Clamber down the inside of the shaft!" exclaimed Komodoflorensal. "You are mad! You could not clamber from this level to the next without falling, and it must be a full four hundred huals to the bottom." "Wait!" Tarzan admonished him. Komodoflorensal could hear his companion moving around in the dark chamber. He heard the scraping of metal on stone and presently he heard a pounding, not loud, yet heavy. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Wait!" said Tarzan. And Komodoflorensal waited, wondering. It was Tarzan who spoke next. "Could you find the chamber in which Talaskar is confined in the quarry?" he asked. "Why?" demanded the prince. "We are going after her," explained Tarzan. "We promised that we would not leave without her." "I can find it," said Komodoflorensal, rather sullenly Tarzan thought. For some time the ape-man worked on in silence, except for the muffled pounding and the scraping of iron on stone, or of iron on iron. "Do you know every one in Trohanadalmakus?" Tarzan asked, suddenly. "Why, no," replied Komodoflorensal. "There are a million souls, including all the slaves. I could not know them all." "Did you know by sight all those that dwelt in the royal dome?" continued the ape-man. "No, not even those who lived in the royal dome," replied the Trohanadalmakusian; "though doubtless I knew practically all of the nobles, and the warrior class by sight if not by name." "Did any one?" asked Tarzan. "I doubt it," was the reply. "Good!" exclaimed Tarzan. Again there was a silence, broken again by the Englishman. "Can a warrior go anywhere without question in any dome of his own city?" he inquired. "Anywhere, under ordinary circumstances, except into the king's dome, in daytime." "One could not go about at night, then?" asked Tarzan. "No," replied his companion. "By day, might a warrior go and come in the quarries as he pleased?" "If he appeared to be employed he would not be questioned, ordinarily." Tarzan worked a little longer in silence. "Come!" he said presently; "we are ready to go." "I shall go with you," said Komodoflorensal, "because I like you and because I think it would be better to be dead than a slave. At least we shall have some pleasure out of what remains to us of life, even though it be not a long life."