Upon her reveries the door opened and a burly warrior appeared in the opening--a hulking fellow, with thick lips and an evil, leering face. The slave girl sprang to her feet, facing him. "What does this mean, E-Med?" she cried, "was it not the will of A-Kor that this woman be not disturbed?" "The will of A-Kor, indeed!" and the man sneered. "The will of A-Kor is without power in The Towers of Jetan, or elsewhere, for A-Kor lies now in the pits of O-Tar, and E-Med is dwar of the Towers." Tara of Helium saw the face of the slave girl pale and the terror in her eyes. CHAPTER XII GHEK PLAYS PRANKS While Tara of Helium was being led to The Towers of Jetan, Ghek was escorted to the pits beneath the palace where he was imprisoned in a dimly-lighted chamber. Here he found a bench and a table standing upon the dirt floor near the wall, and set in the wall several rings from which depended short lengths of chain. At the base of the walls were several holes in the dirt floor. These, alone, of the several things he saw, interested him. Ghek sat down upon the bench and waited in silence, listening. Presently the lights were extinguished. If Ghek could have smiled he would have then, for Ghek could see as well in the dark as in the light--better, perhaps. He watched the dark openings of the holes in the floor and waited. Presently he detected a change in the air about him--it grew heavy with a strange odor, and once again might Ghek have smiled, could he have smiled. Let them replace all the air in the chamber with their most deadly fumes; it would be all the same to Ghek, the kaldane, who, having no lungs, required no air. With the rykor it might be different. Deprived of air it would die; but if only a sufficient amount of the gas was introduced to stupefy an ordinary creature it would have no effect upon the rykor, who had no objective mind to overcome. So long as the excess of carbon dioxide in the blood was not sufficient to prevent heart action, the rykor would suffer only a diminution of vitality; but would still respond to the exciting agency of the kaldane's brain.