"Do you know aught concerning the Princess Ulama?" "I know that she was to be brought to this place, and that she was to be put into the cell I occupied before they brought me here yesterday. It is underground; a long way from this part." At least, then, the poor child, Leonard thankfully reflected, was not in one of the cells in sight of the dreaded tree. Presently he asked the woman whether she had known Zelus, the son of Coryon. "Ah yes! Who did not in this land?" was the reply. "The monster! A great spasm as of relief and joy came upon us all--all the women, I mean--when we heard of his death. He was the worst of them all, though one of the youngest. No one was safe from him. Even the princess he sought to bring here to treat as he had treated so many others!" "I know. I killed him when he was in the very act of raising his cowardly hand against the king's daughter," said Leonard quietly. The woman turned and looked at him with more of interest in her manner than she had yet shown. She scanned him closely. "Then," she said, "you must be one of the strangers of whom we heard. But you are young, and not, as I have been told, of our race. We heard of one older, one who, it was said, belonged to our people. And when we heard that, we all rejoiced; for surely, we said, he brings us tidings of what all have been expecting. Therefore, we who were held here in a bondage that is a daily, hourly torture, a never-ceasing degradation, we welcomed your coming as a sign that the Great Spirit had at last brought our long punishment to an end. I, even I, dared to hope I should escape the fate that has befallen all others, and should live to see again my husband and children before I die. But, alas! it was but a dream--a delusive, passing hope, a thing too good to come in my time. Four months have passed and nothing has occurred, though ye smote the hated Zelus quickly; and even Coryon was filled with fear and dread. Why have ye failed to do more, and, instead, fallen victim to Coryon?"