He obeyed. Now and again he got in a pot-shot with his pistol. Don Loris had turned the castle into a very pretty trap. The Lady Fani said plaintively: "This is terribly undignified, and I can't see where we're going. Where are we now?" "Almost at the gate," panted Hoddan. "At it, now." He swung out of the massive entrance to Don Loris' stronghold. "I can put you down now." "I wouldn't," said the Lady Fani. "In spite of the end of me that's uppermost, I think you'd better make for the spaceboat exactly as we are." Again Hoddan obeyed, racing across the open ground. Howls of fury followed him. It was evidently the opinion of the castle that the Lady Fani was to be abducted in the place of the seven returned spearmen. Hoddan, breathing hard, reached the spaceboat. He put Fani down and said anxiously: "You're all right? I'm very much in your debt! I was in a spot!" Then he nodded toward the castle. "They are upset, aren't they? They must think I mean to kidnap you." The Lady Fani beamed. "It would be terrible if you did," she said hopefully. "I couldn't do a thing to stop you! And a successful public abduction's a legal marriage, on Darth! Wouldn't it be terrible?" Hoddan mopped his face and patted her reassuringly on the shoulder. "Don't worry!" he said warmly. "You just got me out of an awful fix! You're my friend! And anyhow I'm going to marry a girl on Walden, named Nedda. Good-by, Fani! Keep clear of the rocket blast." He went into the boatport, turned to beam paternally back at her, and shut the port behind him. Seconds later the spaceboat took off. It left behind clouds of rocket smoke. And, though Hoddan hadn't the faintest idea of it, it left behind the maddest girl in several solar systems. X It is the custom of all men, everywhere, to be obtuse where women are concerned. Hoddan went skyward in the spaceboat with feelings of warm gratitude toward the Lady Fani. He had not the slightest inkling that she, who had twice spoiled her father's skulduggery so far as it affected him, felt any but the friendliest of feelings toward him. He remembered that he had kept her from the necessity of adjusting to matrimony with the Lord Ghek. It did not occur to him that most girls intend to adjust to marriage with somebody, anyhow, and he did not even suspect that it is a feminine instinct to make a highly dramatic and romantic production of their marriage so they'll have something to be sentimental about in later years.