The Gian man groveled as the chain struck him. She lashed; and with his cries of pain her rage burst into a fury ungovernable. He lay insensible and bleeding when she had finished. Other men appeared. They carried him away. She wound the chains around her sleek gray arms; came back to me. She was breathing hard, but the fire had gone from her eyes. Her voice was perfectly composed. “A stupid man, Geoffry Grant, to come in here like that. He will not do it again.” “No,” I murmured. “Doubtless not.” My guards had relaxed. They were standing away, but still within reach of me if I leaped. I was tense. Rhana sat down. She began to talk. I scarcely heard her. I was planning how to fight my way out of here. My thoughts ran swiftly, no more than half coherent. Down to Arturo--fighting my way. But that was impossible. I would be caught and killed. But the flood-gates, off there in that distant cavern, must be closed. That was my purpose. Far above my own life, or Arturo’s. I could get out of here perhaps, with a rush for one of those windows. I was answering Rhana mechanically. I would have to leave Arturo, but I could come back for him. These Gians would depart and leave him there to die. Tad and I would come back and release him. Thoughts are swift-flying things. They flooded me; yet it was all but a moment. Tad. It seemed abruptly that something asked me, “_Where is Arturo?_” My own thought? No, it was not that. Something else--Tad, or Nereid. I felt the presence of them both, their thoughts, something of them here--imploring me, “_Where is Arturo?_” I had felt like this, that night in New York. I stirred restlessly in my chair. “Yes,” I said to Rhana. “I think so.” What had she asked me? I could not remember. I was recalling the route I had taken up from Arturo’s underground cell. And something replied, soundlessly in my mind, “_Oh, yes, I know._” Like a thought from Tad, or Nereid. But now it was more than that. Something of them tangibly here. Rhana felt it. She, too, moved uneasily in her chair. She abruptly stopped what she was saying to me. And added tensely: “You feel it? What is it?” * * * * * There was almost fear in her voice--the fear of the gruesome, the uncanny, the unknown. Her hand moved along the table edge. The illumination of the room abruptly vanished; darkness enshrouded us. I could see nothing. Then, just the outlines of the windows with the lights of the garden behind them. In the silence I thought I could hear Rhana’s breathing. I could sense her near me; and the guards. Make a run for it now! But I could barely see in this darkness; and I remembered that these Gians could see comfortably. The three guards and Rhana? But there was something else here. Something not to be seen, scarce to be felt. The presence of something. It drove from my mind all thought of escape. I sat stiff, straining my vision in the darkness.