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and her scant attire, flushed and, dropping her gaze to the floor, turned away.
Metak suddenly commenced to tremble from head to foot and then, without
warning other than a loud, hoarse scream he sprang forward and seized the girl
in his arms.
Instantly pandemonium ensued. The two messengers who had been charged with
the duty of conducting the girl to the king's presence danced, shrieking, about
the prince, waving their arms and gesticulating wildly as though they would force
him to relinquish her, the while they dared not lay hands upon royalty. The other
guardsmen, as though suffering in sympathy the madness of their prince, ran
forward screaming and brandishing their sabers.
The girl fought to release herself from the horrid embrace of the maniac, but with
his left arm about her he held her as easily as though she had been but a babe,
while with his free hand he drew his saber and struck viciously at those nearest
him.
One of the messengers was the first to feel the keen edge of Metak's blade. With a
single fierce cut the prince drove through the fellow's collar bone and downward
to the center of his chest. With a shrill shriek that rose above the screaming of
the other guardsmen the man dropped to the floor, and as the blood gushed from
the frightful wound he struggled to rise once more to his feet and then sank back
again and died in a great pool of his own blood.
In the meantime Metak, still clinging desperately to the girl, had backed toward
the opposite door. At the sight of the blood two of the guardsmen, as though
suddenly aroused to maniacal frenzy, dropped their sabers to the floor and fell
upon each other with nails and teeth, while some sought to reach the prince and
some to defend him. In a corner of the room sat one of the guardsmen laughing
uproariously and just as Metak succeeded in reaching the door and taking the
girl through, she thought that she saw another of the men spring upon the corpse
of the dead messenger and bury his teeth in its flesh.
During the orgy of madness Xanila had kept closely at the girl's side but at the
door of the room Metak had seen her and, wheeling suddenly, cut viciously at
her. Fortunately for Xanila she was halfway through the door at the time, so that
Metak's blade but dented itself upon the stone arch of the portal, and then
Xanila, guided doubtless by the wisdom of sixty years of similar experiences, fled
down the corridor as fast as her old and tottering legs would carry her.
Metak, once outside the door, returned his saber to its scabbard and lifting the
girl bodily from the ground carried her off in the opposite direction from that
taken by Xanila.
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