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As he devoured the food his eyes wandered about the confines of his prison until
suddenly they seized upon a thing that lay on the table at the end farthest from
him. It was a key. He raised his fettered ankle and examined the lock. There
could be no doubt of it! The key that lay there on the table before him was the key
to that very lock. A careless warrior had laid it there and departed, forgetting.
Hope surged high in the breast of Gahan of Gathol, of Turan the panthan.
Furtively his eyes sought the open doorways. There was no one in sight. Ah, if he
could but gain his freedom! He would find some way from this odious city back to
her side and never again would he leave her until he had won safety for her or
death for himself.
He rose and moved cautiously toward the opposite end of the table where lay the
coveted key. The fettered ankle halted his first step, but he stretched at full
length along the table, extending eager fingers toward the prize. They almost laid
hold upon it--a little more and they would touch it. He strained and stretched,
but still the thing lay just beyond his reach. He hurled himself forward until the
iron fetter bit deep into his flesh, but all futilely. He sat back upon the bench
then and glared at the open doors and the key, realizing now that they were part
of a well-laid scheme of refined torture, none the less demoralizing because it
inflicted no physical suffering.
For just a moment the man gave way to useless regret and foreboding, then he
gathered himself together, his brows cleared, and he returned to his unfinished
meal. At least they should not have the satisfaction of knowing how sorely they
had hit him. As he ate it occurred to him that by dragging the table along the
floor he could bring the key within his reach, but when he essayed to do so, he
found that the table had been securely bolted to the floor during the period of his
unconsciousness. Again Gahan smiled and shrugged and resumed his eating.
*
* * * *
When the warriors had departed from the prison in which Ghek was confined, the
kaldane crawled from the shoulders of the rykor to the table. Here he drank a
little water and then directed the hands of the rykor to the balance of it and to the
food, upon which the brainless thing fell with avidity. While it was thus engaged
Ghek took his spider-like way along the table to the opposite end where lay the
key to the fetter. Seizing it in a chela he leaped to the floor and scurried rapidly
toward the mouth of one of the burrows against the wall, into which he
disappeared. For long had the brain been contemplating these burrow entrances.
They appealed to his kaldanean tastes, and further, they pointed a hiding place
for the key and a lair for the only kind of food that the kaldane relished--flesh and
blood.
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