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her slim blade. But there was a difference. Before it had been male--now it was
female. That, however, seemed to make no difference to the head. In fact, Tara of
Helium had noticed during the scramble and the fight about her that sex
differences seemed of little moment to her captors. Males and females had taken
equal part in her pursuit, both were identically harnessed and both carried
swords, and she had seen as many females as males draw their weapons at the
moment that a quarrel between the two factions seemed imminent.
The girl was given but brief opportunity for further observation of the pitiful
creatures in the enclosure as her captor, after having directed the others to
return to the fields, led her toward the tower, which they entered, passing into an
apartment about ten feet wide and twenty long, in one end of which was a
stairway leading to an upper level and in the other an opening to a similar
stairway leading downward. The chamber, though on a level with the ground, was
brilliantly lighted by windows in its inner wall, the light coming from a circular
court in the center of the tower. The walls of this court appeared to be faced with
what resembled glazed, white tile and the whole interior of it was flooded with
dazzling light, a fact which immediately explained to the girl the purpose of the
glass prisms of which the domes were constructed. The stairways themselves
were sufficient to cause remark, since in nearly all Barsoomian architecture
inclined runways are utilized for purposes of communication between different
levels, and especially is this true of the more ancient forms and of those of remote
districts where fewer changes have come to alter the customs of antiquity.
Down the stairway her captor led Tara of Helium. Down and down through
chambers still lighted from the brilliant well. Occasionally they passed others
going in the opposite direction and these always stopped to examine the girl and
ask questions of her captor.
"I know nothing but that she was found in the fields and that I caught her after a
fight in which she slew two rykors and in which I slew a Moak, and that I take
her to Luud, to whom, of course, she belongs. If Luud wishes to question her that
is for Luud to do--not for me." Thus always he answered the curious.
Presently they reached a room from which a circular tunnel led away from the
tower, and into this the creature conducted her. The tunnel was some seven feet
in diameter and flattened on the bottom to form a walk. For a hundred feet from
the tower it was lined with the same tile-like material of the light well and amply
illuminated by reflected light from that source. Beyond it was faced with stone of
various shapes and sizes, neatly cut and fitted together--a very fine mosaic
without a pattern. There were branches, too, and other tunnels which crossed
this, and occasionally openings not more than a foot in diameter; these latter
being usually close to the floor. Above each of these smaller openings was painted
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