Page:Astounding Stories of Super Science (1930-03).djvu/128

Rh suicide, for he was well aware of the deadliness of the strange weapon with which he and Steinholt were being menaced by the gloating Lodorian.

"One false move and you die!" warned Zitlan. "Come forward, now, and join those two others over whom Anteucan and Huazibar are watching."

Dirk and Steinholt promptly obeyed the command of Zitlan and walked over to where Fragoni and Lizarre were being guarded by two of the conquerors.

The rain had ceased to fall, but the skies were dark and overcast with heavy clouds. There was an occasional flash of lightning, and thunder rolled and echoed through the night.

The terrace, however, was brightly illuminated and every detail of the scene around him was visible to Dirk.

He saw Stanton, on another part of the terrace, standing among some Lodorians he had not seen before. Stanton, apparently, was not being treated as a prisoner and Dirk wondered, rather vaguely, why this was.

"What happened?" Dirk asked Fragoni quietly.

"According to what I have heard," the latter replied, "Zitlan murdered his father in a fit of rage, and has taken over the command of the ship. Many of the Lodorians are his adherents and even those who do not favor him are to terrified that they will be obedient to sis wishes."

"And Igna?" questioned Dirk.

"She is inside the apartment," said Fragoni, a note of desperation in his voice. "Zitlan surprised us completely and he and his men had us covered before we realized that Teuxical was not among them."

ITLAN, in the meantime, had entered the suite of Fragoni and he now came out, Inga walking before him.

She was silent and proudly erect but there was a pallor in 'her face that indicated her realization of the danger that she was threatened with.

When Dirk saw her she gave him a brave smile, which he answered with a glance of reassurance.

He could see the great clock in the Metropole Tower, and he noticed, with a feeling of grave apprehension, that it was twenty minutes to four o'clock.

There were only a few minutes more in which to make a desperate and. apparently a hopeless effort to save Inga, his friends and himself from a catastrophe, which he had been instrumental in contriving.

Then Zitlan stood before him, haughty and arrogant, his lowering countenance ugly with hatred.

"So, dog," he said, "you who dared to defy Zitlan now stand before, him a captive!"

Neither Dirk nor any one of the three others who were guarded with him replied to the utterance.

"You and that woman of yours," continued the Lodorian insolently, "both are my prisoners to do with as I please. Your fate," he continued, "I already have planned for you and I assure you that it will not be as pleasurable as the one to which she is destined. You will find that Tigana, on which you and those with you will be cast, is a world of terror such as you never could dream of. Even the monsters which crawl through the deliriums of the mind are not as horrible as those which infest the mad and haunted world of which I speak."

E paused a moment, a cruel smile on his face, as if he wished the full import of his words to sear themselves into the minds of the doomed men.

"But the woman," he added, "will return to Lodore with me and be the queen of all women. And soon," he said savagely, "she may be queen of all Lodore, of the worlds which pay tribute to Lodore, and of other worlds which I will conquer and ravage. My father stood in way and he died at my own hands. So will others perish