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doing until chance gave him a hold upon the creature's throat.
After that the end was but a matter of moments. Rising at last he
flung the lifeless thing from him with a shudder of disgust.
Now he turned his attention to a hurried inventory of the new
conditions which surrounded him since the moment of his
incarceration. He realized vaguely what had happened. He had been
anaesthetized and stripped of his weapons, and as he rose to his
feet he saw that one ankle was fettered to a chain in the wall.
He looked about the room. All the doors swung wide open! His
captors would render his imprisonment the more cruel by leaving
ever before him tempting glimpses of open aisles to the freedom
he could not attain. Upon the end of the table and within easy
reach was food and drink. This at least was attainable and at
sight of it his starved stomach seemed almost to cry aloud for
sustenance. It was with difficulty that he ate and drank in
moderation.
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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
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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.
Ghek had never seen an ulsio, since these great Martian rats had
long ago disappeared from Bantoom, their flesh and blood having
been greatly relished by the kaldanes; but Ghek had inherited,
almost unimpaired, every memory of every ancestor, and so he knew
that ulsio inhabited these lairs and that ulsio was good to eat,
and he knew what ulsio looked like and what his habits were,
though he had never seen him nor any picture of him. As we breed
animals for the transmission of physical attributes, so the
Kaldanes breed themselves for the transmission of attributes of
the mind, including memory and the power of recollection, and
thus have they raised what we term instinct, above the level of
the threshold of the objective mind where it may be commanded and
utilized by recollection. Doubtless in our own subjective minds
lie many of the impressions and experiences of our forebears.
These may impinge upon our consciousness in dreams only, or in
vague, haunting suggestions that we have before experienced some
transient phase of our present existence. Ah, if we had but the
power to recall them! Before us would unfold the forgotten story
of the lost eons that have preceded us. We might even walk with
God in the garden of His stars while man was still but a budding
idea within His mind.
Ghek descended into the burrow at a steep incline for some ten
feet, when he found himself in an elaborate and delightful
network of burrows! The kaldane was elated. This indeed was life!
He moved rapidly and fearlessly and he went as straight to his
goal as you could to the kitchen of your own home. This goal lay
at a low level in a spheroidal cavity about the size of a large
barrel. Here, in a nest of torn bits of silk and fur lay six baby
ulsios.
When the mother returned there were but five babies and a great
spider-like creature, which she immediately sprang to attack only
to be met by powerful chelae which seized and held her so that
she could not move. Slowly they dragged her throat toward a
hideous mouth and in a little moment she was dead.
Ghek might have remained in the nest for a long time, since there
was ample food for many days; but he did not do so. Instead he
explored the burrows. He followed them into many subterranean
chambers of the city of Manator, and upward through walls to
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rooms above the ground. He found many ingeniously devised traps,
and he found poisoned food and other signs of the constant battle
that the inhabitants of Manator waged against these repulsive
creatures that dwelt beneath their homes and public buildings.
His exploration revealed not only the vast proportions of the
net-work of runways that apparently traversed every portion of
the city, but the great antiquity of the majority of them. Tons
upon tons of dirt must have been removed, and for a long time he
wondered where it had been deposited, until in following downward
a tunnel of great size and length he sensed before him the
thunderous rush of subterranean waters, and presently came to the
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