"Shove off, Ulan!" I cried at the top of my voice. "Shove off, and take Mintep to Duare! I command it!" Then they were upon me.
At the sound of my voice the great doors swung open, and I saw more Zani uniforms in the great hall of the palace of the Toganja Zerka. They dragged me in, and when I was recognized a sullen murmur filled the room.
Chapter 15—Tragic Error
There is nothing more annoying than to commit an egregious error of judgment and have no one but yourself upon whom to blame it. As I was dragged into that room, I was annoyed. I was more than annoyed—I was frightened; for I saw certain death staring me in the face. And not death alone—for I remembered Narvon. I wondered if I would go to pieces, too.
And there was some reason for my apprehension, for besides a company of Zani Guardsmen and officers, there were a number of the great men of Zanism—there were even Mephis and Spehon themselves. And to one side, their wrists manacled, stood Zerka and Mantar. There was an expression almost of anguish in Zerka's eyes as they met mine. Mantar shook his head sadly, as though to say, "You poor fool, why did you stick your head into the noose again?"
"So you came back," rasped Mephis. "Don't you think that was a little unwise, a little stupid?"
"Let us say unfortunate, Mephis," I replied. "Unfortunate for you."
"Why unfortunate for me?" he demanded, almost angrily. I could see that he was nervous. I knew that he was always fearful.
"Unfortunate, because you would like to kill me; but if you do—if you harm me in any way or harm the Toganja Zerka or Mantar—you shall die shortly after dawn."
"You dare threaten me?" he roared. "You stinking mistal! You dare threaten the great Mephis? Off to the Gap kum Rov with him!—with all of them! Let Torko do his worst with them. I want to see them writhe. I want to hear them scream."
"Wait a minute, Mephis," I advised him. "I wasn't threatening you. I was merely stating facts. I know what I'm talking about, for I have given orders that I know will be carried out if I am not safely out of Amlot shortly after dawn."
"You lie!" he almost screamed.
I shrugged. "If I were you, though, I'd give instructions that none of us is to be tortured or harmed in any way until at least the third hour tomorrow—and be sure to have a boat ready that I and my friends can sail away in after you have released us."
"I shall never release you," he said; but nevertheless he gave instructions that we were not to be tortured or harmed until he gave further orders.
And so Zerka and Mantar and I were dragged away to the Gap kum Rov. They didn't abuse us, and they even took the manacles off Zerka and Mantar. They put us all together in a cell on the second floor, which surprised me; as the basement was reserved for Mephis's special hates as well as prisoners concerning whose incarceration he would rather not have too much known.
"Why did you do such a foolish thing as to come back?" asked Zerka, after we had been left alone.
"And right after I risked my life to get you out of here," said Mantar, laughingly.
"Well," I explained, "I wanted to see Zerka and find out if there is any way in which the loyal forces at Sanara may co-operate with you."
"They could," she said, "but now they'll never know. We need more weapons—you might have brought them in that flying boat you have told me about."
"I may yet," I assured her.
"Have you gone crazy?" she demanded. "Don't you know, regardless of that courageous bluff you tried to pull, that we are all lost—that we shall be tortured and killed, probably today."
"No," I said. "I know we may, but not that we shall. I was pulling no bluff. I meant what I said. But tell me, what caused them to arrest you and Mantar?"
"It was the culmination of growing suspicion on the part of Spehon," explained Zerka. "My friendship for you had something to do with it; and after Horjan informed on you and you escaped from the city, Spehon, in checking over all your connections, recalled this friendship and also the fact that Mantar and you were close friends and that Mantar was my friend. One of the soldiers in the detail that Mantar commanded the evening that he met you and let you proceed to the quay reported to Spehon that he thought your description, which he heard after he returned to the barracks, fitted the man with whom Mantar had talked. Then, these things having suggested my connection with you, Spehon recalled Narvon's last words—the same words that assured you that I was one of those who conspired with Narvon against the Zanis. So, all in all, they had a much clearer case against me than the Zanis ordinarily require; but Mephis would not believe that I had conspired against him. He is such an egotistical fool that he thought that my affection for him assured my loyalty."
"I was, until recently, in a quandary as to your exact sentiments and your loyalties," I said. "I was told that you were high in the esteem of Mephis, that you were the author of the 'Maltu Mephis!' gesture of adulation, that it was you who suggested having citizens stand on their heads while they cheered Mephis, that it was your idea to have The Life of Our Beloved Mephis run continuously in all theaters, and to have Zani Guardsmen annoy and assault citizens continually."
Zerka laughed. "You were correctly informed," she said. "I was the instigator of those and other schemes for making Zanism obnoxious and ridiculous in the eyes of the citizens of Amlot; so that it might be easier to recruit members for our counterrevolution. So stupidly egotistical are the chief Zanis, they will swallow almost any form of flattery, however ridiculous and insincere it may be."
While we were talking, Torko came stamping up the stairs to our cell. He had been absent from the prison when we were brought in. He wore one of his most fearsome frowns, but I could see he was delighted with the prospect of baiting and doubtless torturing such important prisoners as we. He stood and glowered at us a moment before he spoke. It was so evident that he was trying to impress and frighten us that I couldn't restrain a desire to laugh—well, perhaps I didn't try very hard. I knew how to bait such creatures as Torko. I also knew that no matter what attitude we assumed toward him he would give us the works, so to speak, the moment he was given the opportunity.
"What are you laughing at?" he demanded.
"I wasn't laughing before you came up, Torko; so I must be laughing at you."
"Laughing at me, are you, you stinking mistal?" he bellowed. "Well, you won't laugh when I get you in the courtroom tomorrow morning."
"You won't get me into the courtroom tomorrow morning, Torko; and even if I am there, you won't be. You'll be in one of these cells; and then, later, you'll have an opportunity to discover how effective are the ingenious devices for torture you bragged of having invented."
Zerka and Mantar looked their astonishment, the former smiling a little because she thought I was bluffing again. Torko stood there fairly boiling.
"I've a good mind to take you down there now," he threatened, "and get out of you what you mean by such talk."
"You wouldn't dare do that, Torko," I told him. "You already have your orders about us. And, anyway, you don't have to—I'll tell you without being tortured. It's like this: Mephis is going to be angry with you when I tell him you offered to give me liberties while I was stationed here if I would speak a good word about you to the Toganja Zerka, that she might carry it to him. He won't like it when he learns that you let me go fishing whenever I wanted to and thus permitted me to pave the way for my escape by boat; and, Torko, there is another thing that is going to make him so furious that—well, I just don't know what he will do to you when he discovers it."