Toward this Metak led the girl, and then, as though
filled with a sudden suspicion, his eyes narrowed cunningly and
turning toward the soldiery he issued an order which resulted in
their all preceding him through the small doorway and up a flight
of stairs a short distance beyond.
The stairway and the corridor above were lighted by small flares
which revealed several doors in the walls of the upper passageway.
To one of these the men led the prince. Bertha Kircher saw them
knock upon the door and heard a voice reply faintly through the
thick door to the summons. The effect upon those about her was
electrical. Instantly excitement reigned, and in response to orders
from the king's son the soldiers commenced to beat heavily upon the
door, to throw their bodies against it and to attempt to hew away
the panels with their sabers. The girl wondered at the cause of
the evident excitement of her captors.
She saw the door giving to each renewed assault, but what she did
not see just before it crashed inward was the figures of the two
men who alone, in all the world, might have saved her, pass between
the heavy hangings in an adjoining alcove and disappear into a dark
corridor.
As the door gave and the warriors rushed into the apartment followed
by the prince, the latter became immediately filled with baffled
rage, for the rooms were deserted except for the dead body of the
owner of the palace, and the still form of the black slave, Otobu,
where they lay stretched upon the floor of the alcove.
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