obable that
the prince would make such provisions, on the chance that Topal might
have failed to carry out his order. Olmec would be expecting him to
return by the same route he had followed in going to Xotalanc.

Conan glanced up at a skylight under which he was passing and caught the
blurred glimmer of stars. They had not yet begun to pale for dawn. The
events of the night had been crowded into a comparatively short space of
time.

He turned aside from his direct course and descended a winding staircase
to the floor below. He did not know where the door was to be found that
let into the castle on that level, but he knew he could find it. How he
was to force the locks he did not know; he believed that the doors of
Tecuhltli would all be locked and bolted, if for no other reason than
the habits of half a century. But there was nothing else but to attempt
it.

Sword in hand, he hurried noiselessly on through a maze of green-lit or
shadowy rooms and halls. He knew he must be near Tecuhltli, when a sound
brought him up short. He recognized it for what it was--a human being
trying to cry out through a stifling gag. It came from somewhere ahead
of him, and to the left. In those deathly-still chambers a small sound
carried a long way.

Conan turned aside and went seeking after the sound, which continued to
be repeated. Presently he was glaring through a doorway upon a weird
scene. In the room into which he was looking a low rack-like frame of
iron lay on the floor, and a giant figure was bound prostrate upon it.
His head rested on a bed of iron spikes, which were already
crimson-pointed with blood where they had pierced his scalp. A peculiar
harness-like contrivance was fastened about his head, though in such a
manner that the leather band did not protect his scalp from the spikes.
This harness was connected by a slender chain to the mechanism that
upheld a huge iron ball which was suspended above the captive's hairy
breast. As long as the man could force himself to remain motionless the
iron ball hung in its place. But when the pain of the iron points caused
him to lift his head, the ball lurched downward a few inches. Presently
his aching neck muscles would no longer support his head in its
unnatural position and it would fall back on the spikes again. It was
obvious that eventually the ball would crush him to a pulp, slowly and
inexorably. The victim was gagged, and above the gag his great black
ox-eyes rolled wildly