he trick. We're two.
And at the worst we can only go down fighting a little before the rest
of us. So, after all, whatEVER the hell, WHAT the hell."

For a time we were silent.

"Well," he said at last, "we have to go to the city in the morning."
He laughed. "Sounds as though we were living in the suburbs, somehow,
doesn't it?"

"It can't be many hours before dawn," I said. "Turn in for a while, I'll
wake you when I think you've slept enough."

"It doesn't seem fair," he protested, but sleepily.

"I'm not sleepy," I told him; nor was I.

But whether I was or not, I wanted to question Yuruk, uninterrupted and
undisturbed.

Drake stretched himself out. When his breathing showed him fast asleep
indeed, I slipped over to the black eunuch and crouched, right hand
close to the butt of my automatic, facing him.

CHAPTER XVII. YURUK

"Yuruk," I whispered, "you love us as the wheat field loves the hail;
we are as welcome to you as the death cord to the condemned. Lo, a door
opened into a land of unpleasant dreams you thought sealed, and we came
through. Answer my questions truthfully and it may be that we shall
return through that door."

Interest welled up in the depths of the black eyes.

"There is a way from here," he muttered. "Nor does it pass
through--Them. I can show it to you."

I had not been blind to the flash of malice, of cunning, that had shot
across the wrinkled face.

"Where does that way lead?" I asked. "There were those who sought us;
men clad in armor with javelins and arrows. Does your way lead to them,
Yuruk?"

For a time he hesitated, the lashless lids half closed.

"Yes," he said sullenly. "The way leads to them; to their place. But
will it not be safer for you there--among your kind?"

"I don't know that it will," I answered promptly. "Those who are unlike
us smote those who are like us and drove them back when they would have
taken and slain us. Why is it not better to remain with them than to go
to our kind who would destroy us?"

"They would not," he said "If you gave them--her." He thrust a long
thumb backward toward sleeping Ruth. "Cherkis would forgive much for
her. And why should you not? She is only a woman."

He spat--in a way that made me want to kill him.

"Besides," he ended, "have you no arts to amuse him?"

"Cherkis?" I asked.

"Cherkis," he whined. "Is Yuruk a fool not to know that in the world
without, new things have arisen since long ago we fled from Iska