were thirty or forty in number. These men
and women were of almost all races and classes, but all of them walked
stiffly, mechanically, staring ahead with unseeing, distended eyes, like
living corpses.

"Drugged!" came Campbell's shaken voice. "They're all drugged, and don't
know what is going on."

Ennis' eyes fastened on a small, slender girl with chestnut hair who
walked at the end of the line, a girl in a straight tan dress, whose
face was white, stiff, like those of the others.

"There's Ruth!" he exclaimed frantically, his cry muffled by his hood.

He plunged in that direction, but Campbell held him back.

"No!" rasped the inspector. "You can't help her by simply getting
yourself captured!"

"I can at least go with her!" Ennis exclaimed. "Let me go!"

Inspector Campbell's iron grip held him. "Wait, Ennis!" said the
detective. "You've no chance that way. That robe of Chandra Dass' you're
wearing has a double-star badge like those of the men up there on the
dais. That means that as Chandra Dass you're entitled to be up there
with them. Go up there and take your place as though you were Chandra
Dass--with the hood on, they can't tell the difference. I'll slip around
to that side door out of which they brought the prisoners. It must
connect with the tunnels, and it's not far from the dais. When I fire my
pistol from there, you grab your wife and try to get to that door with
her. If you can do it, we'll have a chance to get up through the tunnels
and escape."

Ennis wrung the inspector's hand. Then, without further reply, he walked
boldly with measured steps up the main aisle of the cavern, through the
gray ranks to the dais. He stepped up onto it, his heart racing. The
chief priest, he of the triple-star, gave him only a glance, as of
annoyance at his lateness. Ennis saw Campbell's gray figure slipping
round to the side door.

The gray-hooded hundreds before him had paid no attention to either of
them. Their attention was utterly, eagerly, fixed upon the stiff-moving
prisoners now being marched up onto the dais. Ennis saw Ruth pass him,
her white face an unfamiliar, staring mask.

The prisoners were ranged at the back of the dais, just beneath the
great, gleaming black oval facet. The guards stepped back from them, and
they remained standing stiffly there. Ennis edged a little toward Ruth,
who stood at the end of that line of stiff figures. As he moved
imperceptibly closer to her, he saw the two priests be