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Tolto had not bothered to remove the chains, but only to twist them apart by means of such tools as he could find to permit free movement of his arms and legs. They dangled from him, tinkling musically. Now he strode into the main cabin. The ship's crew, having no guests, were playing the part of guests. A man who was shuffling cards, was the first to see him.
Some of the poems of this period, not included in the Vita Nuova, have been preserved, and we propose to refer to them in their appropriate places. Compare with this passage Sonnet lxxix., Poesie Liriche, ed. Fraticelli, "Se 'l bello aspetto non mi fosse tolto,"
They had fought their way down perhaps two hundred feet of the stairway, and due to its curve they could see neither top nor bottom. "I'm stuck!" Tolto muttered. "Bad?" Sime edged to his side, stepping, in the darkness, on the body of the man who had succeeded in delivering that sword-stroke before Tolto's own blade had cleft him.
This must be a victim, a possible ally. The man was stirring. The overhanging arm was feebly trying to grasp something. If he were to roll over He did not have time. Tolto dragged him in to the safety of the airlock opening, where he could watch. There were sounds of pursuit, faint and cautious. Tolto grinned at the naked stranger. "Who are you, little bug?" he asked.
As for Tolto, we could hide a house as easy as him." "But we must go on," said Tuman, the Martian. "Yonder lights seem too bright, too numerous for an ordinary day. There's some kind of celebration." They trudged on for several hours more. Although weariness made their feet leaden and pressed on their eyelids, they dared not halt. Each one nursed some secret dread.
And slowly, inexorably, Tolto followed. His arms tightened. His leg slipped suddenly between the ape-faced man's supports. Tolto grunted. The sound seemed to labor upward from his innermost being, his body's protest as he called upon it for its last reserve of strength.
Murray, with a gallantry that sat ill on the scarecrow figure he was, cleared matters up a trifle. "Princess Sira? As I thought. Princess, or Your Highness, to be formal, I am your humble and disreputable servant, Lige Murray, of the Interplanetary Flying Police. Likewise this gentleman behind the brush Sime Hemingway. You know Tuman? You've missed something, Your Highness! And Tolto! Lucky man!"
For a few seconds she straightened, and one of the crew bethought himself of the pistol in the mate's cabin. He sighted on Tolto, clearly visible ahead. Before he could release the ray the ship went into another breath-taking maneuver. A mountain peak came sliding toward them ominously. They scraped by. The ship dived, throwing Tolto forward, and his instinctive grab threw the elevator up.
Like an echo, there was a dull crack, a brief, agonized moan from the ape-faced one; and the savage, unknown giant slumped to the pavement, dead with a broken back. Tolto staggered to the wall, breathing deeply. "Man, what a fight! What a fight!" The young Martian captain passed a shaking hand over his face. The battle had stirred him more deeply than he wanted to admit.
"Yeh," Tolto agreed, referring to their numerous wounds with sly humor: "lots of 'em." Nevertheless, they felt pretty happy when the levitator screws took up their melancholy whine. The rocky valley floor dropped away, and the windowless stone walls of the fortress slid down past them. Now they were even with the top.
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