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Updated: June 24, 2025
"I wanted only to know where I am," Tolto replied, subsiding meekly. "I drank overmuch and some larksters tied me up like this. Release me, so that if the princess calls I may answer." "The princess will have to call loudly for you to hear," the cook answered jocularly. "The princess need only whisper for Tolto to hear," the giant boasted, "Come now, shrimp, take these things off!"
With a vicious twisting motion of his head he tried to drag his fangs through the thick muscles of Tolto's shoulder. The wound began to bleed more freely, choking the savage at each labored breath. Now Tolto began to walk forward. Always his antagonist had to yield a little, unwillingly, grudgingly, just enough to keep the paralyzing pressure on his spine from becoming unbearable.
It was not long afterward that the cook, turning from his work at the electric grill, stared into a face that had once been innocent and peaceful. It seemed the face of a demon. He would have shrieked, but Tolto took his arm between thumb and forefinger, saying gently: "Remember, little bug, what I said!" He was cast, dumb with fear, into the late prisoner's cell.
The heavy metal doors were open, and they hurried in. But Tolto, noting that the princess had not followed, hurried out in search for her. Sime stumbled over a body. It had been a dark, sleek, youngish man. A jagged burn on his throat told of the needle-ray. "Who's this fellow, Murray?" Murray glanced at the body. He smiled a brief smile of satisfaction. "That's Scar Balta.
When at last his breathing became easier and his diaphragm moved without pain, Sime knew that danger was greatest. For this relief meant that the Martians had withdrawn down the stairway. "Good-by, boys!" he thought, as he sprinted up into the comparative safety of the open. He motioned to Tolto, who stood hopefully waiting with his great war club, to stand clear. There it was!
"The princess would not send me home like this," Tolto objected. But he held his peace, and the cook went back to his work, satisfied that he had subdued this dangerous prisoner. In this he was guilty of no greater error than Prince Joro and the other monarchists. For ages there had been an unfounded opinion that big men are generally slow and stupid.
He lifted his voice, a powerful bass. "Hi, hi! Let Tolto go! The princess may call!" There was no answer, only the rhythmic hum of the levitators. Again Tolto cried out. But there was no answering sound. The Sun poured in through the ports, and when presently the ship changed its course, the light fell full in his face, almost blinding him. The giant endured this without complaint.
The valve stem was stout, and a foot long. It was just long enough so that Tolto, by lying on his side, could reach one of the eyebolts. Inserting the stem, Tolto pulled toward him. The eyebolt turned without resistance. It was free to rotate, and could not be twisted off. A groan escaped from the prisoner. But in a few moments he tried bending upward.
He meant to see Tolto safely and demonstrably returned to his home valley, and in order to accomplish this the more surely, he had him loaded aboard his own ship, and instructed his captain to take the little used desert route. Tolto lifted his hands as far as he could and looked wonderingly at them. His child-like face, with the soft, agate eyes, expressed only bewilderment.
There was a dismaying lurch. Sime picked himself up from the floor and dashed to the controls. "Everything's all right!" he shouted excitedly. Tolto, however, was listening anxiously. There was a sharp crackling at the stern, where, in a narrow space, the reaction motors provided the forward motive power. In moments of excitement he referred to himself in the third person. He did so now.
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