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were slitted, his lips a knife-thin line. Standing there, he
seemed a small animal of a man tensing for action. He said
in an ugly tone:
That's a fine way for a fellow to talk after our organiza-
tion has just saved his life.'
The justice of the words stung. But Holroyd knew with
an utter conviction that the morality behind them didn't
apply here. This was different. Ptath, the thrice greatest,
transcended any such confining ethics.
'Listen,' he said earnestly, 'the rebel leaders made their
rejection blindly, without regard to my character or my
personality, which renders their decision ill considered,
lacking in imagination and, therefore, worthless.'
He drew a deep breath and raced on: 'Tell them I am
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r r
prepared to play the role of Ptath on the largest scale, that
if they are strong enough to seize this temple I am prepared
to make it my headquarters. Tell them no army will ever
gather recruits faster than the one that will swarm around
me. Soldiers coming to attack will remain as my followers. I
know enough to fool everybody including  ' He stopped.
He had been intending to say including the goddess. But so
extreme a claim would not carry weight. He finished:
' including people of the highest intelligence.'
'That's a lot of talk,' said Tar coolly, 'from a man who's
in a dungeon.'
'I was sick,' said Holroyd. 'Very sick.'
Tar frowned, said, 'I'll get in touch with them. It may
take a week, though.'
Holroyd shook his head. The prospect of a direct hostility
between himself and Tar was not one that he relished. But
there could be no evading the primes of his situation. While
he still had several days' leeway, it would be madness to cut
the time between his escape and the goddess' arrival too
closely.
She would come. He was certain of that. She would come
by the fastest transportation available.
'Tonight,' he said flatly. 'It's got to be tonight.' His gaze
fastened on the tunnel. 'What about my escaping through
there?'
There was no answer. Tar was lowering himself into the
hole. As he ducked out of sight, Holroyd bent down,
examined the bottom of the stone and then straightened,
smiling grimly. A moment later Tar handed up some fruit,
a glass of liquid and some bread. 'Help me lower the stone,'
he said quietly. 'I'll see what I can do for you.' :
Holroyd suppressed a smile. 'I'm sorry,' he said quietly,
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'but I've just noticed that there are notches in the stone for
fastening it from below. I'll feel safer it the stone isn't
replaced.'
There was no answer to that either. One long, malignant
glare Tar gave him, and then he was gone. But he came
back; surprisingly he came back, with lunch, with supper.
But he ignored Holroyd's advances with a studied silence
that left no recourse finally but action.
CHAPTER V
SECRETS OF A TEMPLE
THE tunnel was a narrow shape of dark and light.
Tiny light sticks protruded from the ceiling, which was so
low that Holroyd had to bend almost double as he walked.
There were side passages, dark holes scarcely big enough
for a man's body. Holroyd ignored them. It wouldn't do to
lose his way in a labyrinth of byways. His only course must
be to keep on this main corridor.
Curiously, Holroyd examined the first light stick. Like
the others, it was made of wood. It felt cold to his touch,
and when he pulled at it, it blinked out as if he had turned
the switch. It was attached to the ceiling by a wooden hinge,
but the light didn't go on again till he shoved the stick into
contact with the concrete. The power must come out of the
ground.
Holroyd was about to pass on when he noticed the tag
hanging from the hinge. On it was written:
Cell 17
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r r
Occupant: Amnesia case.
Remarks: None.
The tag on the second light said: 'Cell 16, Name ...
Nrad ... Made the mistake of hitting back at a temple
soldier.' Holroyd studied the laconic inscription with grim
eyes. Nrad's mistake was one that he could appreciate.
At the end of the line of lights, in the darkness beyond
cell No. 1, was a steep, narrow stairway. Holroyd climbed
up it past dully lighted corridors, but it was the mental
image that came that disturbed him, the picture of himself
in this subterranean world of a temple that towered into the
blue dark sky of an earth that had aged two hundred
million years since his own birth. The time involved was
meaningless, more alien than death. Funny how pasts
meant nothing. There was only this climbing up a secret
stairway in a half light, climbing ten, eleven, twelve levels.
He reached the twelfth and last, searched with a brief
intentness for an outlet might take him to the roof, and
finding none, stepped gingerly into the passageway and
walked along it. The ceiling here was high enough for him
to walk erect. But here as on the dungeon level were
branching tunnels that he ignored on the same simple
theory that, by moving in straight lines, he wouldn't get
lost. Here too, were tags on every light. The first one
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