from Ranke on the other side. One of them, by ill chance, was relieving himselfbehind a flowering shrub as she descended, and needed to do no more than thrustthe haft of his pike between her legs. She gasped and went sprawling.

But Melilot had foreseen all this, and she was prepared with her story and theevidence to back it up.

'Don't hurt me, please! I don't mean any harm!' she whimpered, making her voiceas childish as possible. There was a torch guttering in a sconce nearby; thesoldier heaved her to her feet by her right wrist, his grip as cruel as atrap's, and forced her towards it. A sergeant appeared from the direction of thepavilions which since her last visit had sprouted like mushrooms between theentry to the Hall of Justice and the clustered granaries on the north-west sideof the grounds.

'What you got?' he rumbled in a threatening bass voice.

'Sir, I mean no harm! I have to do what my mistress tells me, or I'll be nailedto the temple door!'

That took both of them aback. The soldier somewhat relaxed his fingers and thesergeant bent close to look her over better in the wan torchlight.

'By that, I take it you serve a priestess of Argash?' he said eventually.

It was a logical deduction. On the twenty-foot-high fane of that divinity hismost devoted followers volunteered, when life wearied them, to be hung up andfast unto death.

But Jarveena shook her head violently.

'N-no, sir! Dyareela!' naming a goddess banned these thirty years owing to thebloodthirstiness of her votaries.

The sergeant frowned. 'I saw no shrine to'her when we escorted the prince alongTemple Avenue!'

'N-no, sir! Her temple was destroyed, but-her worshippers endure!'

'Do they now!' the sergeant grunted. 'Hmm! That sounds like something thecommander ought to know!'