The Buccaneers of Venus Collection (Three novels in one volume!) by Otis Adelbert Kline Page A

that particularly interested him depicted a group of Albines in the act of capturing a queen sabit while their comrades fought off her guards. They were fastening huge manacles on her neck and legs while she struggled desperately.
        It seemed that he had walked for more than a mile along the corridor, and passed several thousand armored figures, when he arrived at a great circular chamber that, for elegance and richness of decoration, surpassed anything he had ever seen.
        From the base of the walls to the peak of the domelike ceiling, it was a mass of grotesque bas-reliefs and mural paintings in bright pigments, while gracefully sculptured statues of men and women occupied niches set at intervals of about fifteen feet all about the room. The floor was of varicolored blocks of clearest crystal, fitted together so skillfully that they presented a surface as smooth as that of a mirror, while forming beautiful tesselated patterns of exquisite design.
        When he turned his light on the floor it sent forth myriad reflections that lit up the entire room. He was amazed by this phenomenon until he discovered that the base of each block had been cut and silvered so each beam of light was multiplied a thousand-fold.
        In the center of the room a fountain babbled, evidently fed by an artesian well, for it could not otherwise have continued in operation for hundreds of years without attention. As he walked toward the fountain he saw a round bulk, which he had at first mistaken for a shadow, suddenly leap back and then scamper for a broad doorway at the left.
        The thing had short legs armed with huge claws that rattled on the polished floor, and a barrel-shaped body covered with tiny, fishlike scales. Grandon recognized it as one of those large, burrowing rodents which the omnivorous sabits prized so highly as an article of food.
        Several times he had seen them feeding on fungi and grasses in the woods, and the thought came that this creature must needs have access to the outer world to live; consequently there must undoubtedly be a means of egress nearby which he himself could use, for where so thick-bodied a rodent could go, he could easily follow.
        He entered the doorway in quick pursuit and found himself in a passageway similar to the one he had just vacated. The circular chamber was evidently a sort of hub from which these passageways radiated as spokes in all directions.
        The rodent had disappeared, but its trail was not hard to follow, for it had left thousands of muddy footprints during its many excursions to the fountain. The trail terminated at a gaping black hole in the wall where a portion of the sculptured stone had broken away. Drawing his sword and pointing the light before him, he entered the dark, winding burrow, crawling on knees and elbows. It led upward in a slanting, irregular spiral which he thought would never come to an end.
        At length the welcome scent of fresh air came to his nostrils and he emerged from the burrow at the base of a huge tree. He shut off his light. As he paused there in the darkness, Grandon fancied he heard the distant murmur of human voices. He listened intently for a moment, then clambered up on a large surface root. Several hundred yards distant he saw two torches flickering before the gateway of a circular wall about ten feet high which surrounded a tall, conical structure.
        Leaping down from the root he approached the place cautiously. As he drew nearer the sounds grew more plain, and he could distinguish the voices of men raised in altercation. He also heard the sound of blows, and thought he detected the faint cry of a woman.
        The torch-lit gateway was guarded by two powerful soldier sabits with brown forceps, so he circled, keeping well out of sight, and brought up at the base of the wall at a point that was not visible from the gate. He leaped, hooked his fingers over the edge of the wall, and drew himself