He was interrupted by a sudden outburst of noise at the entrance to the eating place; and they all looked around to see five men wearing helmets, curved swords in scabbards and carrying long weapons that were halfway between a spear and a halberd. For a moment Jim simply a.s.sumed they were going to one of the niches on either side of them; but-no, they were coming directly toward himself and the rest.

They came right up to the niche and stopped before it. They did not look friendly. They were all dressed more or less the same in brownish-white robes. Four of them wore boiled leather jackets, and their helmets were also of leather. The fifth one, who was in advance of the others and seemed in command, had a steel helmet and a chain mail shirt.

He had a narrow, long face with cold brown eyes that looked hard at them.

"You three are under arrest, by order of the Dey!" he said, arriving. "I see you are wearing knives. You will give them up. Now-hilt first."

"Hah!" said Brian, and his hand was on the handle of his knife, but not in such a position as to pull it out and offer it hilt first; and immediately four of the long weapons were leveled at him from no more than half a foot away.

"Brian!" said Jim warningly. But ibn-Tariq was already speaking.

"Calm yourself, my friends," he said. "I'm sure there is a mistake here. Officer, may I speak to you apart for a moment? I am ibn-Tariq, and my name is not unknown in this city."

"Forgive our disturbance of your meal, O ibn-Tariq," said the officer graciously, with a circular outward wave of his hand. "I a.s.sure you there is no mistake; but of course, if you would wish for a word-?"

Ibn-Tariq got up and the two of them walked a little away. The four men stayed with their spears still leveled, although now at least one pointed each at Jim, Brian and Baiju.

There was a matter of some minutes of rather tense waiting. Brian looked fiercely at the four spears. He had taken his hand from his sword and dropped it to his side. In appearance this seemed a move to make himself look more harmless, but Jim knew better and the knowledge made him uncomfortable.

Knights were not supposed to need what Jim's twentieth century was to call "hold-out" knives; but Brian had explained to Jim a long time ago, near the beginning of their friendship, no one who could afford a second knife ever went without one hidden about him.

In Brian's case, he had at least one Jim knew of. Up the sleeve of the arm behind the hand that Brian had just taken from his sword hilt, his friend carried a short, but heavy knife, hiltless, but with a leaded center to give it special weight, and a wide double-edged blade with out-curving edges that would ensure a cutting blow.

A snap of Brian's wrist could slide the hilt of it into his hand, and it would come out, tearing its way easily through his sleeve, ready for a backhand strike at whatever he wished. The blade was heavy enough to shear through at least one of the wooden staves behind the metal spear points that were aimed at him.

"I think we can give ibn-Tariq a chance," said Jim out loud to Brian.

Brian looked at him without disagreement. Baiju was also looking at him, but with something more like contempt.

It was after only a few moments, by the standards of eastern conversation, that ibn-Tariq and the officer came back.

"I'm afraid you'll have to go with this officer," ibn-Tariq said to them. "But I'm still convinced that a mistake has been made. I will see about having it corrected right away. This officer is under the command of the military governor here in Palmyra, whom I know. I would strongly suggest that you go quietly, without complaint; and leave all to me."

Baiju gave one of his snorts that could have been laughter or not as the case might be.

Jim hastily pulled out his sword and offered it hilt first to the officer, who disdainfully stepped aside and motioned for one of the spear-carriers to take it. The man did, still keeping his spear leveled on Jim.

Seeing Jim had done this, Brian reluctantly gave up his sword but made no move to hand over any of the other weapons he might be carrying. It was quite possible, thought Jim, that he had more blades about him than the one up his sleeve.

Baiju stood up, letting the spear point in front of him come right against his chest, piercing his skin beneath his clothes. He lifted his own short, curved sword from its sheath with his left hand and, reaching forward, rammed the hilt into the stomach of a spear-carrier opposite him, who hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed at it and took it.

"Now," said the officer, "we go."

They were led out into the street, attracting a crowd as they went, and marched for some distance followed by the same crowd. They went by various turns through alleyways until they reached one so narrow that the officer seemed to lose his temper with the onlookers, and told off two of his soldiers to block it behind them against any who might follow.

That left him and the other two soldiers now behind Jim and Brian and Baiju, herding them forward.

They continued on, following the directions of the officer to turn here, or turn there, until they came to a door in a stone wall, with another soldier standing beside it.

The officer had moved in front of them by this time, since they were out of the narrow confines of the alley. He was highly visible; and at his approach the soldier standing beside the door hastily opened it.

Without a word the officer marched Jim and his companions in and through a small dirty room where three other soldiers, all heavily armed with swords and wide, curve-bladed knives long enough almost to be swords, lounged on dirty cushions. They were herded farther through a very narrow door-so narrow that only one could pa.s.s at a time-down a dark flight of stairs, down, down and finally into a pa.s.sageway that had earth underfoot and stone walls all around.

They went a little farther by the flickering light of a torch on one stony wall, until the pa.s.sageway widened out to become a room divided by metal bars into cages. There were a couple of barely human, barely alive individuals in the first two cages they pa.s.sed, dressed in rags. Then Jim and Brian were pushed into another, empty cage together and its door slammed on them. Baiju was left outside.

"Not you, Mongol," said the officer. "We've got someplace else to take you."

He and the three guards from the room above, who had evidently followed him down, surrounded the little Mongol and they moved off together, leaving Jim and Brian staring at each other in the empty cage.

A single cresset provided poor lighting to the whole room in which the cages stood. However, it happened to be fixed to the wall just behind the empty cage to Jim's left, almost within arm's reach; and this allowed them to see each other, and their immediate surroundings fairly well.

"What will they do with that small man, do you suppose?" Brian asked Jim.

Jim shook his head.

"I don't understand any of this," said Jim.

"I should not ask, perhaps," said Brian, "but is there some way in which you could use your magic-"

He left the end of the sentence hanging.

"Of course," said Jim, "but things aren't that desperate yet. There's always magic if everything else fails.

But we ought to be braced for the fact that there're some situations magic won't deal with."

He looked around him.

"I wish I knew more about this place where they put us," he said. "Does it look like a city jail to you?"

"Not exactly," said Brian doubtfully. "City jails tend to be earth dungeons, like the one you got me and Giles out of, under the French King's lodging place in Brest, the last time we were in France. These are not only dry but clean."

"Clean?" echoed Jim, looking around himself in disbelief.

"Oh, yes," Brian went on almost cheerfully, "the sort of place you would have to lock up someone of rank. I do believe that's a chamber pot in the corner there."

Jim decided not to be drawn into any further discussion of the luxury of their quarters.

"I think you're right," he said to Brian. "I'd like to know what the rest of this building looks like. But I don't want to use my magic to do it. I'm beginning to get a strong suspicion that there may be other magic going on around here-maybe keeping an eye on us."

He stared thoughtfully at the guttering light of the cresset, and the soot-blackened ceiling just above its flame.

"On the other hand, now, there's some smoke right there. And there has to be some way for that smoke to get out of here-some kind of ventilation opening. Maybe Hob could ride the smoke out such an opening, possibly using the smoke of other torches, or cooking fires, or whatever, and then come back and so tell us about the place."

He half turned his head.

"Hob?" he said. "Do you think you could do that?"

There was no answer from behind him.

"Hob?" he repeated; and when there was still no answer, he put up his hand to feel the pouch behind him where Hob should be. It was limp and perfectly empty.

"He is gone?" said Brian, staring at Jim's face and his groping hand.

"Yes." Jim let his hand drop. "I know he was there with us when we went in to talk to ibn-Tariq, because the smoke from that cooking device almost made me cough; and he spoke to me."

"He surely wouldn't have left us without permission or orders?" said Brian. "What? Leave his Lord without permission? What sort of hobgoblin is he?"

"I think they're all like him," said Jim thoughtfully. A cold fear had crept into him. "You don't suppose he thought this was a sort of emergency where he was supposed to go home to England and tell Angie and Geronde about it?"

"Back to England? Tell Angela and Geronde?" Brian stared at him. "What's this?"

"Part of what I arranged with Hob before he and I left England. I told you about this at Sir Mortimor's castle-remember? There might be a situation where I wouldn't be able to order him to go and carry back to Angie and Geronde a message of what had happened to us. In that case he was to use his own judgment when to leave. He must have thought our being arrested was that kind of situation, and ridden the smoke of the brazier off as we left. We might not have seen him go because he was trying not to be seen by anyone else there. Besides, as we left, we were looking toward the entrance, and everyone else was watching us go. Also, there was no one else in the niches next to us. I'll bet that's just what he did!"

"But if he did," said Brian, "and if it could be done..."

"Oh, it can be done, all right-or rather, a hobgoblin can do it," said Jim. "And I got the impression that the farther it was, the faster he could travel. He seemed to think he could get from wherever we might be to back home in a few hours, no more."

They looked at each other.

"And he'll be telling the Lady Angela that we've been taken by soldiers and locked up, our weapons taken away?" Brian demanded.

Jim nodded glumly.

"But it will only serve to disturb her-and Geronde, when she is also told!" said Brian.

"That's what I'm thinking. I mean," said Jim, "that's what I'm worrying about. Angie'll have been told we're in a dangerous spot; and there she'll be back in England, a couple of thousand miles away and not able to do anything about it."

"They'll want to come to our aid, of course," said Brian. "I can a.s.sure you Geronde will."

"So will Angie, of course," said Jim. "Luckily, they won't be able to. How could they possibly get here?"

"How will we possibly get there?" said Angie, striding up and down the solar of Malencontri. Geronde was perched on the edge of the bed, and Hob was sitting on a waft of smoke that had politely extended itself into the room from the fire that burned in the fireplace, though it was a fresh spring day outside. The walls of the castle would still be cold for another month or more yet.

"I could probably sc.r.a.pe together the money to travel," said Geronde. "But after that it would still take us months."

"That's the thing," said Angie, still pacing. "As far as that goes, I can lay my hands on enough money right here in the castle, along with a gem or two we could turn into money in any city of any size if we needed more along the way. But you're right, it'd take us months; and who knows what would have happened to them by the time we got there? We not only need to get there, we need to get there quickly."

She stopped pacing suddenly and whirled about to stare at Hob.

"M' lady?" said Hob, his eyes growing large.

"Hob-Hob-One de Malencontri-" said Angie, "Jim told me how you took him for a ride on the smoke.

You can take Geronde and me to them, just the way you took Jim."

"Oh, m'lady!" said Hob. "We're only really supposed to take children. It was just because you're m'lord and m'lady that it was probably all right to take either one of you. But I really can't take anyone else, like m'lady Geronde. And anyway the smoke won't carry two big grown-up humans along with me.

One is as much extra weight as it can carry. I might take two little children-if they were really little."

"Bah!" said Geronde.

"No, he can't help it," Angie told Geronde. "He'll do whatever he can, I know. Won't you, Hob?"

"Oh yes, m'lady."

"All right!" said Angie energetically. "If we can't do it one way, we'll do it another. I've got an idea how we could manage it."

"What idea is this, Angela?" asked Geronde.

"I'll tell you up on the roof of the tower, when there's no one around to hear," said Angie. "Come on, Geronde. You too, Hob."

She led the way out of the solar and up the short flight of stone steps to the top of the tower, which was actually the roof of the solar. The sentry on duty there gaped at them-not so much at Angie and Geronde as at Hob, sitting on the waft of smoke. But then, he was a seasoned member of this household of a magician; so it was beneath him to show any real alarm or emotion.

"You can go downstairs, Harold," said Angie. "I'll call you when I need you; or if you haven't heard a call in an hour, then come back up by yourself. If we're gone, pay no attention."

"Pay no attention, m'lady?" The seasoned member of the household was beginning to weaken in his self-control.

"You heard me," said Angie. "Down the stairs with you, now!"

Harold obeyed. When he was gone, Angie turned to Geronde with a smile.

"Well?" demanded Geronde.

"Geronde," said Angie, "remember not too long ago when Jim and I in dragon form landed on your tower, and you came up and tried to shoo us off thinking we were dragons that were looking for Malencontri and landed on your tower by mistake?"

"I remember, Angela," said Geronde.

"Well," said Angie triumphantly, "we'll turn ourselves into dragons and fly there!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

Geronde stared at Angie. If it had been anyone but her, it would not have been too much to say that she gaped open-mouthed. But Geronde was too much like Brian, too fierce a person to look slack-jawed and foolish.

"You can do magic also, Angela?" she asked.

"I've never tried," said Angie, with her own brand of fierceness. "But the day we landed on your tower-top, Jim had turned me into a dragon. If I've been a dragon once, I ought to be able to be a dragon again. And if I can make myself into a dragon, I ought to be able to make you into a dragon."

"But how will you do it?" asked Geronde.

"How exactly, I don't know," said Angie. "That's beside the point. I've watched Jim often enough. If you live with a man as long as I have, Geronde, you get so you know him very well-very well indeed.

Stand back and I'll try it."