“Edam!” I cried.  “What do ye here?  Come and open these bars!”

He made no reply, save to laugh in a way I did not like.  I shook the grating savagely, so that I felt it give.  “Edam!” I roared.  “Open this grating at once; and tell me, where is Ave?”

“I am here,” came another voice; and I stopped in sheer surprise, to peer closer and to see, for the first time, that it were really the dreamer and the chit, these two and no more, who sat there in the underground chamber.  They seemed to be sitting in some sort of a box, with glass windows.

“Ave—­come here!” I spoke much more gently than to Edam; for my heart was soft with thoughts of her.  “It is thy lord, Strokor, the emperor, who calls thee.  Come!”

“I stay here,” said she in the same clear voice, entirely unshaken by my presence.  “Edam hath claimed me, and I shall cleave to him.  I want none of ye, ye giant!”

For a moment I was minded to throw my weight against the barrier, such was my rage.  Then I thought better on it, and closely examined the bars.  Two were loose.

“Ave,” said I, contriving to keep my voice even, although my hands were busy with the bars as I spake.  “Ave—­ye do wrong to spite me thus.  Know ye not that I am the emperor, and that these bars cannot stand before me?  I warn ye, if I must call my men to help me, and to witness my shame, it will go hard with ye!  Better that ye should come willingly.  Ye are not for such as Edam.”

“No?” quoth the young man, speaking up for the chit.  “Ye are wrong, Strokor.  We defy thee to do thy worst; we are prepared to flee from ye at all costs!”

I had twisted one of the bars out of my way without their seeing it.  I strove at the next as I answered, still controlling my voice:  “’Twill do ye no good to flee, Edam; ye know that.  And as for Ave—­she shall wish she had never been born!”

“So I should,” she replied with spirit, “if I were to become thy woman.  But know you, Strokor, that Ave, the daughter of Durok, would rather die than take the name of one who had spurned her, as ye did me!”

So I had; it had slipped my mind.  “But I want thee now, Ave,” said I softly, preparing to slip through the opening I had made.  “Surely ye would not take thine own life?”

“Nay,” she answered, with a laugh in her voice.  “Rather I would go with Edam here.  I would go,” she finished, her voice rising in her excitement, “away from this horrible man’s world; away from it all, Strokor, and to Jeos!  Hear ye?  To Jeos!  And—­”

But at that instant I burst through the grating.  Without a sound I charged straight for the pair of them.  And without a sound they slipped away from before my grasp.  Next second I was gazing stupidly at the rushing, swirling water of the flume.

And I saw that they had been sitting in the cabin of a tiny boat, and that they had got away!

There was an opening into the outer air; I rushed through, and stared in the growing twilight down the black furrow of the flume.  Far in the distance, and going like a streak, I spied the glittering glass windows of the little craft.  Once I made out the flutter of a saucy hand.