Thick dust covered the floor
within the doorway, indicating that a great period of time had
elapsed since human foot had trod it--a secret way, doubtless,
unknown to living Manatorians. Here they dragged the corpse of
E-Med, leaving it upon the platform, and as they left the dark
and forbidden closet Lan-O would have slammed to the panel had
not Tara prevented.
"Wait!" she said, and fell to examining the door frame and the
stile.
"Hurry!" whispered the slave girl. "If they come we are lost."
"It may serve us well to know how to open this place again,"
replied Tara of Helium, and then suddenly she pressed a foot
against a section of the carved base at the right of the open
panel. "Ah!" she breathed, a note of satisfaction in her tone,
and closed the panel until it fitted snugly in its place. "Come!"
she said and turned toward the outer doorway of the chamber.
They reached their own cell without detection, and closing the
door Tara locked it from the inside and placed the key in a
secret pocket in her harness.
"Let them come," she said.
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