"They are in the Diamond Tower," she replied, "very high. There are no bars on their windows because no one could escape from the Diamond Tower in that way. There are always guards at its base, for it is the tower in which are the Jeddak's quarters; so if you are planning on your women escaping through a window, you might as well abandon the idea at once."
"I think not," I replied. "If my plan works, they can escape with even greater ease from the Diamond Tower than from the courtyard."
"But how about you and the other men of your party? Even if you are able to lower yourselves from the window of your cell, you will never be able to reach the Diamond Tower to ensure our escape."
"Leave that to me," I said; "have confidence in me, and I think that if you do your part, we shall all be able to escape."
"Tonight?" she asked.
"No, I think not," I said; "we had better wait until tomorrow night, for we do not know how long it will take to sever the bars of our window. Perhaps you had better send me back now and smuggle the tools to me as soon thereafter as possible."
She nodded. "You are right."
"Just a moment," I said. "How am I to know the Tower of Diamonds? How am I to find it?"
She appeared puzzled. "It is the central and loftiest tower of the castle," she explained, "but I do not know how you will reach it without a guide and many fighting men."
"Leave that to me, but you must help guide me to the room where the two women are imprisoned."
"How can I do that?" she demanded.
"When you reach their room, hang a colored scarf from a window there- a red scarf."
"How can you see that from inside the castle?" she demanded.
"Never mind; if my plan works, I shall find it. And now, please send me away."
She struck a gong hanging near her and the slave girl, Ulah, entered the apartment. "Take the prisoner back to Zamak," she instructed, "and have him returned to his cell."
Ulah took me by the hand and led me from the presence of the Jeddara, through the adjoining apartment and into the corridor beyond, where Zamak and the guards were waiting. There she turned me over to the warriors who conducted me back to the room in the Turquoise Tower, where my companions were imprisoned.
Jat Or voiced an exclamation of relief when he saw me enter the room. "When they took you away, my prince, I thought that I should never see you again; but now Fate is growing kinder to me. She has just given me two proofs of her returning favor-I have you back again, and when the door opened I saw the Tarids who returned with you."
"You could see them?" I exclaimed.
"I could see them and hear them," he replied.
"And I, too," said Gar Nal.
"How about you, Ur Jan?" I asked, for the more of us who could see them, the better chance we would have in the event that there was any fighting during our attempt to rescue the women and escape.
Ur Jan shook his head gloomily. "I could see nothing or hear nothing," he said.
"Don't give up," I urged; "you must see them. Persevere, and you shall see them."
"Now," I said, turning to Gar Nal, "I have some good news. Our ships are safe; yours still lies in the courtyard. They are afraid to approach it."
"And yours?" he asked.
"It floats in the sky, high above the castle."
"You brought others with you from Barsoom?" he asked.
"No," I replied.
"But there must be somebody aboard the ship, or it could not get up there and remain under control."
"There is someone aboard it," I replied.
He looked puzzled. "But you just said that you brought no one with you," he challenged.
"There are two Tarid warriors aboard it."
"But how can they handle it? What can they know about the intricate mechanism of Fal Sivas's craft?"
"They know nothing about it and cannot handle it."
"Then how in the name of Issus did it get up there?" he demanded.
"That is something that you need not know, Gar Nal," I told him. "The fact is, that it is there."
"But what good will it do us, hanging up there in the sky?"
"I think that I can get it, when the time comes," I said, although, as a matter of fact, I was not positive that I could control the ship through the mechanical brain at so great a distance. "I am not so much worried about my ship, Gar Nal, as I am about yours. We should recover it, for after we escape from this castle, our truce is off; and it would not be well for us to travel on the same ship."
He acquiesced with a nod, but I saw his eyes narrow craftily. I wondered if that expression reflected some treacherous thought; but I passed the idea off with a mental shrug, as really it did not make much difference what Gar Nal was thinking as long as I could keep my eyes on him until I had Dejah Thoris safely aboard my own craft.
Ur Jan was sitting on a bench, glaring into space; and I knew that he was concentrating his stupid brain in an effort to cast off the hypnotic spell under which the Tarids had placed him. Umka lay curled up on a rug, purring contentedly. Jat Or stood looking out of one of the windows.
The door opened, and we all turned toward it. I saw Ulah, the Jeddara's slave, bearing a large earthen jar of food. She set it down upon the floor inside the door, and stepping back into the corridor, closed and fastened the door after her.
I walked quickly to the jar and picked it up; and as I turned back toward the others, I saw Ur Jan standing wide-eyed staring at the door.
"What's the matter, Ur Jan?" I asked. "You look as though you had seen a ghost."
"I saw her!" he exclaimed. "I saw her. Ghost or no ghost, I saw her."
"Good!" ejaculated Jat Or; "now we are all free from that damnable spell."
"Give me a good sword," growled Ur Jan; "and we’ll soon be free of the castle, too."
"We've got to get out of this room first," Gar Nal reminded him.
"I think we have the means of escape here, in this jar," I told them. "Come, we might as well eat the food, as long as we have it, and see what we find in the bottom of the jar."
The others gathered around me, and we started to empty the jar in the most pleasurable fashion; nor had we gone deep into it before I discovered three files, and with these we immediately set to work upon the bars of one of our windows.
"Don't cut them all the way through," I cautioned; "just weaken three of them so that we can pull them aside when the time arrives."
The metal of which the bars were constructed was either some element unknown upon Earth or Barsoom. or an equally mysterious alloy. It was very hard. In fact, it seemed at first that it was almost as hard as our files; but at last they commenced to bite into it, yet I saw that it was going to be a long, hard job.
We worked upon those bars all that night and all of the following day.
When slaves brought our food, two of us stood looking out of the window, our hands grasping the bars so as to cover up the evidence of our labors; and thus we succeeded in finishing the undertaking without being apprehended.
Night fell. The time was approaching when I might put to trial the one phase of my plan that was the keystone upon which the success of the entire adventure must rest. If it failed, all our work upon the bars would be set for naught, our hopes of escape practically blasted. I had not let the others know what I purposed attempting, and I did not now acquaint them with the doubts and fears that assailed me.
Ur Jan was at the window looking out. "We can pull these bars away whenever we wish," he said, "but I do not see what good that is going to do us. If we fastened all our harnesses together, they would not reach to the castle roof below us. It looks to me as though we had had all our work for nothing."