She said slowly: "Master, I think it would be very correct if you would let me stay here and serve the Lady Elza. I told you that before, but you would not listen."
Tarrano, with sudden decision, swung toward Elza. "This is the Elta[14] Tara. She was concerned that I should allow you to dwell here alone with this Jac Hallen, and this traitor from Mars." His tone conveyed infinite contempt for us.
[Footnote 14: Elta--a term or title denoting rank by birth.]
The woman said quickly: "The Lady Elza would be glad of my companionship." She shot a swift glance to Elza. What it was meant to convey, I could not have said. Perhaps Elza understood it, or thought she did. She spoke up.
"I would like to have you very much, indeed." She added to Tarrano, and there was on her face a look of feminine guile:
"You, of course, could not refuse me so small a favor? After all your protestations----"
He gestured impatiently. "Very well." And he added to Tara: "You will serve the Lady Elza as she directs."
He stalked away into the darkened passage. In the gloom there, he stopped and again faced us; the light from a small blue tube in there illumined him dimly. He was smiling ironically.
"I shall maintain the instruments for you. The mirrors will show you Georg and Maida. They are just about arriving at the Mountain Station. Watch them! You will see how far they progress with their wonderful speeches."
He left us. We heard his measured tread as he stalked down the tower incline. The barrage about the tower was lifted momentarily as he went out. Then it came on again, with its glow beyond our casements, and its low electrical whine.
I was just turning back to the room when a sound behind me made me face sharply about. My heart leaped into my throat. The woman Tara had produced from about her person a weapon of some kind. She thought she was unobserved, but from the angle at which I stood, I saw her. A gleaming metal object was in her hand. And then she launched it--a small flat disc of metal, thin, and with its circular edge keen as a knife-blade.
Whirling with a very soft hum hardly audible, it left her hand and floated upward across the room. Circling the casements up near the ceiling, and then heading downward straight for Elza! And I saw, too, that the woman was guiding it by a tiny radio-control.