? ? ? ? Then the old man rose from the table, shaking his fist at the closed door. Now he raised his voice, and his words came distinctly.
? ? ? ? "Fool!" he muttered. "Think you that for your happiness Solan will give up his life? If you escaped, Salensus Oll would know that only through my connivance could you have succeeded. Then would he send for me. What would you have me do? Reduce the city and myself to ashes? No, fool, there is a better way--a better way for Solan to keep thy money and be revenged upon Salensus Oll."
? ? ? ? He laughed in a nasty, cackling note.
? ? ? ? "Poor fool! You may throw the great switch that will give you the freedom of the air of Okar, and then, in fatuous security, go on with thy red princess to the freedom of--death. When you have passed beyond this chamber in your flight, what can prevent Solan replacing the switch as it was before your vile hand touched it? Nothing; and then the Guardian of the North will claim you and your woman, and Salensus Oll, when he sees your dead bodies, will never dream that the hand of Solan had aught to do with the thing.
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