Kantos Kan perceived my coup and stepping quickly to
my side he placed his foot upon my neck and withdrawing his sword
from my body gave me the final death blow through the neck which is
supposed to sever the jugular vein, but in this instance the cold
blade slipped harmlessly into the sand of the arena. In the
darkness which had now fallen none could tell but that he had really
finished me. I whispered to him to go and claim his freedom and
then look for me in the hills east of the city, and so he left me.
When the amphitheater had cleared I crept stealthily to the top and
as the great excavation lay far from the plaza and in an untenanted
portion of the great dead city I had little trouble in reaching the
hills beyond.
CHAPTER XX
IN THE ATMOSPHERE FACTORY
For two days I waited there for Kantos Kan, but as he did not come
I started off on foot in a northwesterly direction toward a point
where he had told me lay the nearest waterway. My only food
consisted of vegetable milk from the plants which gave so
bounteously of this priceless fluid.
Through two long weeks I wandered, stumbling through the nights
guided only by the stars and hiding during the days behind some
protruding rock or among the occasional hills I traversed.
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