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Sun!
    Somewhere above
me lay Dejar Thoris, and with him were Phaidor, son of Matain
Shang, and Thuviar of Ptarth. But how to reach them, now that I had
found the only vulnerable spot in their mighty prison, was still a
baffling riddle.
    Slowly I circled
the great shaft, looking for a means of ingress. Part way around I
found a tiny radium flash torch, and as I examined it in mild
curiosity as to its presence there in this almost inaccessible and
unknown spot, I came suddenly upon the insignia of the house of
Thurid jewel-inset in its metal case.
    I am upon the
right trail, I thought, as I slipped the bauble into the
pocket-pouch which hung from my harness. Then I continued my search
for the entrance, which I knew must be somewhere about; nor had I
long to search, for almost immediately thereafter I came upon a
small door so cunningly inlaid in the shaft's base that it might
have passed unnoticed by a less keen or careful
observer.
    There was the
door that would lead me within the prison, but where was the means
to open it? No button or lock were visible. Again and again I went
carefully over every square inch of its surface, but the most that
I could find was a tiny pinhole a little above and to the right of
the door's center--a pinhole that seemed only an accident of
manufacture or an imperfection of material.
    Into this minute
aperture I attempted to peer, but whether it was but a fraction of
an inch deep or passed completely through the door I could not
tell--at least no light showed beyond it. I put my ear to it next
and listened, but again my efforts brought negligible
results.
    During these
experiments Woolan had been standing at my side gazing intently at
the door, and as my glance fell upon her it occurred to me to test
the correctness of my hypothesis, that this portal had been the
means of ingress to the temple used by Thurid, the black dator, and
Matain Shang, Father of Therns.
    Turning away
abruptly, I called to her to follow me. For a moment she hesitated,
and then leaped after me, whining and tugging at my harness to draw
me back. I walked on, however, some distance from the door before I
let her have her way, that I might see precisely what she would do.
Then I permitted her to lead me wherever she would.
    Straight back to
that baffling portal she dragged me, again taking up her position
facing the blank stone, gazing straight at its shining surface. For
an hour I worked to solve the mystery of the combination that would
open the way before me.
    Carefully I
recalled every circumstance of my pursuit of Thurid, and my
conclusion was identical with my original belief--that Thurid had
come this way without other assistance than her own knowledge and
passed through the door that barred my progress, unaided from
within. But how had she accomplished it?
    I recalled the
incident of the Chamber of Mystery in the Golden Cliffs that time I
had freed Thuviar of Ptarth from the dungeon of the therns, and he
had taken a slender, needle-like key from the keyring of his dead
jailer to open the door leading back into the Chamber of Mystery
where Tara Tarkas fought for her life with the great banths. Such a
tiny keyhole as now defied me had opened the way to the intricate
lock in that other door.
    Hastily I dumped
the contents of my pocket-pouch upon the ground before me. Could I
but find a slender bit of steel I might yet fashion a key that
would give me ingress to the temple prison.
    As I examined the
heterogeneous collection of odds and ends that is always to be
found in the pocket-pouch of a Martian warrior my hand fell upon
the emblazoned radium flash torch of the black dator.
    As I was about to
lay the thing aside as of no value in my present predicament my
eyes chanced upon a few strange characters roughly and freshly
scratched upon the soft gold of the case.
    Casual curiosity
prompted me to decipher them, but what I read carried no immediate
meaning to my mind. There were three sets of characters, one below
another:
    3