As I stood for a moment looking at the gruesome havoc Woola had
wrought, there recurred to me the memory of that other occasion
upon which I had masqueraded in the wig, diadem, and harness of
Sator Throg, the Holy Thern whom Thuvia of Ptarth had slain, and now
it occurred to me that it might prove of worth to utilize Lakor's
trappings for the same purpose.

A moment later I had torn his yellow wig from his bald pate and
transferred it and the circlet, as well as all his harness, to my
own person.

Woola did not approve of the metamorphosis. He sniffed at me and
growled ominously, but when I spoke to him and patted his huge head
he at length became reconciled to the change, and at my command
trotted off along the corridor in the direction we had been going
when our progress had been interrupted by the therns.

We moved cautiously now, warned by the fragment of conversation
I had overheard. I kept abreast of Woola that we might have the
benefit of all our eyes for what might appear suddenly ahead to
menace us, and well it was that we were forewarned.

At the bottom of a flight of narrow steps the corridor turned sharply
back upon itself, immediately making another turn in the original
direction, so that at that point it formed a perfect letter S,
the top leg of which debouched suddenly into a large chamber, illy
lighted, and the floor of which was completely covered by venomous
snakes and loathsome reptiles.

To have attempted to cross that floor would have been to court