Part 9 (2/2)
”I SHALL not desert you, Ghek,” said Tara of Helium, simply
”Go! Go!” whispered the kaldane ”You can do ht”
Tara shook her head ”I cannot,” she said
”They will slay her,” said Ghek to Turan, and the panthan, torn between loyalty to this strange creature who had offered its life for him, and love of the woman, hesitated but aher in his arms leaped up the steps that led to the throne of Manator Behind the throne he parted the arras and found the secret opening Into this he bore the girl and down a long, narrow corridor and winding runways that led to lower levels until they came to the pits of the palace of O-Tar Here was a labyrinth of passages and cha-places
As Turan bore Tara up the steps toward the throne a score of warriors rose as though to rush forward to intercept them ”Stay!” cried Ghek, ”or your jeddak dies,” and they halted in their tracks, waiting the will of this strange, uncanny creature
Presently Ghek took his eyes from the eyes of O-Tar and the jeddak shook hihtened up, half dazed still
”Look,” said Ghek, then, ”I have given your jeddak his life, nor have I harht easily have slain when they were in my power No harm have I or my friends done in the city of Manator Why then should you persecute us? Give us our lives Give us our liberty”
O-Tar, now in coained his sword In the room was silence as all waited to hear the jeddak's answer
”Just are the laws of Manator,” he said at last ”Perhaps, after all, there is truth in the words of the stranger Return him then to the pits and pursue the others and capture theh the mercy of O-Tar they shall be permitted to win their freedoames”
Still ashen was the face of the jeddak as Ghek was led away and his appearance was that of a man who had been snatched froazed, not with the coe, but with fear There were those in the throne room who knew that the execution of the three prisoners had but been delayed and the responsibility placed upon the shoulders of others, and one of those who kneas U-Thor, the great jed of Manatos His curling lip betokened his scorn of the jeddak who had chosen humiliation rather than death He knew that O-Tar had lost ain in a lifetie of their chiefs--there can be no evasions of stern duty, no te with honor That there were others in the room who shared U-Thor's belief was evidenced by the silence and the grilanced quickly around He uessed its cause, for he went suddenly angry, and as one who seeks by the vehee of his heart he roared forth what could be considered as naught other than a challenge
”The will of O-Tar, the jeddak, is the law of Manator,” he cried, ”and the laws of Manator are just--they cannot err U-Dor, dispatch those ill search the palace, the pits, and the city, and return the fugitives to their cells
”And now for you, U-Thor of Manatos! Think you with iht to punish traitors and instigators of treason? What am I to think of your own loyalty, who takes to wife a woainst the authority of her jeddak and her master? But O-Tar is just Make your explanations and your peace, then, before it is too late”
”U-Thor has nothing to explain,” replied the jed of Manatos; ”nor is he at ith his jeddak; but he has the right that every jed and every warrior enjoys, of de justice at the hands of the jeddak for whoor has the jeddak of Manator persecuted the slaves fro Princess Haja If the slaves froeance and escape 'tis no eous people Ever have I counselled greater fairness in our treatment of our slaves, reat distinction and power; but always has O-Tar, the jeddak, flouted with arrogance h none of lad that it has, for the time was bound to come when the jeds of Manator would demand from O-Tar the respect and consideration that is their due froh office at their pleasure Know, then, O-Tar, that youhim to fair trial before the assembled jeds of Manator I have spoken”
”You have spoken well and to the point, U-Thor,” cried O-Tar, ”for you have revealed to your jeddak and your fellow jeds the depth of the disloyalty that I have long suspected A-Kor already has been tried and sentenced by the supreme tribunal of Manator--O-Tar, the jeddak; and you too shall receive justice fro source In the meantime you are under arrest To the pits with him! To the pits with U-Thor the false jed!” He clapped his hands to su A score leaped forward to seize U-Thor They arriors of the palace, ing steel they fought at the foot of the steps to the throne of Manator where stood O-Tar, the jeddak, with draord ready to take his part in the uards rushed to the scene fro until those ould have defended U-Thor were outnumbered two to one, and then the jed of Manatos sloithdreith his forces, and fighting his way through the corridors and chambers of the palace came at last to the avenue Here he was reinforced by the little army that had marched with him into Manator Slowly they retreated toward The Gate of Ene down upon them from the balconies and there, within the city walls, they hted chamber beneath the palace of O-Tar the jeddak, Turan the panthan lowered Tara of Helium from his arms and faced her ”I am sorry, Princess,” he said, ”that I was forced to disobey your commands, or to abandon Ghek; but there was no other way Could he have saved you I would have stayed in his place Tell ive raciously ”But it seemed cowardly to abandon a friend”
”Had we been three fighting men it had been different,” he said ”We could only have re; but you know, Tara of Heliuh we risk the loss of honor”
”I know that, Turan,” she said; ”but no one may say that you have risked honor, who knows the honor and bravery that are yours”
He heard her with surprise for these were the first words that she had spoken to him that did not savor of the attitude of a princess to a panthan--though it was more in her tone than the actual words that he apprehended the difference How at variance were they to her recent repudiation of him! He could not fathom her, and so he blurted out the question that had been in his mind since she had told O-Tar that she did not know him
”Tara of Heliuave me in the throne room of O-Tar Tell reat, deep eyes up to his and in theuess,” she asked, ”that it was my lips alone and not my heart that denied you? O-Tar had ordered that I die, more because I was a coainst ed you as one of us, you would be slain, too”
”It was to save
”It was to save my brave panthan,” she said in a low voice
”Tara of Heliu to one knee, ”your words are as food to ers in his and pressed them to his lips
Gently she raised hi,” she said, softly
Her hand was still in his as he rose and they were very close, and the man was still flushed with the contact of her body since he had carried her fro in his breast and the hot blood surging through his veins as he looked at her beautiful face, with its downcast eyes and the half-parted lips that he would have given a kingdom to possess, and then he swept her to hiainst his breast his lips smothered hers with kisses
But only for an instant Like a tigress the girl turned upon hi hih and her eyes flashi+ng fire ”You would dare?” she cried ”You would dare thus defile a princess of Helium?”
His eyes met hers squarely and there was no shame and no remorse in them
”Yes, I would dare,” he said ”I would dare love Tara of Helium; but I would not dare defile her or any woman with kisses that were not prompted by love of her alone” He stepped closer to her and laid his hands upon her shoulders ”Look into hter of The Warlord,” he said, ”and tell me that you do not wish the love of Turan, the panthan”
”I do not wish your love,” she cried, pulling away ”I hate you!” and then turning away she bent her head into the hollow of her arh to co laugh behind hiure of ain a doorway It was one of those rarities occasionally to be seen upon Barsooe upon him Bent and wrinkled, he had more the appearance of a mummy than a ain his thin laughter jarred upon the silence of the subterranean vaults ”A strange place to woo! A strange place to woo, indeed! When I was a young iant pi Thuria We calooed and ways have changed, though I had never thought to live to see the time when the way of a e Ah, but we kissed them then! And what if they objected, eh? What if they objected? Why, we kissed theain ”Ey, well do I recall the first of them I ever kissed, and I've kissed an arirl, but she tried to slip a dagger intoher Ey, ey, those were the days! But I kissed her She's been dead over a thousand years now, but she was never kissed again like that while she lived, I'll swear, not since she's been dead, either And then there was that other--” but Turan, seeing a thousand or , interrupted
”Tell me, ancient one,” he said, ”not of thy loves but of thyself Who are you? What do you here in the pits of O-Tar?”
”Iman,” replied the other ”Few there are who visit the pits other than the dead, except my pupils--ey! That is it--you are new pupils! Good! But never before have they sent a woreatest artist But tied Now, inand loving Ey, those were the women I mind the one we captured in the south--ey! she was a devil, but how she could love She had breasts of marble and a heart of fire Why, she--”
”Yes, yes,” interrupted Turan; ”we are pupils, and we are anxious to get to work Lead on and ill follow”
”Ey, yes! Ey, yes! Coh there were not another countless es ahead Ey, yes! as many as lie behind Two thousand years have passed since I broke my shell and always rush, rush, rush, yet I cannot see that aught has been accomplished Manator is the sairls then There was one that I gained upon The Fields of Jetan Ey, but you should have seen --”
”Lead on!” cried Turan ”After we are at work you shall tell us of her”
”Ey, yes,” said the old fellow and shuffled off down a di with him?” asked Tara
”Why not?” replied Turan ”We know not where we are, or the way from these pits; for I know not east from west; but he doubtless knows and if we are shree may learn from him that which ould know At least we cannot afford to arouse his suspicions”; and so they followed hih many chambers, until they came at last to a room in which there were several marble slabs raised upon pedestals some three feet above the floor and upon each slab lay a human corpse
”Here we are,” exclaiet to work upon the now on one for The Gate of Enemies He slew many of our warriors Truly is he entitled to a place in The Gate Co apartment Upon the floor were many fresh, human bones and upon a marble slab a mass of shapeless flesh
”You will learn this later,” announced the old man; ”but it will not harm you to watch me now, for there are notbefore you will have the opportunity to see another prepared for The Gate of Enemies First, you see, I reed as little as possible The skull is the most difficult, but it can be rele opening This I no up, and that done, the body is hung so,” and he fastened a piece of rope to the hair of the corpse and swung the horrid thing to a ring in the ceiling Directly beloas a circulara well partially filled with a reddish liquid ”Noer it into this, the formula for which you shall learn in due time We fasten it thus to the bottom of the cover, whichreplace In a year it will be ready; but it must be examined often in the meantime and the liquid kept above the level of its crown It will be a very beautiful piece, this one, when it is ready
”And you are fortunate again, for there is one to come out today” He crossed to the opposite side of the roorotesque looking figure from the hole It was a human body, shrunk by the action of the cheure scarce a foot high
”Ey! is it not fine?” cried the little old man ”Tomorroill take its place in The Gate of Enemies” He dried it off with cloths and packed it away carefully in a basket ”Perhaps you would like to see so for their assent led thee cha or standing quietly about the walls, with the exception of one huge warrior who bestrode a great thoat in the very center of the roo to the minds of Tara and Turan the rows of silent people upon the balconies that lined the avenues of the city, and the noble array of mounted warriors in The Hall of Chiefs, and the same explanation came to both but neither dared voice the question that was in his norance the fact that they were strangers in Manator and therefore iuise of pupils
”It is very wonderful,” said Turan ”It reat skill and patience and time”