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"
Of that we do not know," said the officer. "Strange things have happened in the
cell of your companion in the pits of Manator. Perhaps you could pass through a
locked door of skeel as easily as he performs seemingly more impossible feats."
"
Whom do you mean," she cried; "Turan the panthan? He lives, then? Tell me, is
he here in Manator unharmed?"
"
I speak of that thing which calls itself Ghek the kaldane," replied the officer.
But Turan! Tell me, padwar, have you heard aught of him?" Tara's tone was
"
insistent and she leaned a little forward toward the officer, her lips slightly parted
in expectancy.
Into the eyes of the slave girl, Lan-O, who was watching her, there crept a soft
light of understanding; but the officer ignored Tara's question--what was the fate
of another slave to him? "Men do not disappear into thin air," he growled, "and if
E-Med be not found soon O-Tar himself may take a hand in this. I warn you,
woman, if you be one of those horrid Corphals that by commanding the spirits of
the wicked dead gains evil mastery over the living, as many now believe the thing
called Ghek to be, that lest you return E-Med, O-Tar will have no mercy on you."
"
What foolishness is this?" cried the girl. "I am a princess of Helium, as I have
told you all a score of times. Even if the fabled Corphals existed, as none but the
most ignorant now believes, the lore of the ancients tells us that they entered only
into the bodies of wicked criminals of the lowest class. Man of Manator, thou art
a fool, and thy jeddak and all his people," and she turned her royal back upon the
padwar, and gazed through the window across the Field of Jetan and the roofs of
Manator through the low hills and the rolling country and freedom.
"And you know so much of Corphals, then," he cried, "you know that while no
common man dare harm them they may be slain by the hand of a jeddak with
impunity!"
The girl did not reply, nor would she speak again, for all his threats and rage, for
she knew now that none in all Manator dared harm her save O-Tar, the jeddak,
and after a while the padwar left, taking his men with him. And after they had
gone Tara stood for long looking out upon the city of Manator, and wondering
what more of cruel wrongs Fate held in store for her. She was standing thus in
silent meditation when there rose to her the strains of martial music from the city
below--the deep, mellow tones of the long war trumpets of mounted troops, the
clear, ringing notes of foot-soldiers' music. The girl raised her head and looked
about, listening, and Lan-O, standing at an opposite window, looking toward the
west, motioned Tara to join her. Now they could see across roofs and avenues to
The Gate of Enemies, through which troops were marching into the city.
115
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