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common to make it reasonably certain that one was as bad as the other, and
that, therefore, it remained but to convict one of them of Corphalism to make
certain the guilt of both. And then O-Tar called for Ghek, and immediately the
hideous kaldane was dragged before him by warriors who could not conceal the
fear in which they held this creature.
"And you!" said O-Tar in cold accusing tones. "Already have I been told enough of
you to warrant me in passing through your heart the jeddak's steel--of how you
stole the brains from the warrior U-Van so that he thought he saw your headless
body still endowed with life; of how you caused another to believe that you had
escaped, making him to see naught but an empty bench and a blank wall where
you had been."
"Ah, O-Tar, but that is as nothing!" cried a young padwar who had come in
command of the escort that brought Ghek. "The thing which he did to I-Zav, here,
would prove his guilt alone."
"
What did he to the warrior I-Zav?" demanded O-Tar. "Let I-Zav speak!"
The warrior I-Zav, a great fellow of bulging muscles and thick neck, advanced to
the foot of the throne. He was pale and still trembling visibly as from a nervous
shock.
"Let my first ancestor be my witness, O-Tar, that I speak the truth," he began. "I
was left to guard this creature, who sat upon a bench, shackled to the wall. I
stood by the open doorway at the opposite side of the chamber. He could not
reach me, yet, O-Tar, may Iss engulf me if he did not drag me to him helpless as
an unhatched egg. He dragged me to him, greatest of jeddaks, with his eyes! With
his eyes he seized upon my eyes and dragged me to him and he made me lay my
swords and dagger upon the table and back off into a corner, and still keeping his
eyes upon my eyes his head quitted his body and crawling upon six short legs it
descended to the floor and backed part way into the hole of an ulsio, but not so
far that the eyes were not still upon me and then it returned with the key to its
fetter and after resuming its place upon its own shoulders it unlocked the fetter
and again dragged me across the room and made me to sit upon the bench where
it had been and there it fastened the fetter about my ankle, and I could do naught
for the power of its eyes and the fact that it wore my two swords and my dagger.
And then the head disappeared down the hole of the ulsio with the key, and when
it returned, it resumed its body and stood guard over me at the doorway until the
padwar came to fetch it hither."
"
It is enough!" said O-Tar, sternly. "Both shall receive the jeddak's steel," and
rising from his throne he drew his long sword and descended the marble steps
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