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very center of the room, and all were motionless. Instantly there sprang 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 mind, for fear of revealing by his ignorance the fact that
they were strangers in Manator and therefore impostors in the guise of pupils.
"It is very wonderful," said Turan. "It must require great skill and patience and
time."
"
That it does," replied the old man, "though having done it so long I am quicker
than most; but mine are the most natural. Why, I would defy the wife of that
warrior to say that insofar as appearances are concerned he does not live," and
he pointed at the man upon the thoat. "Many of them, of course, are brought here
wasted or badly wounded and these I have to repair. That is where great skill is
required, for everyone wants his dead to look as they did at their best in life; but
you shall learn--to mount them and paint them and repair them and sometimes
to make an ugly one look beautiful. And it will be a great comfort to be able to
mount your own. Why, for fifteen hundred years no one has mounted my own
dead but myself.
"I have many, my balconies are crowded with them; but I keep a great room for
my wives. I have them all, as far back as the first one, and many is the evening I
spend with them--quiet evenings and very pleasant. And then the pleasure of
preparing them and making them even more beautiful than in life partially
recompenses one for their loss. I take my time with them, looking for a new one
while I am working on the old. When I am not sure about a new one I bring her to
the chamber where my wives are, and compare her charms with theirs, and there
is always a great satisfaction at such times in knowing that they will not object. I
love harmony."
"
"
Did you prepare all the warriors in The Hall of Chiefs?" asked Turan.
Yes, I prepare them and repair them," replied the old man. "O-Tar will trust no
other. Even now I have two in another room who were damaged in some way and
brought down to me. O-Tar does not like to have them gone long, since it leaves
two riderless thoats in the Hall; but I shall have them ready presently. He wants
them all there in the event any momentous question arises upon which the living
jeds cannot agree, or do not agree with O-Tar. Such questions he carries to the
jeds in The Hall of Chiefs. There he shuts himself up alone with the great chiefs
who have attained wisdom through death. It is an excellent plan and there is
never any friction or misunderstandings. O-Tar has said that it is the finest
deliberative body upon Barsoom--much more intelligent than that composed of
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