“But they are friends and companions,” said a young padwar, “for this Turan inquired of me concerning these two, calling them by name and saying that they were his friends.”

“It is enough,” stated O-Tar, “all three shall die,” and he took another step downward from the throne.

“For what shall we die?” asked Ghek.  “Your people prate of the just laws of Manator, and yet you would slay three strangers without telling them of what crime they are accused.”

“He is right,” said a deep voice.  It was the voice of U-Thor, the great jed of Manatos.  O-Tar looked at him and scowled; but there came voices from other portions of the chamber seconding the demand for justice.

“Then know, though you shall die anyway,” cried O-Tar, “that all three are convicted of Corphalism and that as only a jeddak may slay such as you in safety you are about to be honored with the steel of O-Tar.”

“Fool!” cried Turan.  “Know you not that in the veins of this woman flows the blood of ten thousand jeddaks—­that greater than yours is her power in her own land?  She is Tara, Princess of Helium, great-granddaughter of Tardos Mors, daughter of John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom.  She cannot be a Corphal.  Nor is this creature Ghek, nor am I. And you would know more, I can prove my right to be heard and to be believed if I may have word with the Princess Haja of Gathol, whose son is my fellow prisoner in the pits of O-Tar, his father.”

At this U-Thor rose to his feet and faced O-Tar.  “What means this?” he asked.  “Speaks the man the truth?  Is the son of Haja a prisoner in thy pits, O-Tar?”

“And what is it to the jed of Manatos who be the prisoners in the pits of his jeddak?” demanded O-Tar, angrily.

“It is this to the jed of Manatos,” replied U-Thor in a voice so low as to be scarce more than a whisper and yet that was heard the whole length and breadth of the great throne room of O-Tar, Jeddak of Manator.  “You gave me a slave woman, Haja, who had been a princess in Gathol, because you feared her influence among the slaves from Gathol.  I have made of her a free woman, and I have married her and made her thus a princess of Manatos.  Her son is my son, O-Tar, and though thou be my jeddak, I say to you that for any harm that befalls A-Kor you shall answer to U-Thor of Manatos.”

O-Tar looked long at U-Thor, but he made no reply.  Then he turned again to Turan.  “If one be a Corphal,” he said, “then all of you be Corphals, and we know well from the things that this creature has done,” he pointed at Ghek, “that he is a Corphal, for no mortal has such powers as he.  And as you are all Corphals you must all die.”  He took another step downward, when Ghek spoke.