CHAPTER XV

THE OLD MAN OF THE PITS

“I shall not desert you, Ghek,” said Tara of Helium, simply.

“Go!  Go!” whispered the kaldane.  “You can do me no good.  Go, or all I have done is for naught.”

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 a moment, then he swept Tara from her feet and lifting her 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 chambers presenting a thousand hiding-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 himself as one who would be rid of a bad dream and straightened up, half dazed still.

“Look,” said Ghek, then, “I have given your jeddak his life, nor have I harmed one of those whom I might 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 command of his faculties, stooped and regained 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 them.  Through the mercy of O-Tar they shall be permitted to win their freedom upon the Field of Jetan, in the coming games.”

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 from the brink of eternity into which he has gazed, not with the composure of great courage, 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 knew was 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 more of prestige in those few moments than he could regain in a lifetime, for the Martians are jealous of the courage of their chiefs—­there can be no evasions of stern duty, no temporizing with honor.  That there were others in the room who shared U-Thor’s belief was evidenced by the silence and the grim scowls.