Her heart already breaking!  The outlook was anything but promising, and the young padwar wished that he had died before ever he had had to speak the words he now must speak.

“Tara of Helium,” he continued, “we all thought you dead.  For a long year have you been gone from Helium.  I mourned you truly and then, less than a moon since, I wed with Olvia Marthis.”  He stopped and looked at her with eyes that might have said:  “Now, strike me dead!”

“Oh, foolish man!” cried Tara.  “Nothing you could have done could have pleased me more.  Djor Kantos, I could kiss you!”

“I do not think that Olvia Marthis would mind,” he said, his face now wreathed with smiles.  As they spoke a body of men had entered the throne room and approached the dais.  They were tall men trapped in plain harness, absolutely without ornamentation.  Just as their leader reached the dais Tara had turned to Gahan, motioning him to join them.

“Djor Kantos,” she said, “I bring you Turan the panthan, whose loyalty and bravery have won my love.”

John Carter and the leader of the new come warriors, who were standing near, looked quickly at the little group.  The former smiled an inscrutable smile, the latter addressed the Princess of Helium. “‘Turan the panthan!’” he cried.  “Know you not, fair daughter of Helium, that this man you call panthan is Gahan, Jed of Gathol?”

For just a moment Tara of Helium looked her surprise; and then she shrugged her beautiful shoulders as she turned her head to cast her eyes over one of them at Gahan of Gathol.

“Jed or panthan,” she said; “what difference does it make what one’s slave has been?” and she laughed roguishly into the smiling face of her lover.

* * * * *

His story finished, John Carter rose from the chair opposite me, stretching his giant frame like some great forest-bred lion.

“You must go?” I cried, for I hated to see him leave and it seemed that he had been with me but a moment.

“The sky is already red beyond those beautiful hills of yours,” he replied, “and it will soon be day.”

“Just one question before you go,” I begged.

“Well?” he assented, good-naturedly.

“How was Gahan able to enter the throne room garbed in O-Tar’s trappings?” I asked.

“It was simple—­for Gahan of Gathol,” replied The Warlord.  “With the assistance of I-Gos he crept into The Hall of Chiefs before the ceremony, while the throne room and Hall of Chiefs were vacated to receive the bride.  He came from the pits through the corridor that opened behind the arras at the rear of the throne, and passing into The Hall of Chiefs took his place upon the back of a riderless thoat, whose warrior was in I-Gos’ repair room.  When O-Tar entered and came near him Gahan fell upon him and struck him with the butt of a heavy spear.  He thought that he had killed him and was surprised when O-Tar appeared to denounce him.”