r grimly, "and his fetter is
locked about his ankle. Look! it has not been opened--but where is the
key? It should be upon the table at the end opposite him. Where is the
key, creature?" he shouted at Ghek.

"How should I, a prisoner, know better than my jailer the whereabouts
of the key to my fetters?" he retorted.

"But it lay here," cried the officer, pointing to the other end of the
table.

"Did you see it?" asked Ghek.

The officer hesitated. "No but it must have been there," he parried.

"Did you see the key lying there?" asked Ghek, pointing to another
warrior.

The fellow shook his head negatively. "And you? and you?" continued the
kaldane addressing the others.

They both admitted that they never had seen the key. "And if it had
been there how could I have reached it?" he continued.

"No, he could not have reached it," admitted the officer; "but there
shall be no more of this! I-Zav, you will remain here on guard with
this prisoner until you are relieved."

I-Zav looked anything but happy as this intelligence was transmitted to
him, and he eyed Ghek suspiciously as the dwar and the other warriors
turned and left him to his unhappy lot.

CHAPTER XIII

A DESPERATE DEED

E-Med crossed the tower chamber toward Tara of Helium and the slave
girl, Lan-O. He seized the former roughly by a shoulder. "Stand!" he
commanded. Tara struck his hand from her and rising, backed away.

"Lay not your hand upon the person of a princess of Helium, beast!" she
warned.

E-Med laughed. "Think you that I play at jetan for you without first
knowing something of the stake for which I play?" he demanded. "Come
here!"

The girl drew herself to her full height, folding her arms across her
breast, nor did E-Med note that the slim fingers of her right hand were
inserted beneath the broad leather strap of her harness where it passed
over her left shoulder.

"And O-Tar learns of this you shall rue it, E-Med," cried the slave
girl; "there be no law in Manator that gives you this girl before you
shall have won her fairly."

"What cares O-Tar for her fate?" replied E-Med. "Have I not heard? Did
she not flout the great jeddak, heaping abuse upon him? By my first
ancestor, I think O-Tar might make a jed of the man who subdued her,"
and again he advanced toward Tara.

"Wait!" said the girl in low, even tone. "Perhaps you know not what you
do. Sacred to the people of Helium are the persons of the women of
Helium. For the