hat she would eat."

It was an hour later that food was brought, an officer and several
warriors accompanying the bearer. The former examined the room
carefully, but there was no sign that aught amiss had occurred there.
The wound that had sent E-Med the dwar to his ancestors had not bled,
fortunately for Tara of Helium.

"Woman," cried the officer, turning upon Tara, "you were the last to
see E-Med the dwar. Answer me now and answer me truthfully. Did you see
him leave this room?"

"I did," answered Tara of Helium.

"Where did he go from here?"

"How should I know? Think you that I can pass through a locked door of
skeel?" the girl's tone was scornful.

"Of that we do not know," said the officer. "Strange things have
happened in the cell of your companion in the pits of Manator. Perhaps
you could pass through a locked door of skeel as easily as he performs
seemingly more impossible feats."

"Whom do you mean," she cried; "Turan the panthan? He lives, then? Tell
me, is he here in Manator unharmed?"

"I speak of that thing which calls itself Ghek the kaldane," replied
the officer.

"But Turan! Tell me, padwar, have you heard aught of him?" Tara's tone
was insistent and she leaned a little forward toward the officer, her
lips slightly parted in expectancy.

Into the eyes of the slave girl, Lan-O, who was watching her, there
crept a soft light of understanding; but the officer ignored Tara's
question--what was the fate of another slave to him? "Men do not
disappear into thin air," he growled, "and if E-Med be not found soon
O-Tar himself may take a hand in this. I warn you, woman, if you be one
of those horrid Corphals that by commanding the spirits of the wicked
dead gains evil mastery over the living, as many now believe the thing
called Ghek to be, that lest you return E-Med, O-Tar will have no mercy
on you."

"What foolishness is this?" cried the girl. "I am a princess of Helium,
as I have told you all a score of times. Even if the fabled Corphals
existed, as none but the most ignorant now believes, the lore of the
ancients tells us that they entered only into the bodies of wicked
criminals of the lowest class. Man of Manator, thou art a fool, and thy
jeddak and all his people," and she turned her royal back upon the
padwar, and gazed through the window across the Field of Jetan and the
roofs of Manator through the low hills and the rolling country and
freedom.

"And you know so much of Corphals, then,