第76章

And then, suddenly, Gahan's eyes fastened with amazement upon the figure of the warrior behind the grinning fellow who held Tara and was forcing her to the doorway.He saw the newcomer step almost within arm's reach of the other.He saw him stop, an expression of malevolent hatred upon his features.He saw the great sword swing through the arc of a great circle, gathering swift and terrific momentum from its own weight backed by the brawn of the steel thews that guided it; he saw it pass through the feathered skull of the Manatorian, splitting his sardonic grin in twain, and open him to the middle of his breast bone.

As the dead hand relaxed its grasp upon Tara's wrist the girl leaped forward, without a backward glance, to Gahan's side.His left arm encircled her, nor did she draw away, as with ready sword the Gatholian awaited Fate's next decree.Before them Tara's deliverer was wiping the blood from his sword upon the hair of his victim.He was evidently a Manatorian, his trappings those of the Jeddak's Guard, and so his act was inexplicable to Gahan and to Tara.Presently he sheathed his sword and approached them.

"When a man chooses to hide his identity behind an assumed name,"he said, looking straight into Gahan's eyes, "whatever friend pierces the deception were no friend if he divulged the other's secret."He paused as though awaiting a reply.

"Your integrity has perceived and your lips voiced an unalterable truth," replied Gahan, whose mind was filled with wonder if the implication could by any possibility be true--that this Manatorian had guessed his identity.

"We are thus agreed," continued the other, "and I may tell you that though I am here known as A-Sor, my real name is Tasor." He paused and watched Gahan's face intently for any sign of the effect of this knowledge and was rewarded with a quick, though guarded expression of recognition.

Tasor! Friend of his youth.The son of that great Gatholian noble who had given his life so gloriously, however futilely, in an attempt to defend Gahan's sire from the daggers of the assassins.

Tasor an under-padwar in the guard of O-Tar, Jeddak of Manator!

It was inconceivable--and yet it was he; there could be no doubt of it."Tasor," Gahan repeated aloud."But it is no Manatorian name." The statement was half interrogatory, for Gahan's curiosity was aroused.He would know how his friend and loyal subject had become a Manatorian.Long years had passed since Tasor had disappeared as mysteriously as the Princess Haja and many other of Gahan's subjects.The Jed of Gathol had long supposed him dead.

"No," replied Tasor, "nor is it a Manatorian name.Come, while Isearch for a hiding place for you in some forgotten chamber in one of the untenanted portions of the palace, and as we go I will tell you briefly how Tasor the Gatholian became A-Sor the Manatorian.

"It befell that as I rode with a dozen of my warriors along the western border of Gathol searching for zitidars that had strayed from my herds, we were set upon and surrounded by a great company of Manatorians.They overpowered us, though not before half our number was slain and the balance helpless from wounds.And so Iwas brought a prisoner to Manataj, a distant city of Manator, and there sold into slavery.A woman bought me--a princess of Manataj whose wealth and position were unequaled in the city of her birth.She loved me and when her husband discovered her infatuation she beseeched me to slay him, and when I refused she hired another to do it.Then she married me; but none would have aught to do with her in Manataj, for they suspected her guilty knowledge of her husband's murder.And so we set out from Manataj for Manatos accompanied by a great caravan bearing all her worldly goods and jewels and precious metals, and on the way she caused the rumor to be spread that she and I had died.Then we came to Manator instead, she taking a new name and I the name A-Sor, that we might not be traced through our names.With her great wealth she bought me a post in The Jeddak's Guard and none knows that I am not a Manatorian, for she is dead.She was beautiful, but she was a devil.""And you never sought to return to your native city?" asked Gahan.

"Never has the hope been absent from my heart, or my mind empty of a plan," replied Tasor."I dream of it by day and by night, but always must I return to the same conclusion--that there can be but a single means for escape.I must wait until Fortune favors me with a place in a raiding party to Gathol.Then, once within the boundaries of my own country, they shall see me no more.""Perhaps your opportunity lies already within your grasp," said Gahan, "has not your fealty to your own Jed been undermined by years of association with the men of Manator." The statement was half challenge.