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They appealed to his kaldanean tastes, and further, they pointed a hiding place for the key and a lair for the only kind of food that the kaldane relished flesh and blood.
He felt the thrill of hot blood coursing through his veins. He could have seized her in his arms and crushed her to him. There was only Ghek the kaldane there, but there was something stronger within him that restrained his hand. Who may define it that inherent chivalry that renders certain men the natural protectors of women?
"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.
Daughter of a world's greatest swordsman, she knew well the finest points of the art. She saw the clumsy attack of the kaldane and the quick, sure return of the panthan.
He turned again to the other kaldanes. "Will you notify Luud that I am here?" he asked. "Sept has already gone to Luud. He will tell him," replied one. "Where did you find this rykor with the strange kaldane that cannot detach itself?" The girl's captor narrated once more the story of her capture.
"Nearly all, a little," she said; "but we do many other interesting and enjoyable things. We dance and play and work and love and sometimes we fight, for we are a race of warriors." "Love!" said the kaldane. "I think I know what you mean; but we, fortunately, are above sentiment when we are detached.
The brains became larger and more powerful. In us you see the highest development; but there are those of us who believe that there is yet another step that some time in the far future our race shall develop into the super-thing just brain. The incubus of legs and chelae and vital organs will be removed. The future kaldane will be nothing but a great brain.
And so they moved down the hillside toward the gates of Manator Tara, Princess of Helium, and Ghek, the kaldane of Bantoom and surrounding them rode the savage, painted warriors of U-Dor, dwar of the 8th Utan of O-Tar, Jeddak of Manator. The dazzling sunlight of Barsoom clothed Manator in an aureole of splendor as the girl and her captors rode into the city through The Gate of Enemies.
She had told him of the hideous sights she had witnessed in the burrows of the kaldanes and he knew that they ate human flesh. Ghek was starving. Should he eat his rykor he would be helpless; but there was sustenance there for them both, for the rykor and the kaldane. Turan cursed himself for a fool. Why had he left her?
"I am a kaldane," replied Ghek; "the highest type of created creature upon the face of Barsoom; I am mind, you are matter. I come from Bantoom. I am here because we were lost and starving." "And you!" O-Tar turned suddenly on Tara. "You, too, are a kaldane?" "I am a princess of Helium," replied the girl. "I was a prisoner in Bantoom. This kaldane and a warrior of my own race rescued me.
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