There I left him when I had gone by, but his soul was no longer
with him.
"And here I am, just in time to be nearly killed by you," he ended,
laughing.
As he talked Carthoris had been working at the lock which held my
fetters, and now, with an exclamation of pleasure, he dropped the
end of the chain to the floor, and I stood up once more, freed from
the galling irons I had chafed in for almost a year.
He had brought a long-sword and a dagger for me, and thus armed we
set out upon the return journey to my palace.
At the point where we left the pits of Zat Arras we found the body
of the guard Carthoris had slain. It had not yet been discovered,
and, in order to still further delay search and mystify the jed's
people, we carried the body with us for a short distance, hiding
it in a tiny cell off the main corridor of the pits beneath an
adjoining estate.
Some half-hour later we came to the pits beneath our own palace,
and soon thereafter emerged into the audience chamber itself, where
we found Kantos Kan, Tars Tarkas, Hor Vastus, and Xodar awaiting
us most impatiently.
No time was lost in fruitless recounting of my imprisonment. What
I desired to know was how well the plans we had laid nearly a year
ago and had been carried out.
"It has taken much longer than we had expected," replied Kantos
Kan. "The fact that we were compelled to maintain utter secrecy
has handicapped us terribly.
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