He selected pistols, a dirk and a cutlass, but he could find neither powder nor balls for his firearms.
Thus arrayed and armed he surveyed himself as best he might without a mirror. "If I could keep my back toward all Korsar," he mused, "I might escape with ease for I warrant I look as much a Korsar as any of them from the rear, but unless I can grow bushy whiskers I shall not deceive anyone."
As he sat musing thus he became aware suddenly of voices raised in altercation just outside the door of the storeroom. One was a man's voice; the other a woman's.
"And if you won't have me," growled the man, "I'll take you."
Tanar could not hear the woman's reply, though he heard her speak and knew from her voice that it was a woman.
"What do I care for The Cid?" cried the man. "I am as powerful in Korsar as he. I could take the throne and be Cid myself, if I chose."
Again Tanar heard the woman speak.
"If you do I'll choke the wind out of you," threatened the man. "Come in here where we can talk better. Then you can yell all you want for no one can hear you."
Tanar heard the man insert a key in the lock and as he did so the Pellucidarian sought a hiding place behind a pile of wicker hampers.
"And after you get out of this room," continued the man, "there will be nothing left for you to yell about."
"I have told you right along," said the woman, "that I would rather kill myself than mate with you, but if you take me by force I shall still kill myself, but I shall kill you first."
The heart of Tanar of Pellucidar leaped in his breast when he heard that voice. His fingers closed upon the hilt of the cutlass at his side, and as Bulf voiced a sneering laugh in answer to the girl's threat, the Sarian leaped from his concealment, a naked blade shining in his right hand.
At the sound behind him Bulf wheeled about and for an instant he did not recognize the Sarian in the Korsar garb, but Stellara did and she voiced a cry of mingled surprise and joy.
"Tanar!" she cried. "My Tanar!"
As the Sarian rushed him Bulf fell back, drawing his cutlass as he retreated. Tanar saw that he was making for the door leading into the corridor and he rushed at the man to engage him before he could escape, so that Bulf was forced to stand and defend himself.
"Stand back," cried Bulf, "or you shall die for this," but Tanar of Pellucidar only laughed in his face, as he swung a wicked blow at the man's head, which Bulf but barely parried, and then they were at one another like two wild beasts.
Tanar drew first blood from a slight gash in Bulf's shoulder and then the fellow yelled for help.
"You said that no one could hear Stellara's cries for help from this apartment," taunted Tanar, "so why do you think that they can hear yours?"
"Let me out of here," cried Bulf. "Let me out and I will give you your freedom." But Tanar rushed him into a corner and the sharp edge of his cutlass sheared an ear from Bulf's head.
"Help!" shrieked the Korsar. "Help! it is Bulf. The Sarian is killing me."
Fearful that his loud cries might reach the corridor beyond and attract attention, Tanar increased the fury of his assault. He beat down the Korsar's guard. He swung his cutlass in one terrible circle that clove Bulf's ugly skull to the bridge of his nose, and with a gurgling gasp the great brute lunged forward upon his face. And Tanar of Pellucidar turned and took Stellara in his arms.
"Thank God," he said, "that I was in time."
"It must have been God Himself who led you to this room," said the girl. "I thought you dead. They told me that you were dead."
"No," said Tanar. "They put me in a dark dungeon beneath the palace, where I was condemned to remain for life."
"And you have been so near me all this time," said Stellara, "and I thought that you were dead."
"For a long time I thought that I was worse than dead," replied the man. "Darkness, solitude and silence—God! That is worse than death."
"And yet you escaped!" The girl's voice was filled with awe.
"It was because of you that I escaped," said Tanar. "Thoughts of you kept me from going mad—thought and hope urged me on to seek some avenue of escape. Never again as long as life is in me shall I feel that there can be any situation that is entirely hopeless after what I have passed any situation that is entirely hopeless after what I have passed through."
Stellara shook her head. "Your hope will have to be strong, dear heart, against the discouragement that you must face in seeking a way out of the palace of The Cid and the city of Korsar ."
"I have come this far," replied Tanar, "Already have I achieved the impossible. Why should I doubt my ability to wrest freedom for you and for me from whatever fate holds in store for us?"
"You cannot pass them with that smooth face, Tanar," said the girl, sadly. "Ah, if you only had Bulf's whiskers," and she glanced down at the corpse of the fallen man.
Tanar turned, too, and looked down at Bulf, where he lay in a pool of blood upon the floor. And then quickly he faced Stellara. "Why not?" he cried. "Why not?"
XVII DOWN TO THE SEA
"WHAT do you mean?" demanded Stellara.
"Wait and you shall see," replied Tanar, and drawing his dirk he stooped and turned Bulf over upon his back. Then with the razor-sharp blade of his weapon he commenced to hack off the bushy, black beard of the dead Korsar, while Stellara looked on in questioning wonder.
Spreading Bulf's head cloth flat upon the floor, Tanar deposited upon it the hair that he cut from the man's face, and when he had completed his grewsome tonsorial effort he folded the hair into the handkerchief, and, rising, motioned for Stellara to follow him.
Going to the door that led into the tunnel through which he had escaped from the dungeon, Tanar opened it, and, smearing his fingers with the pitch that exuded from the boards upon the inside of the door, he smeared some of it upon the side of his face and then turned to Stellara.
"Put this hair upon my face in as natural a way as you can. You have lived among them all your life, so you should know well how a Korsar's beard should look."
Horrible as the plan seemed and though she shrank from touching the hair of the dead man, Stellara steeled herself and did as Tanar bid. Little by little, patch by patch, Tanar applied pitch to his face and Stellara placed the hair upon it until presently only the eyes and nose of the Sarian remained exposed. The expression of the former were altered by increasing the size and bushiness of the eyebrows with shreds of Bulf's beard that had been left over, and then Tanar smeared his nose with some of Bulf's blood, for many of the Korsars had large, red noses. Then Stellara stood away and surveyed him critically. "Your own mother would not know you," she said.
"Do you think I can pass as a Korsar?" he asked. "No one will suspect, unless they question you closely as you leave the palace."
"We are going together," said Tanar.
"But how?" asked Stellara.
"I have been thinking of another plan," he said. "I noticed when I was living in the barracks that sailors going toward the river had no difficulty in passing through the gate leaving the palace. In fact, it is always much easier to leave the palace than to enter it. On many occasions I have heard them say merely that they were going to their ships. We can do the same."
"Do I look like a Korsar sailor?" demanded Stellara.
"You will when I get through with you," said Tanar, with a grin.
"What do you mean?"
"There is Korsar clothing here," said Tanar; "enough to outfit a dozen and there is still plenty of hair on Bulf's head."
The girl drew back with a shudder. "Oh, Tanar! You cannot mean that."
"What other way is there?" he demanded. "If we can escape together is it not worth any price that we might have to pay?"