Page 73 (1/1)

Slowly the sround as Gahan leaped the inert bodies of the rykors lying in his path The first of the pursuers sprang fro rope

"Faster!" he shouted to the girl above, "or they will drag us down!" But the ship see as rapidly asa load of three Gahan swung free above the top of the wall, but the end of the rope still dragged the ground as the kaldanes reached it They were pouring in a steady stream from the tower into the enclosure The leader seized the rope

"Quick!" he cried "Lay hold and ill drag theht of a few to accoht and then, to the horror of the girl, she felt it being dragged steadily doard Gahan, too, realized the danger and the necessity for instant action Clinging to the rope with his left hand, he had wound a leg about it, leaving his right hand free for his long-shich he had not sheathed A doard cut clove the soft head of a kaldane, and another severed the taut rope beneath the panthan's feet The girl heard a sudden renewal of the shrill whistling of her foes, and at the saain Slowly it drifted upward, out of reach of the eneure of Turan clamber over the side For the first tiiving; but her first thought was of another

"You are not wounded?" she asked

"No, Tara of Helium," he replied "They were scarce worth the effort of my blade, and never were they a menace to me because of their swords"

"They should have slain you easily," said Ghek "So great and highly developed is the power of reason a us that they should have known before you struck just where, logically, you must seek to strike, and so they should have been able to parry your every thrust and easily find an opening to your heart"

"But they did not, Ghek," Gahan re, for it does not tend toward a perfectly balanced whole You have developed the brain and neglected the body and you can never do with the hands of another what you can do with your own hands Mine are trained to the sword-every muscle responds instantly and accurately, and almost mechanically, to the need of the instant I aht, so quickly doesto h the cold steel had eyes and brains You, with your kaldane brain and your rykor body, never could hope to achieve in the sas that I can achieve Development of the brain should not be the sum total of human endeavor The richest and happiest peoples will be those who attain closest to well-balanced perfection of both mind and body, and even these eneral perfection lies stifling monotony and death Nature hts; sorroith happiness; both wrong and right; and sin as well as virtue"