"You lie!" I exclaimed. "Had they laid hands upon you they would have killed you. You ran away and hid, never drawing a weapon to defend the girl."
"That is a lie," cried Sil Vagis. "I fought with them, but they overpowered me."
I turned to Tor Hatan. "We are wasting time," I said. "Is there no one who can give us a clue as to the identity of these men and the direction they took in their flight? How and whence came they? How and whence did they depart?"
"He is trying to throw you off the track, Tor Hatan," said Sil Vagis. "Who else could it have been but a disgruntled suitor? What would you say if I should tell you that the metal of the men who stole Sanoma Tora was the metal of the warriors of Hastor?"
"I would say that you are a liar," I replied. "If it was so dark that you could not recognize faces, how could you decipher the insignia upon their harness?"
At this juncture another officer of the 91st Umak joined us. "We have found one who may, perhaps, shed some light upon the subject," he said, "if he lives long enough to speak."
Men had been searching the grounds of Tor Hatan and that portion of the city adjacent to his palace, and now several approached bearing a man, whom they laid upon the sward at our feet. His broken and mangled body was entirely naked, and as he lay there gasping feebly for breath, he was a pitiful spectacle.
A slave dispatched into the palace returned with stimulants, and when some of these had been forced between his lips, the man revived slightly.
"Who are you?" asked Tor Hatan.
"I am a warrior of the city guard," replied the man feebly.