Here was no avenue of escape. Were he back in his dark cell he could not
have been cut off more effectually from the outer world than he was in
this apartment at the far end of a corridor constantly used by Korsars;
for with his smooth face and his naked body, he would be recognized and
seized the instant that he stepped from the room. But Tanar was far from
being overwhelmed by discouragement. Already he had come much further on
the road to escape than he had previously dreamed could be possible and
not only this thought heartened him, but even more the effect of
daylight, which had for so long been denied him. He had felt his spirit
and his courage expand beneath the beneficent influence of the light of
the noonday sun, so that he felt ready for any emergency that might
confront him.
Turning back once more into the room he searched it carefully for some
other avenue of escape. He went to the windows and found that they
overlooked the garden of The Cid, but there were many people there, too,
in that part of the garden close to the palace. The trees cut off his
view of the far end from which he had helped Stellara and Gura to
escape, but he guessed that there were few, if any, people there, though
to reach it would be a difficult procedure from the windows of this
storeroom.
To his left, near the opposite side of the garden, he could see that the
trees grew closely together and extended thus apparently the full length
of the enclosure.
If those trees had been upon this side of the garden he guessed that he
might have found a way to escape; at least as far as the gate in the
garden wall close to the barracks, but they were not and so he must
abandon thought of them.
There seemed, therefore, no other avenue of escape than the corridor
into which he had just looked; nor could he remain indefinitely in this
chamber where there was neither food nor water and with a steadily
increasing danger that his absence from the dungeon would be discovered
when they found that he did not consume the food they brought him.
Seating himself upon a bale of hide Tanar gave himself over to
contemplation of his predicament and as he studied the matter his eyes
fell upon some of the loose clothing strewn about the room. There he saw
the shorts and shirts of Korsar, the gay sashes and head handkerchiefs,
the wide topped boots, and with a half smile upon his lips he gathered
such of them as he required, shook the dust from them and clothed
himself after the manner of a Korsar. He needed no mirror though to know
that his smooth face would betray him.
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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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