Warlord of Mars

By

Edgar Rice Burroughs

CONTENTS

 On the River Iss Under the Mountains The Temple of the Sun The Secret Tower On the Kaolian Road A Hero in Kaol New Allies Through the Carrion Caves With the Yellow Men In Durance The Pity of Plenty "Follow the Rope!" The Magnet Switch The Tide of Battle Rewards The New Ruler

ON THE RIVER ISS

In the shadows of the forest that flanks the crimson plain by theside of the Lost Sea of Korus in the Valley Dor, beneath the hurtlingmoons of Mars, speeding their meteoric way close above the bosom ofthe dying planet, I crept stealthily along the trail of a shadowyform that hugged the darker places with a persistency that proclaimedthe sinister nature of its errand. 

For six long Martian months I had haunted the vicinity of thehateful Temple of the Sun, within whose slow-revolving shaft, farbeneath the surface of Mars, my princess lay entombed--but whetheralive or dead I knew not. Had Phaidor's slim blade found thatbeloved heart? Time only would reveal the truth. 

Six hundred and eighty-seven Martian days must come and go beforethe cell's door would again come opposite the tunnel's end wherelast I had seen my ever-beautiful Dejah Thoris. 

Half of them had passed, or would on the morrow, yet vivid in mymemory, obliterating every event that had come before or after, there remained the last scene before the gust of smoke blinded myeyes and the narrow slit that had given me sight of the interiorof her cell closed between me and the Princess of Helium for a longMartian year. 

As if it were yesterday, I still saw the beautiful face of Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang, distorted with jealous rage and hatred asshe sprang forward with raised dagger upon the woman I loved. 

I saw the red girl, Thuvia of Ptarth, leap forward to prevent thehideous deed. 

The smoke from the burning temple had come then to blot out thetragedy, but in my ears rang the single shriek as the knife fell. Then silence, and when the smoke had cleared, the revolving templehad shut off all sight or sound from the chamber in which the threebeautiful women were imprisoned. 

Much there had been to occupy my attention since that terrible moment;but never for an instant had the memory of the thing faded, andall the time that I could spare from the numerous duties that haddevolved upon me in the reconstruction of the government of theFirst Born since our victorious fleet and land forces had overwhelmedthem, had been spent close to the grim shaft that held the motherof my boy, Carthoris of Helium. 

The race of blacks that for ages had worshiped Issus, the falsedeity of Mars, had been left in a state of chaos by my revealmentof her as naught more than a wicked old woman. In their rage theyhad torn her to pieces. 

From the high pinnacle of their egotism the First Born had beenplunged to the depths of humiliation. Their deity was gone, andwith her the whole false fabric of their religion. Their vauntednavy had fallen in defeat before the superior ships and fightingmen of the red men of Helium. 

Fierce green warriors from the ocher sea bottoms of outer Mars hadridden their wild thoats across the sacred gardens of the Templeof Issus, and Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, fiercest of them all, had sat upon the throne of Issus and ruled the First Born whilethe allies were deciding the conquered nation's fate. 

Almost unanimous was the request that I ascend the ancient throneof the black men, even the First Born themselves concurring in it;but I would have none of it. My heart could never be with the racethat had heaped indignities upon my princess and my son. 

At my suggestion Xodar became Jeddak of the First Born. He hadbeen a dator, or prince, until Issus had degraded him, so that hisfitness for the high office bestowed was unquestioned. 

The peace of the Valley Dor thus assured, the green warriors dispersedto their desolate sea bottoms, while we of Helium returned to ourown country. Here again was a throne offered me, since no wordhad been received from the missing Jeddak of Helium, Tardos Mors, grandfather of Dejah Thoris, or his son, Mors Kajak, Jed of Helium, her father. 

Over a year had elapsed since they had set out to explore the northernhemisphere in search of Carthoris, and at last their disheartenedpeople had accepted as truth the vague rumors of their death thathad filtered in from the frozen region of the pole. 

Once again I refused a throne, for I would not believe that themighty Tardos Mors, or his no less redoubtable son, was dead. 

"Let one of their own blood rule you until they return, " I saidto the assembled nobles of Helium, as I addressed them from thePedestal of Truth beside the Throne of Righteousness in the Templeof Reward, from the very spot where I had stood a year before whenZat Arras pronounced the sentence of death upon me. 

As I spoke I stepped forward and laid my hand upon the shoulder ofCarthoris where he stood in the front rank of the circle of noblesabout me. 

As one, the nobles and the people lifted their voices in a longcheer of approbation. Ten thousand swords sprang on high from asmany scabbards, and the glorious fighting men of ancient Heliumhailed Carthoris Jeddak of Helium. 

His tenure of office was to be for life or until his great-grandfather, or grandfather, should return. Having thus satisfactorily arrangedthis important duty for Helium, I started the following day forthe Valley Dor that I might remain close to the Temple of the Sununtil the fateful day that should see the opening of the prisoncell where my lost love lay buried. 

Hor Vastus and Kantos Kan, with my other noble lieutenants, I leftwith Carthoris at Helium, that he might have the benefit of theirwisdom, bravery, and loyalty in the performance of the arduousduties which had devolved upon him. Only Woola, my Martian hound, accompanied me. 

At my heels tonight the faithful beast moved softly in my tracks. As large as a Shetland pony, with hideous head and frightful fangs, he was indeed an awesome spectacle, as he crept after me on histen short, muscular legs; but to me he was the embodiment of loveand loyalty. 

The figure ahead was that of the black dator of the First Born, Thurid, whose undying enmity I had earned that time I laid him lowwith my bare hands in the courtyard of the Temple of Issus, andbound him with his own harness before the noble men and women whohad but a moment before been extolling his prowess. 

Like many of his fellows, he had apparently accepted the new orderof things with good grace, and had sworn fealty to Xodar, his newruler; but I knew that he hated me, and I was sure that in his hearthe envied and hated Xodar, so I had kept a watch upon his comingsand goings, to the end that of late I had become convinced that hewas occupied with some manner of intrigue. 

Several times I had observed him leaving the walled city of theFirst Born after dark, taking his way out into the cruel and horribleValley Dor, where no honest business could lead any man. 

Tonight he moved quickly along the edge of the forest until wellbeyond sight or sound of the city, then he turned across the crimsonsward toward the shore of the Lost Sea of Korus. 

The rays of the nearer moon, swinging low across the valley, touchedhis jewel-incrusted harness with a thousand changing lights andglanced from the glossy ebony of his smooth hide. Twice he turnedhis head back toward the forest, after the manner of one who is uponan evil errand, though he must have felt quite safe from pursuit. 

I did not dare follow him there beneath the moonlight, since itbest suited my plans not to interrupt his--I wished him to reachhis destination unsuspecting, that I might learn just where thatdestination lay and the business that awaited the night prowlerthere. 

So it was that I remained hidden until after Thurid had disappearedover the edge of the steep bank beside the sea a quarter of a mileaway. Then, with Woola following, I hastened across the open afterthe black dator. 

The quiet of the tomb lay upon the mysterious valley of death, crouching deep in its warm nest within the sunken area at the southpole of the dying planet. In the far distance the Golden Cliffsraised their mighty barrier faces far into the starlit heavens, the precious metals and scintillating jewels that composed themsparkling in the brilliant light of Mars's two gorgeous moons. 

At my back was the forest, pruned and trimmed like the sward toparklike symmetry by the browsing of the ghoulish plant men. 

Before me lay the Lost Sea of Korus, while farther on I caught theshimmering ribbon of Iss, the River of Mystery, where it wound outfrom beneath the Golden Cliffs to empty into Korus, to which forcountless ages had been borne the deluded and unhappy Martians ofthe outer world upon the voluntary pilgrimage to this false heaven. 

The plant men, with their blood-sucking hands, and the monstrouswhite apes that make Dor hideous by day, were hidden in their lairsfor the night. 

There was no longer a Holy Thern upon the balcony in the GoldenCliffs above the Iss to summon them with weird cry to the victimsfloating down to their maws upon the cold, broad bosom of ancientIss. 

The navies of Helium and the First Born had cleared the fortressesand the temples of the therns when they had refused to surrender andaccept the new order of things that had swept their false religionfrom long-suffering Mars. 

In a few isolated countries they still retained their age-old power;but Matai Shang, their hekkador, Father of Therns, had been drivenfrom his temple. Strenuous had been our endeavors to capturehim; but with a few of the faithful he had escaped, and was inhiding--where we knew not. 

As I came cautiously to the edge of the low cliff overlooking theLost Sea of Korus I saw Thurid pushing out upon the bosom of theshimmering water in a small skiff--one of those strangely wrought craftof unthinkable age which the Holy Therns, with their organizationof priests and lesser therns, were wont to distribute along thebanks of the Iss, that the long journey of their victims might befacilitated. 

Drawn up on the beach below me were a score of similar boats, eachwith its long pole, at one end of which was a pike, at the othera paddle. Thurid was hugging the shore, and as he passed out ofsight round a near-by promontory I shoved one of the boats intothe water and, calling Woola into it, pushed out from shore. 

The pursuit of Thurid carried me along the edge of the sea towardthe mouth of the Iss. The farther moon lay close to the horizon, casting a dense shadow beneath the cliffs that fringed the water. Thuria, the nearer moon, had set, nor would it rise again for nearfour hours, so that I was ensured concealing darkness for thatlength of time at least. 

On and on went the black warrior. Now he was opposite the mouthof the Iss. Without an instant's hesitation he turned up the grimriver, paddling hard against the strong current. 

After him came Woola and I, closer now, for the man was too intentupon forcing his craft up the river to have any eyes for what mightbe transpiring behind him. He hugged the shore where the currentwas less strong. 

Presently he came to the dark cavernous portal in the face of theGolden Cliffs, through which the river poured. On into the Stygiandarkness beyond he urged his craft. 

It seemed hopeless to attempt to follow him here where I could notsee my hand before my face, and I was almost on the point of givingup the pursuit and drifting back to the mouth of the river, thereto await his return, when a sudden bend showed a faint luminosityahead. 

My quarry was plainly visible again, and in the increasing lightfrom the phosphorescent rock that lay embedded in great patchesin the roughly arched roof of the cavern I had no difficulty infollowing him. 

It was my first trip upon the bosom of Iss, and the things I sawthere will live forever in my memory. 

Terrible as they were, they could not have commenced to approximatethe horrible conditions which must have obtained before Tars Tarkas, the great green warrior, Xodar, the black dator, and I broughtthe light of truth to the outer world and stopped the mad rush ofmillions upon the voluntary pilgrimage to what they believed wouldend in a beautiful valley of peace and happiness and love. 

Even now the low islands which dotted the broad stream were chokedwith the skeletons and half devoured carcasses of those who, throughfear or a sudden awakening to the truth, had halted almost at thecompletion of their journey. 

In the awful stench of these frightful charnel isles haggard maniacsscreamed and gibbered and fought among the torn remnants of theirgrisly feasts; while on those which contained but clean-pickedbones they battled with one another, the weaker furnishing sustenancefor the stronger; or with clawlike hands clutched at the bloatedbodies that drifted down with the current. 

Thurid paid not the slightest attention to the screaming thingsthat either menaced or pleaded with him as the mood directedthem--evidently he was familiar with the horrid sights thatsurrounded him. He continued up the river for perhaps a mile; andthen, crossing over to the left bank, drew his craft up on a lowledge that lay almost on a level with the water. 

I dared not follow across the stream, for he most surely would haveseen me. Instead I stopped close to the opposite wall beneath anoverhanging mass of rock that cast a dense shadow beneath it. HereI could watch Thurid without danger of discovery. 

The black was standing upon the ledge beside his boat, looking upthe river, as though he were awaiting one whom he expected fromthat direction. 

As I lay there beneath the dark rocks I noticed that a strongcurrent seemed to flow directly toward the center of the river, sothat it was difficult to hold my craft in its position. I edgedfarther into the shadow that I might find a hold upon the bank;but, though I proceeded several yards, I touched nothing; andthen, finding that I would soon reach a point from where I couldno longer see the black man, I was compelled to remain where I was, holding my position as best I could by paddling strongly againstthe current which flowed from beneath the rocky mass behind me. 

I could not imagine what might cause this strong lateral flow, forthe main channel of the river was plainly visible to me from whereI sat, and I could see the rippling junction of it and the mysteriouscurrent which had aroused my curiosity. 

While I was still speculating upon the phenomenon, my attentionwas suddenly riveted upon Thurid, who had raised both palms forwardabove his head in the universal salute of Martians, and a momentlater his "Kaor!" the Barsoomian word of greeting, came in low butdistinct tones. 

I turned my eyes up the river in the direction that his were bent, and presently there came within my limited range of vision a longboat, in which were six men. Five were at the paddles, while thesixth sat in the seat of honor. 

The white skins, the flowing yellow wigs which covered their baldpates, and the gorgeous diadems set in circlets of gold about theirheads marked them as Holy Therns. 

As they drew up beside the ledge upon which Thurid awaited them, he in the bow of the boat arose to step ashore, and then I saw thatit was none other than Matai Shang, Father of Therns. 

The evident cordiality with which the two men exchanged greetingsfilled me with wonder, for the black and white men of Barsoom werehereditary enemies--nor ever before had I known of two meetingother than in battle. 

Evidently the reverses that had recently overtaken both peoples hadresulted in an alliance between these two individuals--at leastagainst the common enemy--and now I saw why Thurid had come sooften out into the Valley Dor by night, and that the nature of hisconspiring might be such as to strike very close to me or to myfriends. 

I wished that I might have found a point closer to the two menfrom which to have heard their conversation; but it was out of thequestion now to attempt to cross the river, and so I lay quietlywatching them, who would have given so much to have known how closeI lay to them, and how easily they might have overcome and killedme with their superior force. 

Several times Thurid pointed across the river in my direction, butthat his gestures had any reference to me I did not for a momentbelieve. Presently he and Matai Shang entered the latter's boat, which turned out into the river and, swinging round, forged steadilyacross in my direction. 

As they advanced I moved my boat farther and farther in beneath theoverhanging wall, but at last it became evident that their craftwas holding the same course. The five paddlers sent the largerboat ahead at a speed that taxed my energies to equal. 

Every instant I expected to feel my prow crash against solid rock. The light from the river was no longer visible, but ahead I sawthe faint tinge of a distant radiance, and still the water beforeme was open. 

At last the truth dawned upon me--I was following a subterraneanriver which emptied into the Iss at the very point where I hadhidden. 

The rowers were now quite close to me. The noise of theirown paddles drowned the sound of mine, but in another instant thegrowing light ahead would reveal me to them. 

There was no time to be lost. Whatever action I was to take mustbe taken at once. Swinging the prow of my boat toward the right, I sought the river's rocky side, and there I lay while Matai Shangand Thurid approached up the center of the stream, which was muchnarrower than the Iss. 

As they came nearer I heard the voices of Thurid and the Father ofTherns raised in argument. 

"I tell you, Thern, " the black dator was saying, "that I wish onlyvengeance upon John Carter, Prince of Helium. I am leading youinto no trap. What could I gain by betraying you to those who haveruined my nation and my house?"

"Let us stop here a moment that I may hear your plans, " replied thehekkador, "and then we may proceed with a better understanding ofour duties and obligations. "

To the rowers he issued the command that brought their boat intoward the bank not a dozen paces beyond the spot where I lay. 

Had they pulled in below me they must surely have seen me againstthe faint glow of light ahead, but from where they finally came torest I was as secure from detection as though miles separated us. 

The few words I had already overheard whetted my curiosity, and Iwas anxious to learn what manner of vengeance Thurid was planningagainst me. Nor had I long to wait. I listened intently. 

"There are no obligations, Father of Therns, " continued the FirstBorn. "Thurid, Dator of Issus, has no price. When the thing hasbeen accomplished I shall be glad if you will see to it that I amwell received, as is befitting my ancient lineage and noble rank, at some court that is yet loyal to thy ancient faith, for I cannotreturn to the Valley Dor or elsewhere within the power of the Princeof Helium; but even that I do not demand--it shall be as your owndesire in the matter directs. "

"It shall be as you wish, Dator, " replied Matai Shang; "nor is thatall--power and riches shall be yours if you restore my daughter, Phaidor, to me, and place within my power Dejah Thoris, Princessof Helium. 

"Ah, " he continued with a malicious snarl, "but the Earth man shallsuffer for the indignities he has put upon the holy of holies, norshall any vileness be too vile to inflict upon his princess. Wouldthat it were in my power to force him to witness the humiliationand degradation of the red woman. "

"You shall have your way with her before another day has passed, Matai Shang, " said Thurid, "if you but say the word. "

"I have heard of the Temple of the Sun, Dator, " replied Matai Shang, "but never have I heard that its prisoners could be released beforethe allotted year of their incarceration had elapsed. How, then, may you accomplish the impossible?"

"Access may be had to any cell of the temple at any time, " repliedThurid. "Only Issus knew this; nor was it ever Issus' way todivulge more of her secrets than were necessary. By chance, afterher death, I came upon an ancient plan of the temple, and there Ifound, plainly writ, the most minute directions for reaching thecells at any time. 

"And more I learned--that many men had gone thither for Issus in thepast, always on errands of death and torture to the prisoners; butthose who thus learned the secret way were wont to die mysteriouslyimmediately they had returned and made their reports to cruelIssus. "

"Let us proceed, then, " said Matai Shang at last. "I must trustyou, yet at the same time you must trust me, for we are six to yourone. "

"I do not fear, " replied Thurid, "nor need you. Our hatred ofthe common enemy is sufficient bond to insure our loyalty to eachother, and after we have defiled the Princess of Helium there willbe still greater reason for the maintenance of our allegiance--unlessI greatly mistake the temper of her lord. "

Matai Shang spoke to the paddlers. The boat moved on up thetributary. 

It was with difficulty that I restrained myself from rushing uponthem and slaying the two vile plotters; but quickly I saw the madrashness of such an act, which would cut down the only man who couldlead the way to Dejah Thoris' prison before the long Martian yearhad swung its interminable circle. 

If he should lead Matai Shang to that hollowed spot, then, too, should he lead John Carter, Prince of Helium. 

With silent paddle I swung slowly into the wake of the larger craft. 

UNDER THE MOUNTAINS

As we advanced up the river which winds beneath the Golden Cliffsout of the bowels of the Mountains of Otz to mingle its dark waterswith the grim and mysterious Iss the faint glow which had appearedbefore us grew gradually into an all-enveloping radiance. 

The river widened until it presented the aspect of a large lakewhose vaulted dome, lighted by glowing phosphorescent rock, wassplashed with the vivid rays of the diamond, the sapphire, the ruby, and the countless, nameless jewels of Barsoom which lay incrustedin the virgin gold which forms the major portion of these magnificentcliffs. 

Beyond the lighted chamber of the lake was darkness--what lay behindthe darkness I could not even guess. 

To have followed the thern boat across the gleaming water wouldhave been to invite instant detection, and so, though I was loathto permit Thurid to pass even for an instant beyond my sight, Iwas forced to wait in the shadows until the other boat had passedfrom my sight at the far extremity of the lake. 

Then I paddled out upon the brilliant surface in the direction theyhad taken. 

When, after what seemed an eternity, I reached the shadows at theupper end of the lake I found that the river issued from a lowaperture, to pass beneath which it was necessary that I compelWoola to lie flat in the boat, and I, myself, must need bend doublebefore the low roof cleared my head. 

Immediately the roof rose again upon the other side, but no longer wasthe way brilliantly lighted. Instead only a feeble glow emanatedfrom small and scattered patches of phosphorescent rock in walland roof. 

Directly before me the river ran into this smaller chamber throughthree separate arched openings. 

Thurid and the therns were nowhere to be seen--into which of thedark holes had they disappeared? There was no means by which Imight know, and so I chose the center opening as being as likelyto lead me in the right direction as another. 

Here the way was through utter darkness. The stream was narrow--sonarrow that in the blackness I was constantly bumping first onerock wall and then another as the river wound hither and thitheralong its flinty bed. 

Far ahead I presently heard a deep and sullen roar which increasedin volume as I advanced, and then broke upon my ears with all theintensity of its mad fury as I swung round a sharp curve into adimly lighted stretch of water. 

Directly before me the river thundered down from above in a mightywaterfall that filled the narrow gorge from side to side, risingfar above me several hundred feet--as magnificent a spectacle asI ever had seen. 

But the roar--the awful, deafening roar of those tumbling waterspenned in the rocky, subterranean vault! Had the fall not entirelyblocked my further passage and shown me that I had followed thewrong course I believe that I should have fled anyway before themaddening tumult. 

Thurid and the therns could not have come this way. By stumblingupon the wrong course I had lost the trail, and they had gained somuch ahead of me that now I might not be able to find them beforeit was too late, if, in fact, I could find them at all. 

It had taken several hours to force my way up to the falls againstthe strong current, and other hours would be required for thedescent, although the pace would be much swifter. 

With a sigh I turned the prow of my craft down stream, and withmighty strokes hastened with reckless speed through the dark andtortuous channel until once again I came to the chamber into whichflowed the three branches of the river. 

Two unexplored channels still remained from which to choose; norwas there any means by which I could judge which was the more likelyto lead me to the plotters. 

Never in my life, that I can recall, have I suffered such an agonyof indecision. So much depended upon a correct choice; so muchdepended upon haste. 

The hours that I had already lost might seal the fate of theincomparable Dejah Thoris were she not already dead--to sacrificeother hours, and maybe days in a fruitless exploration of anotherblind lead would unquestionably prove fatal. 

Several times I essayed the right-hand entrance only to turn backas though warned by some strange intuitive sense that this was notthe way. At last, convinced by the oft-recurring phenomenon, Icast my all upon the left-hand archway; yet it was with a lingeringdoubt that I turned a parting look at the sullen waters whichrolled, dark and forbidding, from beneath the grim, low archway onthe right. 

And as I looked there came bobbing out upon the current from theStygian darkness of the interior the shell of one of the great, succulent fruits of the sorapus tree. 

I could scarce restrain a shout of elation as this silent, insensatemessenger floated past me, on toward the Iss and Korus, for it toldme that journeying Martians were above me on that very stream. 

They had eaten of this marvelous fruit which nature concentrateswithin the hard shell of the sorapus nut, and having eaten hadcast the husk overboard. It could have come from no others thanthe party I sought. 

Quickly I abandoned all thought of the left-hand passage, and amoment later had turned into the right. The stream soon widened, and recurring areas of phosphorescent rock lighted my way. 

I made good time, but was convinced that I was nearly a day behindthose I was tracking. Neither Woola nor I had eaten since theprevious day, but in so far as he was concerned it mattered butlittle, since practically all the animals of the dead sea bottomsof Mars are able to go for incredible periods without nourishment. 

Nor did I suffer. The water of the river was sweet and cold, forit was unpolluted by decaying bodies--like the Iss--and as forfood, why the mere thought that I was nearing my beloved princessraised me above every material want. 

As I proceeded, the river became narrower and the current swiftand turbulent--so swift in fact that it was with difficulty thatI forced my craft upward at all. I could not have been making toexceed a hundred yards an hour when, at a bend, I was confrontedby a series of rapids through which the river foamed and boiled ata terrific rate. 

My heart sank within me. The sorapus nutshell had proved a falseprophet, and, after all, my intuition had been correct--it was theleft-hand channel that I should have followed. 

Had I been a woman I should have wept. At my right was a great, slow-moving eddy that circled far beneath the cliff's overhangingside, and to rest my tired muscles before turning back I let myboat drift into its embrace. 

I was almost prostrated by disappointment. It would mean anotherhalf-day's loss of time to retrace my way and take the only passagethat yet remained unexplored. What hellish fate had led me toselect from three possible avenues the two that were wrong?

As the lazy current of the eddy carried me slowly about the peripheryof the watery circle my boat twice touched the rocky side of theriver in the dark recess beneath the cliff. A third time it struck, gently as it had before, but the contact resulted in a differentsound--the sound of wood scraping upon wood. 

In an instant I was on the alert, for there could be no woodwithin that buried river that had not been man brought. Almostcoincidentally with my first apprehension of the noise, my hand shotout across the boat's side, and a second later I felt my fingersgripping the gunwale of another craft. 

As though turned to stone I sat in tense and rigid silence, strainingmy eyes into the utter darkness before me in an effort to discoverif the boat were occupied. 

It was entirely possible that there might be men on board itwho were still ignorant of my presence, for the boat was scrapinggently against the rocks upon one side, so that the gentle touchof my boat upon the other easily could have gone unnoticed. 

Peer as I would I could not penetrate the darkness, and then Ilistened intently for the sound of breathing near me; but exceptfor the noise of the rapids, the soft scraping of the boats, and thelapping of the water at their sides I could distinguish no sound. As usual, I thought rapidly. 

A rope lay coiled in the bottom of my own craft. Very softly Igathered it up, and making one end fast to the bronze ring in theprow I stepped gingerly into the boat beside me. In one hand Igrasped the rope, in the other my keen long-sword. 

For a full minute, perhaps, I stood motionless after entering thestrange craft. It had rocked a trifle beneath my weight, but ithad been the scraping of its side against the side of my own boatthat had seemed most likely to alarm its occupants, if there wereany. 

But there was no answering sound, and a moment later I had feltfrom stem to stern and found the boat deserted. 

Groping with my hands along the face of the rocks to which thecraft was moored, I discovered a narrow ledge which I knew must bethe avenue taken by those who had come before me. That they couldbe none other than Thurid and his party I was convinced by the sizeand build of the boat I had found. 

Calling to Woola to follow me I stepped out upon the ledge. Thegreat, savage brute, agile as a cat, crept after me. 

As he passed through the boat that had been occupied by Thurid andthe therns he emitted a single low growl, and when he came besideme upon the ledge and my hand rested upon his neck I felt his shortmane bristling with anger. I think he sensed telepathically therecent presence of an enemy, for I had made no effort to impart tohim the nature of our quest or the status of those we tracked. 

This omission I now made haste to correct, and, after the mannerof green Martians with their beasts, I let him know partially bythe weird and uncanny telepathy of Barsoom and partly by word ofmouth that we were upon the trail of those who had recently occupiedthe boat through which we had just passed. 

A soft purr, like that of a great cat, indicated that Woolaunderstood, and then, with a word to him to follow, I turned tothe right along the ledge, but scarcely had I done so than I felthis mighty fangs tugging at my leathern harness. 

As I turned to discover the cause of his act he continued to pullme steadily in the opposite direction, nor would he desist untilI had turned about and indicated that I would follow him voluntarily. 

Never had I known him to be in error in a matter of tracking, soit was with a feeling of entire security that I moved cautiously inthe huge beast's wake. Through Cimmerian darkness he moved alongthe narrow ledge beside the boiling rapids. 

As we advanced, the way led from beneath the overhanging cliffsout into a dim light, and then it was that I saw that the trailhad been cut from the living rock, and that it ran up along theriver's side beyond the rapids. 

For hours we followed the dark and gloomy river farther and fartherinto the bowels of Mars. From the direction and distance I knewthat we must be well beneath the Valley Dor, and possibly beneaththe Sea of Omean as well--it could not be much farther now to theTemple of the Sun. 

Even as my mind framed the thought, Woola halted suddenly before anarrow, arched doorway in the cliff by the trail's side. Quicklyhe crouched back away from the entrance, at the same time turninghis eyes toward me. 

Words could not have more plainly told me that danger of some sortlay near by, and so I pressed quietly forward to his side, andpassing him looked into the aperture at our right. 

Before me was a fair-sized chamber that, from its appointments, Iknew must have at one time been a guardroom. There were racks forweapons, and slightly raised platforms for the sleeping silks andfurs of the warriors, but now its only occupants were two of thetherns who had been of the party with Thurid and Matai Shang. 

The men were in earnest conversation, and from their tones it wasapparent that they were entirely unaware that they had listeners. 

"I tell you, " one of them was saying, "I do not trust the blackone. There was no necessity for leaving us here to guard the way. Against what, pray, should we guard this long-forgotten, abysmalpath? It was but a ruse to divide our numbers. 

"He will have Matai Shang leave others elsewhere on some pretext orother, and then at last he will fall upon us with his confederatesand slay us all. "

"I believe you, Lakor, " replied the other, "there can never beaught else than deadly hatred between thern and First Born. Andwhat think you of the ridiculous matter of the light? 'Let thelight shine with the intensity of three radium units for fiftytals, and for one xat let it shine with the intensity of one radiumunit, and then for twenty-five tals with nine units. ' Those werehis very words, and to think that wise old Matai Shang should listento such foolishness. "

"Indeed, it is silly, " replied Lakor. "It will open nothing otherthan the way to a quick death for us all. He had to make someanswer when Matai Shang asked him flatly what he should do when hecame to the Temple of the Sun, and so he made his answer quicklyfrom his imagination--I would wager a hekkador's diadem that hecould not now repeat it himself. "

"Let us not remain here longer, Lakor, " spoke the other thern. "Perchance if we hasten after them we may come in time to rescueMatai Shang, and wreak our own vengeance upon the black dator. What say you?"

"Never in a long life, " answered Lakor, "have I disobeyed a singlecommand of the Father of Therns. I shall stay here until I rot ifhe does not return to bid me elsewhere. "

Lakor's companion shook his head. 

"You are my superior, " he said; "I cannot do other than you sanction, though I still believe that we are foolish to remain. "

I, too, thought that they were foolish to remain, for I saw fromWoola's actions that the trail led through the room where the twotherns held guard. I had no reason to harbor any considerable lovefor this race of self-deified demons, yet I would have passed themby were it possible without molesting them. 

It was worth trying anyway, for a fight might delay us considerably, or even put an end entirely to my search--better men than I havegone down before fighters of meaner ability than that possessed bythe fierce thern warriors. 

Signaling Woola to heel I stepped suddenly into the room before thetwo men. At sight of me their long-swords flashed from the harnessat their sides, but I raised my hand in a gesture of restraint. 

"I seek Thurid, the black dator, " I said. "My quarrel is with him, not with you. Let me pass then in peace, for if I mistake not heis as much your enemy as mine, and you can have no cause to protecthim. "

They lowered their swords and Lakor spoke. 

"I know not whom you may be, with the white skin of a thern andthe black hair of a red man; but were it only Thurid whose safetywere at stake you might pass, and welcome, in so far as we beconcerned. 

"Tell us who you be, and what mission calls you to this unknownworld beneath the Valley Dor, then maybe we can see our way to letyou pass upon the errand which we should like to undertake wouldour orders permit. "

I was surprised that neither of them had recognized me, for Ithought that I was quite sufficiently well known either by personalexperience or reputation to every thern upon Barsoom as to make myidentity immediately apparent in any part of the planet. In fact, I was the only white man upon Mars whose hair was black and whoseeyes were gray, with the exception of my son, Carthoris. 

To reveal my identity might be to precipitate an attack, for everythern upon Barsoom knew that to me they owed the fall of theirage-old spiritual supremacy. On the other hand my reputation asa fighting man might be sufficient to pass me by these two weretheir livers not of the right complexion to welcome a battle tothe death. 

To be quite candid I did not attempt to delude myself with any suchsophistry, since I knew well that upon war-like Mars there are fewcowards, and that every man, whether prince, priest, or peasant, glories in deadly strife. And so I gripped my long-sword thetighter as I replied to Lakor. 

"I believe that you will see the wisdom of permitting me to passunmolested, " I said, "for it would avail you nothing to die uselesslyin the rocky bowels of Barsoom merely to protect a hereditary enemy, such as Thurid, Dator of the First Born. 

"That you shall die should you elect to oppose me is evidenced bythe moldering corpses of all the many great Barsoomian warriorswho have gone down beneath this blade--I am John Carter, Prince ofHelium. "

For a moment that name seemed to paralyze the two men; but onlyfor a moment, and then the younger of them, with a vile name uponhis lips, rushed toward me with ready sword. 

He had been standing a little behind his companion, Lakor, duringour parley, and now, ere he could engage me, the older man graspedhis harness and drew him back. 

"Hold!" commanded Lakor. "There will be plenty of time to fight ifwe find it wise to fight at all. There be good reasons why everythern upon Barsoom should yearn to spill the blood of the blasphemer, the sacrilegist; but let us mix wisdom with our righteous hate. The Prince of Helium is bound upon an errand which we ourselves, but a moment since, were wishing that we might undertake. 

"Let him go then and slay the black. When he returns we shall stillbe here to bar his way to the outer world, and thus we shall haverid ourselves of two enemies, nor have incurred the displeasure ofthe Father of Therns. "

As he spoke I could not but note the crafty glint in his evileyes, and while I saw the apparent logic of his reasoning I felt, subconsciously perhaps, that his words did but veil some sinisterintent. The other thern turned toward him in evident surprise, butwhen Lakor had whispered a few brief words into his ear he, too, drew back and nodded acquiescence to his superior's suggestion. 

"Proceed, John Carter, " said Lakor; "but know that if Thurid doesnot lay you low there will be those awaiting your return who willsee that you never pass again into the sunlight of the upper world. Go!"

During our conversation Woola had been growling and bristlingclose to my side. Occasionally he would look up into my face witha low, pleading whine, as though begging for the word that wouldsend him headlong at the bare throats before him. He, too, sensedthe villainy behind the smooth words. 

Beyond the therns several doorways opened off the guardroom, andtoward the one upon the extreme right Lakor motioned. 

"That way leads to Thurid, " he said. 

But when I would have called Woola to follow me there the beastwhined and held back, and at last ran quickly to the first openingat the left, where he stood emitting his coughing bark, as thoughurging me to follow him upon the right way. 

I turned a questioning look upon Lakor. 

"The brute is seldom wrong, " I said, "and while I do not doubt yoursuperior knowledge, Thern, I think that I shall do well to listento the voice of instinct that is backed by love and loyalty. "

As I spoke I smiled grimly that he might know without words thatI distrusted him. 

"As you will, " the fellow replied with a shrug. "In the end itshall be all the same. "

I turned and followed Woola into the left-hand passage, and thoughmy back was toward my enemies, my ears were on the alert; yetI heard no sound of pursuit. The passageway was dimly lighted byoccasional radium bulbs, the universal lighting medium of Barsoom. 

These same lamps may have been doing continuous duty in thesesubterranean chambers for ages, since they require no attentionand are so compounded that they give off but the minutest of theirsubstance in the generation of years of luminosity. 

We had proceeded for but a short distance when we commenced to passthe mouths of diverging corridors, but not once did Woola hesitate. It was at the opening to one of these corridors upon my right thatI presently heard a sound that spoke more plainly to John Carter, fighting man, than could the words of my mother tongue--it was theclank of metal--the metal of a warrior's harness--and it came froma little distance up the corridor upon my right. 

Woola heard it, too, and like a flash he had wheeled and stoodfacing the threatened danger, his mane all abristle and all hisrows of glistening fangs bared by snarling, backdrawn lips. Witha gesture I silenced him, and together we drew aside into anothercorridor a few paces farther on. 

Here we waited; nor did we have long to wait, for presently we sawthe shadows of two men fall upon the floor of the main corridorathwart the doorway of our hiding place. Very cautiously theywere moving now--the accidental clank that had alarmed me was notrepeated. 

Presently they came opposite our station; nor was I surprised tosee that the two were Lakor and his companion of the guardroom. 

They walked very softly, and in the right hand of each gleamed akeen long-sword. They halted quite close to the entrance of ourretreat, whispering to each other. 

"Can it be that we have distanced them already?" said Lakor. 

"Either that or the beast has led the man upon a wrong trail, "replied the other, "for the way which we took is by far the shorterto this point--for him who knows it. John Carter would have foundit a short road to death had he taken it as you suggested to him. "

"Yes, " said Lakor, "no amount of fighting ability would have savedhim from the pivoted flagstone. He surely would have stepped uponit, and by now, if the pit beneath it has a bottom, which Thuriddenies, he should have been rapidly approaching it. Curses on thatcalot of his that warned him toward the safer avenue!"

"There be other dangers ahead of him, though, " spoke Lakor's fellow, "which he may not so easily escape--should he succeed in escapingour two good swords. Consider, for example, what chance he willhave, coming unexpectedly into the chamber of--"

I would have given much to have heard the balance of that conversationthat I might have been warned of the perils that lay ahead, butfate intervened, and just at the very instant of all other instantsthat I would not have elected to do it, I sneezed. 

THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN

There was nothing for it now other than to fight; nor did I haveany advantage as I sprang, sword in hand, into the corridor beforethe two therns, for my untimely sneeze had warned them of my presenceand they were ready for me. 

There were no words, for they would have been a waste of breath. The very presence of the two proclaimed their treachery. Thatthey were following to fall upon me unawares was all too plain, and they, of course, must have known that I understood their plan. 

In an instant I was engaged with both, and though I loathe the veryname of thern, I must in all fairness admit that they are mightyswordsmen; and these two were no exception, unless it were thatthey were even more skilled and fearless than the average amongtheir race. 

While it lasted it was indeed as joyous a conflict as I ever hadexperienced. Twice at least I saved my breast from the mortalthrust of piercing steel only by the wondrous agility with whichmy earthly muscles endow me under the conditions of lesser gravityand air pressure upon Mars. 

Yet even so I came near to tasting death that day in the gloomycorridor beneath Mars's southern pole, for Lakor played a trickupon me that in all my experience of fighting upon two planets Inever before had witnessed the like of. 

The other thern was engaging me at the time, and I was forcinghim back--touching him here and there with my point until he wasbleeding from a dozen wounds, yet not being able to penetrate hismarvelous guard to reach a vulnerable spot for the brief instantthat would have been sufficient to send him to his ancestors. 

It was then that Lakor quickly unslung a belt from his harness, and as I stepped back to parry a wicked thrust he lashed one endof it about my left ankle so that it wound there for an instant, while he jerked suddenly upon the other end, throwing me heavilyupon my back. 

Then, like leaping panthers, they were upon me; but theyhad reckoned without Woola, and before ever a blade touched me, aroaring embodiment of a thousand demons hurtled above my prostrateform and my loyal Martian calot was upon them. 

Imagine, if you can, a huge grizzly with ten legs armed with mightytalons and an enormous froglike mouth splitting his head from earto ear, exposing three rows of long, white tusks. Then endow thiscreature of your imagination with the agility and ferocity of ahalf-starved Bengal tiger and the strength of a span of bulls, andyou will have some faint conception of Woola in action. 

Before I could call him off he had crushed Lakor into a jelly witha single blow of one mighty paw, and had literally torn the otherthern to ribbons; yet when I spoke to him sharply he cowed sheepishlyas though he had done a thing to deserve censure and chastisement. 

Never had I had the heart to punish Woola during the long yearsthat had passed since that first day upon Mars when the green jedof the Tharks had placed him on guard over me, and I had won hislove and loyalty from the cruel and loveless masters of his formerlife, yet I believe he would have submitted to any cruelty that Imight have inflicted upon him, so wondrous was his affection forme. 

The diadem in the center of the circlet of gold upon the brow ofLakor proclaimed him a Holy Thern, while his companion, not thusadorned, was a lesser thern, though from his harness I gleaned thathe had reached the Ninth Cycle, which is but one below that of theHoly Therns. 

As I stood for a moment looking at the gruesome havoc Woola hadwrought, there recurred to me the memory of that other occasionupon which I had masqueraded in the wig, diadem, and harness ofSator Throg, the Holy Thern whom Thuvia of Ptarth had slain, and nowit occurred to me that it might prove of worth to utilize Lakor'strappings for the same purpose. 

A moment later I had torn his yellow wig from his bald pate andtransferred it and the circlet, as well as all his harness, to myown person. 

Woola did not approve of the metamorphosis. He sniffed at me andgrowled ominously, but when I spoke to him and patted his huge headhe at length became reconciled to the change, and at my commandtrotted off along the corridor in the direction we had been goingwhen our progress had been interrupted by the therns. 

We moved cautiously now, warned by the fragment of conversationI had overheard. I kept abreast of Woola that we might have thebenefit of all our eyes for what might appear suddenly ahead tomenace us, and well it was that we were forewarned. 

At the bottom of a flight of narrow steps the corridor turned sharplyback upon itself, immediately making another turn in the originaldirection, so that at that point it formed a perfect letter S, the top leg of which debouched suddenly into a large chamber, illylighted, and the floor of which was completely covered by venomoussnakes and loathsome reptiles. 

To have attempted to cross that floor would have been to courtinstant death, and for a moment I was almost completely discouraged. Then it occurred to me that Thurid and Matai Shang with their partymust have crossed it, and so there was a way. 

Had it not been for the fortunate accident by which I overheardeven so small a portion of the therns' conversation we shouldhave blundered at least a step or two into that wriggling mass ofdestruction, and a single step would have been all-sufficient tohave sealed our doom. 

These were the only reptiles I had ever seen upon Barsoom, but Iknew from their similarity to the fossilized remains of supposedlyextinct species I had seen in the museums of Helium that theycomprised many of the known prehistoric reptilian genera, as wellas others undiscovered. 

A more hideous aggregation of monsters had never before assailed myvision. It would be futile to attempt to describe them to Earthmen, since substance is the only thing which they possess incommon with any creature of the past or present with which you arefamiliar--even their venom is of an unearthly virulence that, bycomparison, would make the cobra de capello seem quite as harmlessas an angleworm. 

As they spied me there was a concerted rush by those nearest theentrance where we stood, but a line of radium bulbs inset along thethreshold of their chamber brought them to a sudden halt--evidentlythey dared not cross that line of light. 

I had been quite sure that they would not venture beyond the roomin which I had discovered them, though I had not guessed at whatdeterred them. The simple fact that we had found no reptiles inthe corridor through which we had just come was sufficient assurancethat they did not venture there. 

I drew Woola out of harm's way, and then began a careful surveyof as much of the Chamber of Reptiles as I could see from whereI stood. As my eyes became accustomed to the dim light of itsinterior I gradually made out a low gallery at the far end of theapartment from which opened several exits. 

Coming as close to the threshold as I dared, I followed thisgallery with my eyes, discovering that it circled the room as faras I could see. Then I glanced above me along the upper edge ofthe entrance to which we had come, and there, to my delight, I sawan end of the gallery not a foot above my head. In an instant Ihad leaped to it and called Woola after me. 

Here there were no reptiles--the way was clear to the opposite sideof the hideous chamber--and a moment later Woola and I dropped downto safety in the corridor beyond. 

Not ten minutes later we came into a vast circular apartmentof white marble, the walls of which were inlaid with gold in thestrange hieroglyphics of the First Born. 

From the high dome of this mighty apartment a huge circular columnextended to the floor, and as I watched I saw that it slowlyrevolved. 

I had reached the base of the Temple of the Sun!

Somewhere above me lay Dejah Thoris, and with her were Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang, and Thuvia of Ptarth. But how to reachthem, now that I had found the only vulnerable spot in their mightyprison, was still a baffling riddle. 

Slowly I circled the great shaft, looking for a means of ingress. Part way around I found a tiny radium flash torch, and as I examinedit in mild curiosity as to its presence there in this almostinaccessible and unknown spot, I came suddenly upon the insigniaof the house of Thurid jewel-inset in its metal case. 

I am upon the right trail, I thought, as I slipped the bauble intothe pocket-pouch which hung from my harness. Then I continuedmy search for the entrance, which I knew must be somewhere about;nor had I long to search, for almost immediately thereafter I cameupon a small door so cunningly inlaid in the shaft's base that itmight have passed unnoticed by a less keen or careful observer. 

There was the door that would lead me within the prison, but wherewas the means to open it? No button or lock were visible. Againand again I went carefully over every square inch of its surface, but the most that I could find was a tiny pinhole a little aboveand to the right of the door's center--a pinhole that seemed onlyan accident of manufacture or an imperfection of material. 

Into this minute aperture I attempted to peer, but whether it wasbut a fraction of an inch deep or passed completely through the doorI could not tell--at least no light showed beyond it. I put my earto it next and listened, but again my efforts brought negligibleresults. 

During these experiments Woola had been standing at my side gazingintently at the door, and as my glance fell upon him it occurredto me to test the correctness of my hypothesis, that this portalhad been the means of ingress to the temple used by Thurid, theblack dator, and Matai Shang, Father of Therns. 

Turning away abruptly, I called to him to follow me. For a momenthe hesitated, and then leaped after me, whining and tugging at myharness to draw me back. I walked on, however, some distance fromthe door before I let him have his way, that I might see preciselywhat he would do. Then I permitted him to lead me wherever hewould. 

Straight back to that baffling portal he dragged me, again takingup his position facing the blank stone, gazing straight at itsshining surface. For an hour I worked to solve the mystery of thecombination that would open the way before me. 

Carefully I recalled every circumstance of my pursuit of Thurid, and my conclusion was identical with my original belief--that Thuridhad come this way without other assistance than his own knowledgeand passed through the door that barred my progress, unaided fromwithin. But how had he accomplished it?

I recalled the incident of the Chamber of Mystery in the GoldenCliffs that time I had freed Thuvia of Ptarth from the dungeon ofthe therns, and she had taken a slender, needle-like key from thekeyring of her dead jailer to open the door leading back into theChamber of Mystery where Tars Tarkas fought for his life with thegreat banths. Such a tiny keyhole as now defied me had opened theway to the intricate lock in that other door. 

Hastily I dumped the contents of my pocket-pouch upon the groundbefore me. Could I but find a slender bit of steel I might yetfashion a key that would give me ingress to the temple prison. 

As I examined the heterogeneous collection of odds and ends thatis always to be found in the pocket-pouch of a Martian warrior myhand fell upon the emblazoned radium flash torch of the black dator. 

As I was about to lay the thing aside as of no value in my presentpredicament my eyes chanced upon a few strange characters roughlyand freshly scratched upon the soft gold of the case. 

Casual curiosity prompted me to decipher them, but what I readcarried no immediate meaning to my mind. There were three sets ofcharacters, one below another:

 3 |--| 50 T 1 |--| 1 X 9 |--| 25 T

For only an instant my curiosity was piqued, and then I replacedthe torch in my pocket-pouch, but my fingers had not unclaspedfrom it when there rushed to my memory the recollection of theconversation between Lakor and his companion when the lesser thernhad quoted the words of Thurid and scoffed at them: "And whatthink you of the ridiculous matter of the light? Let the lightshine with the intensity of three radium units for fifty tals"--ah, there was the first line of characters upon the torch's metalcase--3--50 T; "and for one xat let it shine with the intensityof one radium unit"--there was the second line; "and then fortwenty-five tals with nine units. "

The formula was complete; but--what did it mean?

I thought I knew, and, seizing a powerful magnifying glass from thelitter of my pocket-pouch, I applied myself to a careful examinationof the marble immediately about the pinhole in the door. I couldhave cried aloud in exultation when my scrutiny disclosed the almostinvisible incrustation of particles of carbonized electrons whichare thrown off by these Martian torches. 

It was evident that for countless ages radium torches had beenapplied to this pinhole, and for what purpose there could be buta single answer--the mechanism of the lock was actuated by lightrays; and I, John Carter, Prince of Helium, held the combinationin my hand--scratched by the hand of my enemy upon his own torchcase. 

In a cylindrical bracelet of gold about my wrist was my Barsoomianchronometer--a delicate instrument that records the tals and xatsand zodes of Martian time, presenting them to view beneath a strongcrystal much after the manner of an earthly odometer. 

Timing my operations carefully, I held the torch to the small aperturein the door, regulating the intensity of the light by means of thethumb-lever upon the side of the case. 

For fifty tals I let three units of light shine full in the pinhole, then one unit for one xat, and for twenty-five tals nine units. Those last twenty-five tals were the longest twenty-five secondsof my life. Would the lock click at the end of those seeminglyinterminable intervals of time?

Twenty-three! Twenty-four! Twenty-five!

I shut off the light with a snap. For seven tals I waited--therehad been no appreciable effect upon the lock's mechanism. Couldit be that my theory was entirely wrong?

Hold! Had the nervous strain resulted in a hallucination, or didthe door really move? Slowly the solid stone sank noiselessly backinto the wall--there was no hallucination here. 

Back and back it slid for ten feet until it had disclosed at itsright a narrow doorway leading into a dark and narrow corridor thatparalleled the outer wall. Scarcely was the entrance uncoveredthan Woola and I had leaped through--then the door slipped quietlyback into place. 

Down the corridor at some distance I saw the faint reflection ofa light, and toward this we made our way. At the point where thelight shone was a sharp turn, and a little distance beyond this abrilliantly lighted chamber. 

Here we discovered a spiral stairway leading up from the center ofthe circular room. 

Immediately I knew that we had reached the center of the base ofthe Temple of the Sun--the spiral runway led upward past the innerwalls of the prison cells. Somewhere above me was Dejah Thoris, unless Thurid and Matai Shang had already succeeded in stealingher. 

We had scarcely started up the runway when Woola suddenly displayedthe wildest excitement. He leaped back and forth, snapping at mylegs and harness, until I thought that he was mad, and finally whenI pushed him from me and started once more to ascend he grasped mysword arm between his jaws and dragged me back. 

No amount of scolding or cuffing would suffice to make him releaseme, and I was entirely at the mercy of his brute strength unlessI cared to use my dagger upon him with my left hand; but, mad orno, I had not the heart to run the sharp blade into that faithfulbody. 

Down into the chamber he dragged me, and across it to the sideopposite that at which we had entered. Here was another doorwayleading into a corridor which ran directly down a steep incline. Without a moment's hesitation Woola jerked me along this rockypassage. 

Presently he stopped and released me, standing between me and theway we had come, looking up into my face as though to ask if I wouldnow follow him voluntarily or if he must still resort to force. 

Looking ruefully at the marks of his great teeth upon my bare armI decided to do as he seemed to wish me to do. After all, his strangeinstinct might be more dependable than my faulty human judgment. 

And well it was that I had been forced to follow him. But ashort distance from the circular chamber we came suddenly into abrilliantly lighted labyrinth of crystal glass partitioned passages. 

At first I thought it was one vast, unbroken chamber, so clear andtransparent were the walls of the winding corridors, but after Ihad nearly brained myself a couple of times by attempting to passthrough solid vitreous walls I went more carefully. 

We had proceeded but a few yards along the corridor that had givenus entrance to this strange maze when Woola gave mouth to a mostfrightful roar, at the same time dashing against the clear partitionat our left. 

The resounding echoes of that fearsome cry were still reverberatingthrough the subterranean chambers when I saw the thing that hadstartled it from the faithful beast. 

Far in the distance, dimly through the many thicknesses of interveningcrystal, as in a haze that made them seem unreal and ghostly, Idiscerned the figures of eight people--three females and five men. 

At the same instant, evidently startled by Woola's fierce cry, theyhalted and looked about. Then, of a sudden, one of them, a woman, held her arms out toward me, and even at that great distance I couldsee that her lips moved--it was Dejah Thoris, my ever beautifuland ever youthful Princess of Helium. 

With her were Thuvia of Ptarth, Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang, and Thurid, and the Father of Therns, and the three lesser thernsthat had accompanied them. 

Thurid shook his fist at me, and then two of the therns graspedDejah Thoris and Thuvia roughly by their arms and hurried them on. A moment later they had disappeared into a stone corridor beyondthe labyrinth of glass. 

They say that love is blind; but so great a love as that of DejahThoris that knew me even beneath the thern disguise I wore and acrossthe misty vista of that crystal maze must indeed be far from blind. 

THE SECRET TOWER

I have no stomach to narrate the monotonous events of the tediousdays that Woola and I spent ferreting our way across the labyrinthof glass, through the dark and devious ways beyond that led beneaththe Valley Dor and Golden Cliffs to emerge at last upon the flankof the Otz Mountains just above the Valley of Lost Souls--thatpitiful purgatory peopled by the poor unfortunates who dare notcontinue their abandoned pilgrimage to Dor, or return to the variouslands of the outer world from whence they came. 

Here the trail of Dejah Thoris' abductors led along the mountains'base, across steep and rugged ravines, by the side of appallingprecipices, and sometimes out into the valley, where we foundfighting aplenty with the members of the various tribes that makeup the population of this vale of hopelessness. 

But through it all we came at last to where the way led up a narrowgorge that grew steeper and more impracticable at every step untilbefore us loomed a mighty fortress buried beneath the side of anoverhanging cliff. 

Here was the secret hiding place of Matai Shang, Father of Therns. Here, surrounded by a handful of the faithful, the hekkador ofthe ancient faith, who had once been served by millions of vassalsand dependents, dispensed the spiritual words among the half dozennations of Barsoom that still clung tenaciously to their false anddiscredited religion. 

Darkness was just falling as we came in sight of the seeminglyimpregnable walls of this mountain stronghold, and lest we be seenI drew back with Woola behind a jutting granite promontory, intoa clump of the hardy, purple scrub that thrives upon the barrensides of Otz. 

Here we lay until the quick transition from daylight to darknesshad passed. Then I crept out to approach the fortress walls insearch of a way within. 

Either through carelessness or over-confidence in the supposedinaccessibility of their hiding place, the triple-barred gate stoodajar. Beyond were a handful of guards, laughing and talking overone of their incomprehensible Barsoomian games. 

I saw that none of the guardsmen had been of the party thataccompanied Thurid and Matai Shang; and so, relying entirely uponmy disguise, I walked boldly through the gateway and up to thethern guard. 

The men stopped their game and looked up at me, but there was nosign of suspicion. Similarly they looked at Woola, growling at myheel. 

"Kaor!" I said in true Martian greeting, and the warriors arose andsaluted me. "I have but just found my way hither from the GoldenCliffs, " I continued, "and seek audience with the hekkador, MataiShang, Father of Therns. Where may he be found?"

"Follow me, " said one of the guard, and, turning, led me acrossthe outer courtyard toward a second buttressed wall. 

Why the apparent ease with which I seemingly deceived them didnot rouse my suspicions I know not, unless it was that my mind wasstill so full of that fleeting glimpse of my beloved princess thatthere was room in it for naught else. Be that as it may, the factis that I marched buoyantly behind my guide straight into the jawsof death. 

Afterward I learned that thern spies had been aware of my comingfor hours before I reached the hidden fortress. 

The gate had been purposely left ajar to tempt me on. The guardshad been schooled well in their part of the conspiracy; and I, more like a schoolboy than a seasoned warrior, ran headlong intothe trap. 

At the far side of the outer court a narrow door let into theangle made by one of the buttresses with the wall. Here my guideproduced a key and opened the way within; then, stepping back, hemotioned me to enter. 

"Matai Shang is in the temple court beyond, " he said; and as Woolaand I passed through, the fellow closed the door quickly upon us. 

The nasty laugh that came to my ears through the heavy planking ofthe door after the lock clicked was my first intimation that allwas not as it should be. 

I found myself in a small, circular chamber within the buttress. Before me a door opened, presumably, upon the inner court beyond. For a moment I hesitated, all my suspicions now suddenly, thoughtardily, aroused; then, with a shrug of my shoulders, I opened thedoor and stepped out into the glare of torches that lighted theinner court. 

Directly opposite me a massive tower rose to a height of threehundred feet. It was of the strangely beautiful modern Barsoomianstyle of architecture, its entire surface hand carved in boldrelief with intricate and fanciful designs. Thirty feet abovethe courtyard and overlooking it was a broad balcony, and there, indeed, was Matai Shang, and with him were Thurid and Phaidor, Thuvia, and Dejah Thoris--the last two heavily ironed. A handfulof thern warriors stood just behind the little party. 

As I entered the enclosure the eyes of those in the balcony werefull upon me. 

An ugly smile distorted the cruel lips of Matai Shang. Thuridhurled a taunt at me and placed a familiar hand upon the shoulderof my princess. Like a tigress she turned upon him, striking thebeast a heavy blow with the manacles upon her wrist. 

He would have struck back had not Matai Shang interfered, and thenI saw that the two men were not over-friendly; for the manner ofthe thern was arrogant and domineering as he made it plain to theFirst Born that the Princess of Helium was the personal propertyof the Father of Therns. And Thurid's bearing toward the ancienthekkador savored not at all of liking or respect. 

When the altercation in the balcony had subsided Matai Shang turnedagain to me. 

"Earth man, " he cried, "you have earned a more ignoble death thannow lies within our weakened power to inflict upon you; but that thedeath you die tonight may be doubly bitter, know you that when youhave passed, your widow becomes the wife of Matai Shang, Hekkadorof the Holy Therns, for a Martian year. 

"At the end of that time, as you know, she shall be discarded, as is the law among us, but not, as is usual, to lead a quiet andhonored life as high priestess of some hallowed shrine. Instead, Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, shall become the plaything ofmy lieutenants--perhaps of thy most hated enemy, Thurid, the blackdator. "

As he ceased speaking he awaited in silence evidently for someoutbreak of rage upon my part--something that would have added tothe spice of his revenge. But I did not give him the satisfactionthat he craved. 

Instead, I did the one thing of all others that might rouse hisanger and increase his hatred of me; for I knew that if I diedDejah Thoris, too, would find a way to die before they could heapfurther tortures or indignities upon her. 

Of all the holy of holies which the thern venerates and worshipsnone is more revered than the yellow wig which covers his bald pate, and next thereto comes the circlet of gold and the great diadem, whose scintillant rays mark the attainment of the Tenth Cycle. 

And, knowing this, I removed the wig and circlet from my head, tossing them carelessly upon the flagging of the court. Then Iwiped my feet upon the yellow tresses; and as a groan of rage arosefrom the balcony I spat full upon the holy diadem. 

Matai Shang went livid with anger, but upon the lips of Thurid Icould see a grim smile of amusement, for to him these things werenot holy; so, lest he should derive too much amusement from myact, I cried: "And thus did I with the holies of Issus, Goddessof Life Eternal, ere I threw Issus herself to the mob that oncehad worshiped her, to be torn to pieces in her own temple. "

That put an end to Thurid's grinning, for he had been high in thefavor of Issus. 

"Let us have an end to this blaspheming!" he cried, turning to theFather of Therns. 

Matai Shang rose and, leaning over the edge of the balcony, gavevoice to the weird call that I had heard from the lips of thepriests upon the tiny balcony upon the face of the Golden Cliffsoverlooking the Valley Dor, when, in times past, they calledthe fearsome white apes and the hideous plant men to the feast ofvictims floating down the broad bosom of the mysterious Iss towardthe silian-infested waters of the Lost Sea of Korus. "Let loosethe death!" he cried, and immediately a dozen doors in the base ofthe tower swung open, and a dozen grim and terrible banths spranginto the arena. 

This was not the first time that I had faced the ferocious Barsoomianlion, but never had I been pitted, single-handed, against a fulldozen of them. Even with the assistance of the fierce Woola, therecould be but a single outcome to so unequal a struggle. 

For a moment the beasts hesitated beneath the brilliant glareof the torches; but presently their eyes, becoming accustomed tothe light, fell upon Woola and me, and with bristling manes anddeep-throated roars they advanced, lashing their tawny sides withtheir powerful tails. 

In the brief interval of life that was left me I shot a last, parting glance toward my Dejah Thoris. Her beautiful face was setin an expression of horror; and as my eyes met hers she extendedboth arms toward me as, struggling with the guards who now heldher, she endeavored to cast herself from the balcony into the pitbeneath, that she might share my death with me. Then, as the banthswere about to close upon me, she turned and buried her dear facein her arms. 

Suddenly my attention was drawn toward Thuvia of Ptarth. Thebeautiful girl was leaning far over the edge of the balcony, hereyes bright with excitement. 

In another instant the banths would be upon me, but I could notforce my gaze from the features of the red girl, for I knew thather expression meant anything but the enjoyment of the grim tragedythat would so soon be enacted below her; there was some deeper, hidden meaning which I sought to solve. 

For an instant I thought of relying on my earthly muscles andagility to escape the banths and reach the balcony, which I couldeasily have done, but I could not bring myself to desert thefaithful Woola and leave him to die alone beneath the cruel fangsof the hungry banths; that is not the way upon Barsoom, nor was itever the way of John Carter. 

Then the secret of Thuvia's excitement became apparent as from herlips there issued the purring sound I had heard once before; thattime that, within the Golden Cliffs, she called the fierce banthsabout her and led them as a shepherdess might lead her flock ofmeek and harmless sheep. 

At the first note of that soothing sound the banths halted in theirtracks, and every fierce head went high as the beasts sought theorigin of the familiar call. Presently they discovered the redgirl in the balcony above them, and, turning, roared out theirrecognition and their greeting. 

Guards sprang to drag Thuvia away, but ere they had succeeded shehad hurled a volley of commands at the listening brutes, and asone they turned and marched back into their dens. 

"You need not fear them now, John Carter!" cried Thuvia, beforethey could silence her. "Those banths will never harm you now, nor Woola, either. "

It was all I cared to know. There was naught to keep me from thatbalcony now, and with a long, running leap I sprang far aloft untilmy hands grasped its lowest sill. 

In an instant all was wild confusion. Matai Shang shrank back. Thurid sprang forward with drawn sword to cut me down. 

Again Dejah Thoris wielded her heavy irons and fought him back. Then Matai Shang grasped her about the waist and dragged her awaythrough a door leading within the tower. 

For an instant Thurid hesitated, and then, as though fearing thatthe Father of Therns would escape him with the Princess of Helium, he, too, dashed from the balcony in their wake. 

Phaidor alone retained her presence of mind. Two of the guards sheordered to bear away Thuvia of Ptarth; the others she commanded toremain and prevent me from following. Then she turned toward me. 

"John Carter, " she cried, "for the last time I offer you the loveof Phaidor, daughter of the Holy Hekkador. Accept and your princessshall be returned to the court of her grandfather, and you shalllive in peace and happiness. Refuse and the fate that my fatherhas threatened shall fall upon Dejah Thoris. 

"You cannot save her now, for by this time they have reached aplace where even you may not follow. Refuse and naught can saveyou; for, though the way to the last stronghold of the Holy Thernswas made easy for you, the way hence hath been made impossible. What say you?"

"You knew my answer, Phaidor, " I replied, "before ever you spoke. Make way, " I cried to the guards, "for John Carter, Prince ofHelium, would pass!"

With that I leaped over the low baluster that surrounded the balcony, and with drawn long-sword faced my enemies. 

There were three of them; but Phaidor must have guessed what theoutcome of the battle would be, for she turned and fled from thebalcony the moment she saw that I would have none of her proposition. 

The three guardsmen did not wait for my attack. Instead, theyrushed me--the three of them simultaneously; and it was that whichgave me an advantage, for they fouled one another in the narrowprecincts of the balcony, so that the foremost of them stumbledfull upon my blade at the first onslaught. 

The red stain upon my point roused to its full the old blood-lustof the fighting man that has ever been so strong within my breast, so that my blade flew through the air with a swiftness and deadlyaccuracy that threw the two remaining therns into wild despair. 

When at last the sharp steel found the heart of one of them theother turned to flee, and, guessing that his steps would lead himalong the way taken by those I sought, I let him keep ever farenough ahead to think that he was safely escaping my sword. 

Through several inner chambers he raced until he came to a spiralrunway. Up this he dashed, I in close pursuit. At the upper endwe came out into a small chamber, the walls of which were plankexcept for a single window overlooking the slopes of Otz and theValley of Lost Souls beyond. 

Here the fellow tore frantically at what appeared to be but apiece of the blank wall opposite the single window. In an instantI guessed that it was a secret exit from the room, and so I pausedthat he might have an opportunity to negotiate it, for I carednothing to take the life of this poor servitor--all I craved wasa clear road in pursuit of Dejah Thoris, my long-lost princess. 

But, try as he would, the panel would yield neither to cunning norforce, so that eventually he gave it up and turned to face me. 

"Go thy way, Thern, " I said to him, pointing toward the entranceto the runway up which we had but just come. "I have no quarrelwith you, nor do I crave your life. Go!"

For answer he sprang upon me with his sword, and so suddenly, atthat, that I was like to have gone down before his first rush. Sothere was nothing for it but to give him what he sought, and thatas quickly as might be, that I might not be delayed too long inthis chamber while Matai Shang and Thurid made way with Dejah Thorisand Thuvia of Ptarth. 

The fellow was a clever swordsman--resourceful and extremelytricky. In fact, he seemed never to have heard that there existedsuch a thing as a code of honor, for he repeatedly outraged a dozenBarsoomian fighting customs that an honorable man would rather diethan ignore. 

He even went so far as to snatch his holy wig from his head andthrow it in my face, so as to blind me for a moment while he thrustat my unprotected breast. 

When he thrust, however, I was not there, for I had fought withtherns before; and while none had ever resorted to precisely thatsame expedient, I knew them to be the least honorable and mosttreacherous fighters upon Mars, and so was ever on the alert forsome new and devilish subterfuge when I was engaged with one oftheir race. 

But at length he overdid the thing; for, drawing his shortsword, he hurled it, javelinwise, at my body, at the same instant rushingupon me with his long-sword. A single sweeping circle of my ownblade caught the flying weapon and hurled it clattering againstthe far wall, and then, as I sidestepped my antagonist's impetuousrush, I let him have my point full in the stomach as he hurtledby. 

Clear to the hilt my weapon passed through his body, and with afrightful shriek he sank to the floor, dead. 

Halting only for the brief instant that was required to wrenchmy sword from the carcass of my late antagonist, I sprang acrossthe chamber to the blank wall beyond, through which the thern hadattempted to pass. Here I sought for the secret of its lock, butall to no avail. 

In despair I tried to force the thing, but the cold, unyieldingstone might well have laughed at my futile, puny endeavors. In fact, I could have sworn that I caught the faint suggestion of tauntinglaughter from beyond the baffling panel. 

In disgust I desisted from my useless efforts and stepped to thechamber's single window. 

The slopes of Otz and the distant Valley of Lost Souls held nothingto compel my interest then; but, towering far above me, the tower'scarved wall riveted my keenest attention. 

Somewhere within that massive pile was Dejah Thoris. Above me Icould see windows. There, possibly, lay the only way by which Icould reach her. The risk was great, but not too great when thefate of a world's most wondrous woman was at stake. 

I glanced below. A hundred feet beneath lay jagged granite bouldersat the brink of a frightful chasm upon which the tower abutted; andif not upon the boulders, then at the chasm's bottom, lay death, should a foot slip but once, or clutching fingers loose their holdfor the fraction of an instant. 

But there was no other way and with a shrug, which I must admitwas half shudder, I stepped to the window's outer sill and beganmy perilous ascent. 

To my dismay I found that, unlike the ornamentation upon mostHeliumetic structures, the edges of the carvings were quite generallyrounded, so that at best my every hold was most precarious. 

Fifty feet above me commenced a series of projecting cylindricalstones some six inches in diameter. These apparently circled thetower at six-foot intervals, in bands six feet apart; and as eachstone cylinder protruded some four or five inches beyond the surfaceof the other ornamentation, they presented a comparatively easymode of ascent could I but reach them. 

Laboriously I climbed toward them by way of some windows whichlay below them, for I hoped that I might find ingress to the towerthrough one of these, and thence an easier avenue along which toprosecute my search. 

At times so slight was my hold upon the rounded surfaces of thecarving's edges that a sneeze, a cough, or even a slight gust ofwind would have dislodged me and sent me hurtling to the depthsbelow. 

But finally I reached a point where my fingers could just clutchthe sill of the lowest window, and I was on the point of breathinga sigh of relief when the sound of voices came to me from abovethrough the open window. 

"He can never solve the secret of that lock. " The voice was MataiShang's. "Let us proceed to the hangar above that we may be farto the south before he finds another way--should that be possible. "

"All things seem possible to that vile calot, " replied anothervoice, which I recognized as Thurid's. 

"Then let us haste, " said Matai Shang. "But to be doubly sure, Iwill leave two who shall patrol this runway. Later they may followus upon another flier--overtaking us at Kaol. "

My upstretched fingers never reached the window's sill. At thefirst sound of the voices I drew back my hand and clung there tomy perilous perch, flattened against the perpendicular wall, scarcedaring to breathe. 

What a horrible position, indeed, in which to be discovered byThurid! He had but to lean from the window to push me with hissword's point into eternity. 

Presently the sound of the voices became fainter, and once againI took up my hazardous ascent, now more difficult, since morecircuitous, for I must climb so as to avoid the windows. 

Matai Shang's reference to the hangar and the fliers indicatedthat my destination lay nothing short of the roof of the tower, and toward this seemingly distant goal I set my face. 

The most difficult and dangerous part of the journey was accomplishedat last, and it was with relief that I felt my fingers close aboutthe lowest of the stone cylinders. 

It is true that these projections were too far apart to make thebalance of the ascent anything of a sinecure, but I at least hadalways within my reach a point of safety to which I might cling incase of accident. 

Some ten feet below the roof, the wall inclined slightly inwardpossibly a foot in the last ten feet, and here the climbing wasindeed immeasurably easier, so that my fingers soon clutched theeaves. 

As I drew my eyes above the level of the tower's top I saw a flierall but ready to rise. 

Upon her deck were Matai Shang, Phaidor, Dejah Thoris, Thuvia ofPtarth, and a few thern warriors, while near her was Thurid in theact of clambering aboard. 

He was not ten paces from me, facing in the opposite direction;and what cruel freak of fate should have caused him to turn aboutjust as my eyes topped the roof's edge I may not even guess. 

But turn he did; and when his eyes met mine his wicked face lightedwith a malignant smile as he leaped toward me, where I was hasteningto scramble to the secure footing of the roof. 

Dejah Thoris must have seen me at the same instant, for she screameda useless warning just as Thurid's foot, swinging in a mighty kick, landed full in my face. 

Like a felled ox, I reeled and tumbled backward over the tower'sside. 

ON THE KAOLIAN ROAD

If there be a fate that is sometimes cruel to me, there surely isa kind and merciful Providence which watches over me. 

As I toppled from the tower into the horrid abyss below I countedmyself already dead; and Thurid must have done likewise, for heevidently did not even trouble himself to look after me, but musthave turned and mounted the waiting flier at once. 

Ten feet only I fell, and then a loop of my tough, leathern harnesscaught upon one of the cylindrical stone projections in the tower'ssurface--and held. Even when I had ceased to fall I could notbelieve the miracle that had preserved me from instant death, andfor a moment I hung there, cold sweat exuding from every pore ofmy body. 

But when at last I had worked myself back to a firm positionI hesitated to ascend, since I could not know that Thurid was notstill awaiting me above. 

Presently, however, there came to my ears the whirring of thepropellers of a flier, and as each moment the sound grew fainterI realized that the party had proceeded toward the south withoutassuring themselves as to my fate. 

Cautiously I retraced my way to the roof, and I must admit thatit was with no pleasant sensation that I raised my eyes once moreabove its edge; but, to my relief, there was no one in sight, anda moment later I stood safely upon its broad surface. 

To reach the hangar and drag forth the only other flier which itcontained was the work of but an instant; and just as the two thernwarriors whom Matai Shang had left to prevent this very contingencyemerged upon the roof from the tower's interior, I rose above themwith a taunting laugh. 

Then I dived rapidly to the inner court where I had last seen Woola, and to my immense relief found the faithful beast still there. 

The twelve great banths lay in the doorways of their lairs, eyeinghim and growling ominously, but they had not disobeyed Thuvia'sinjunction; and I thanked the fate that had made her their keeperwithin the Golden Cliffs, and endowed her with the kind andsympathetic nature that had won the loyalty and affection of thesefierce beasts for her. 

Woola leaped in frantic joy when he discovered me; and as the fliertouched the pavement of the court for a brief instant he boundedto the deck beside me, and in the bearlike manifestation of hisexuberant happiness all but caused me to wreck the vessel againstthe courtyard's rocky wall. 

Amid the angry shouting of thern guardsmen we rose high above thelast fortress of the Holy Therns, and then raced straight towardthe northeast and Kaol, the destination which I had heard from thelips of Matai Shang. 

Far ahead, a tiny speck in the distance, I made out another flierlate in the afternoon. It could be none other than that which boremy lost love and my enemies. 

I had gained considerably on the craft by night; and then, knowingthat they must have sighted me and would show no lights afterdark, I set my destination compass upon her--that wonderful littleMartian mechanism which, once attuned to the object of destination, points away toward it, irrespective of every change in its location. 

All that night we raced through the Barsoomian void, passing overlow hills and dead sea bottoms; above long-deserted cities andpopulous centers of red Martian habitation upon the ribbon-likelines of cultivated land which border the globe-encircling waterways, which Earth men call the canals of Mars. 

Dawn showed that I had gained appreciably upon the flier ahead ofme. It was a larger craft than mine, and not so swift; but evenso, it had covered an immense distance since the flight began. 

The change in vegetation below showed me that we were rapidlynearing the equator. I was now near enough to my quarry to haveused my bow gun; but, though I could see that Dejah Thoris was noton deck, I feared to fire upon the craft which bore her. 

Thurid was deterred by no such scruples; and though it must havebeen difficult for him to believe that it was really I who followedthem, he could not very well doubt the witness of his own eyes;and so he trained their stern gun upon me with his own hands, andan instant later an explosive radium projectile whizzed perilouslyclose above my deck. 

The black's next shot was more accurate, striking my flier fullupon the prow and exploding with the instant of contact, rippingwide open the bow buoyancy tanks and disabling the engine. 

So quickly did my bow drop after the shot that I scarce had timeto lash Woola to the deck and buckle my own harness to a gunwalering before the craft was hanging stern up and making her last longdrop to ground. 

Her stern buoyancy tanks prevented her dropping with great rapidity;but Thurid was firing rapidly now in an attempt to burst thesealso, that I might be dashed to death in the swift fall that wouldinstantly follow a successful shot. 

Shot after shot tore past or into us, but by a miracle neitherWoola nor I was hit, nor were the after tanks punctured. Thisgood fortune could not last indefinitely, and, assured that Thuridwould not again leave me alive, I awaited the bursting of the nextshell that hit; and then, throwing my hands above my head, I let gomy hold and crumpled, limp and inert, dangling in my harness likea corpse. 

The ruse worked, and Thurid fired no more at us. Presently I heardthe diminishing sound of whirring propellers and realized thatagain I was safe. 

Slowly the stricken flier sank to the ground, and when I had freedmyself and Woola from the entangling wreckage I found that we wereupon the verge of a natural forest--so rare a thing upon the bosomof dying Mars that, outside of the forest in the Valley Dor besidethe Lost Sea of Korus, I never before had seen its like upon theplanet. 

From books and travelers I had learned something of the little-knownland of Kaol, which lies along the equator almost halfway roundthe planet to the east of Helium. 

It comprises a sunken area of extreme tropical heat, and is inhabitedby a nation of red men varying but little in manners, customs, andappearance from the balance of the red men of Barsoom. 

I knew that they were among those of the outer world who stillclung tenaciously to the discredited religion of the Holy Therns, and that Matai Shang would find a ready welcome and safe refugeamong them; while John Carter could look for nothing better thanan ignoble death at their hands. 

The isolation of the Kaolians is rendered almost complete by thefact that no waterway connects their land with that of any othernation, nor have they any need of a waterway since the low, swampyland which comprises the entire area of their domain self-waterstheir abundant tropical crops. 

For great distances in all directions rugged hills and aridstretches of dead sea bottom discourage intercourse with them, andsince there is practically no such thing as foreign commerce uponwarlike Barsoom, where each nation is sufficient to itself, reallylittle has been known relative to the court of the Jeddak of Kaoland the numerous strange, but interesting, people over whom herules. 

Occasional hunting parties have traveled to this out-of-the-waycorner of the globe, but the hostility of the natives has usuallybrought disaster upon them, so that even the sport of hunting thestrange and savage creatures which haunt the jungle fastnesses ofKaol has of later years proved insufficient lure even to the mostintrepid warriors. 

It was upon the verge of the land of the Kaols that I now knewmyself to be, but in what direction to search for Dejah Thoris, orhow far into the heart of the great forest I might have to penetrateI had not the faintest idea. 

But not so Woola. 

Scarcely had I disentangled him than he raised his head high in airand commenced circling about at the edge of the forest. Presentlyhe halted, and, turning to see if I were following, set off straightinto the maze of trees in the direction we had been going beforeThurid's shot had put an end to our flier. 

As best I could, I stumbled after him down a steep declivitybeginning at the forest's edge. 

Immense trees reared their mighty heads far above us, their broadfronds completely shutting off the slightest glimpse of the sky. It was easy to see why the Kaolians needed no navy; their cities, hidden in the midst of this towering forest, must be entirelyinvisible from above, nor could a landing be made by any but thesmallest fliers, and then only with the greatest risk of accident. 

How Thurid and Matai Shang were to land I could not imagine, thoughlater I was to learn that to the level of the forest top there risesin each city of Kaol a slender watchtower which guards the Kaoliansby day and by night against the secret approach of a hostile fleet. To one of these the hekkador of the Holy Therns had no difficultyin approaching, and by its means the party was safely lowered tothe ground. 

As Woola and I approached the bottom of the declivity the groundbecame soft and mushy, so that it was with the greatest difficultythat we made any headway whatever. 

Slender purple grasses topped with red and yellow fern-like frondsgrew rankly all about us to the height of several feet above myhead. 

Myriad creepers hung festooned in graceful loops from tree to tree, and among them were several varieties of the Martian "man-flower, "whose blooms have eyes and hands with which to see and seize theinsects which form their diet. 

The repulsive calot tree was, too, much in evidence. It is acarnivorous plant of about the bigness of a large sage-brush suchas dots our western plains. Each branch ends in a set of strongjaws, which have been known to drag down and devour large andformidable beasts of prey. 

Both Woola and I had several narrow escapes from these greedy, arboreous monsters. 

Occasional areas of firm sod gave us intervals of rest from thearduous labor of traversing this gorgeous, twilight swamp, and itwas upon one of these that I finally decided to make camp for thenight which my chronometer warned me would soon be upon us. 

Many varieties of fruit grew in abundance about us; and as Martiancalots are omnivorous, Woola had no difficulty in making a squaremeal after I had brought down the viands for him. Then, havingeaten, too, I lay down with my back to that of my faithful hound, and dropped into a deep and dreamless sleep. 

The forest was shrouded in impenetrable darkness when a low growlfrom Woola awakened me. All about us I could hear the stealthymovement of great, padded feet, and now and then the wicked gleamof green eyes upon us. Arising, I drew my long-sword and waited. 

Suddenly a deep-toned, horrid roar burst from some savage throatalmost at my side. What a fool I had been not to have found saferlodgings for myself and Woola among the branches of one of thecountless trees that surrounded us!

By daylight it would have been comparatively easy to have hoistedWoola aloft in one manner or another, but now it was too late. Therewas nothing for it but to stand our ground and take our medicine, though, from the hideous racket which now assailed our ears, andfor which that first roar had seemed to be the signal, I judgedthat we must be in the midst of hundreds, perhaps thousands, ofthe fierce, man-eating denizens of the Kaolian jungle. 

All the balance of the night they kept up their infernal din, butwhy they did not attack us I could not guess, nor am I sure to thisday, unless it is that none of them ever venture upon the patchesof scarlet sward which dot the swamp. 

When morning broke they were still there, walking about as ina circle, but always just beyond the edge of the sward. A moreterrifying aggregation of fierce and blood-thirsty monsters itwould be difficult to imagine. 

Singly and in pairs they commenced wandering off into the jungleshortly after sunrise, and when the last of them had departed Woolaand I resumed our journey. 

Occasionally we caught glimpses of horrid beasts all during theday; but, fortunately, we were never far from a sward island, andwhen they saw us their pursuit always ended at the verge of thesolid sod. 

Toward noon we stumbled upon a well-constructed road runningin the general direction we had been pursuing. Everything aboutthis highway marked it as the work of skilled engineers, and I wasconfident, from the indications of antiquity which it bore, as wellas from the very evident signs of its being still in everyday use, that it must lead to one of the principal cities of Kaol. 

Just as we entered it from one side a huge monster emerged fromthe jungle upon the other, and at sight of us charged madly in ourdirection. 

Imagine, if you can, a bald-faced hornet of your earthly experiencegrown to the size of a prize Hereford bull, and you will have somefaint conception of the ferocious appearance and awesome formidabilityof the winged monster that bore down upon me. 

Frightful jaws in front and mighty, poisoned sting behind made myrelatively puny long-sword seem a pitiful weapon of defense indeed. Nor could I hope to escape the lightning-like movements or hidefrom those myriad facet eyes which covered three-fourths of thehideous head, permitting the creature to see in all directions atone and the same time. 

Even my powerful and ferocious Woola was as helpless as a kittenbefore that frightful thing. But to flee were useless, even hadit ever been to my liking to turn my back upon a danger; so I stoodmy ground, Woola snarling at my side, my only hope to die as I hadalways lived--fighting. 

The creature was upon us now, and at the instant there seemed tome a single slight chance for victory. If I could but remove theterrible menace of certain death hidden in the poison sacs thatfed the sting the struggle would be less unequal. 

At the thought I called to Woola to leap upon the creature's headand hang there, and as his mighty jaws closed upon that fiendishface, and glistening fangs buried themselves in the bone andcartilage and lower part of one of the huge eyes, I dived beneaththe great body as the creature rose, dragging Woola from the ground, that it might bring its sting beneath and pierce the body of thething hanging to its head. 

To put myself in the path of that poison-laden lance was to courtinstant death, but it was the only way; and as the thing shotlightning-like toward me I swung my long-sword in a terrific cutthat severed the deadly member close to the gorgeously marked body. 

Then, like a battering-ram, one of the powerful hind legs caughtme full in the chest and hurled me, half stunned and wholly winded, clear across the broad highway and into the underbrush of the junglethat fringes it. 

Fortunately, I passed between the boles of trees; had I struck oneof them I should have been badly injured, if not killed, so swiftlyhad I been catapulted by that enormous hind leg. 

Dazed though I was, I stumbled to my feet and staggered back toWoola's assistance, to find his savage antagonist circling ten feetabove the ground, beating madly at the clinging calot with all sixpowerful legs. 

Even during my sudden flight through the air I had not once releasedmy grip upon my long-sword, and now I ran beneath the two battlingmonsters, jabbing the winged terror repeatedly with its sharp point. 

The thing might easily have risen out of my reach, but evidently itknew as little concerning retreat in the face of danger as eitherWoola or I, for it dropped quickly toward me, and before I couldescape had grasped my shoulder between its powerful jaws. 

Time and again the now useless stub of its giant sting struck futilelyagainst my body, but the blows alone were almost as effective asthe kick of a horse; so that when I say futilely, I refer only tothe natural function of the disabled member--eventually the thingwould have hammered me to a pulp. Nor was it far from accomplishingthis when an interruption occurred that put an end forever to itshostilities. 

From where I hung a few feet above the road I could see along thehighway a few hundred yards to where it turned toward the east, and just as I had about given up all hope of escaping the perilousposition in which I now was I saw a red warrior come into view fromaround the bend. 

He was mounted on a splendid thoat, one of the smaller species usedby red men, and in his hand was a wondrous long, light lance. 

His mount was walking sedately when I first perceived them, but theinstant that the red man's eyes fell upon us a word to the thoatbrought the animal at full charge down upon us. The long lanceof the warrior dipped toward us, and as thoat and rider hurtledbeneath, the point passed through the body of our antagonist. 

With a convulsive shudder the thing stiffened, the jaws relaxed, dropping me to the ground, and then, careening once in mid air, the creature plunged headforemost to the road, full upon Woola, who still clung tenaciously to its gory head. 

By the time I had regained my feet the red man had turned and riddenback to us. Woola, finding his enemy inert and lifeless, releasedhis hold at my command and wriggled from beneath the body that hadcovered him, and together we faced the warrior looking down uponus. 

I started to thank the stranger for his timely assistance, but hecut me off peremptorily. 

"Who are you, " he asked, "who dare enter the land of Kaol and huntin the royal forest of the jeddak?"

Then, as he noted my white skin through the coating of grime andblood that covered me, his eyes went wide and in an altered tonehe whispered: "Can it be that you are a Holy Thern?"

I might have deceived the fellow for a time, as I had deceivedothers, but I had cast away the yellow wig and the holy diadem inthe presence of Matai Shang, and I knew that it would not be longere my new acquaintance discovered that I was no thern at all. 

"I am not a thern, " I replied, and then, flinging caution to thewinds, I said: "I am John Carter, Prince of Helium, whose namemay not be entirely unknown to you. "

If his eyes had gone wide when he thought that I was a Holy Thern, they fairly popped now that he knew that I was John Carter. Igrasped my long-sword more firmly as I spoke the words which I wassure would precipitate an attack, but to my surprise they precipitatednothing of the kind. 

"John Carter, Prince of Helium, " he repeated slowly, as though hecould not quite grasp the truth of the statement. "John Carter, the mightiest warrior of Barsoom!"

And then he dismounted and placed his hand upon my shoulder afterthe manner of most friendly greeting upon Mars. 

"It is my duty, and it should be my pleasure, to kill you, JohnCarter, " he said, "but always in my heart of hearts have I admiredyour prowess and believed in your sincerity the while I havequestioned and disbelieved the therns and their religion. 

"It would mean my instant death were my heresy to be suspected inthe court of Kulan Tith, but if I may serve you, Prince, you havebut to command Torkar Bar, Dwar of the Kaolian Road. "

Truth and honesty were writ large upon the warrior's noble countenance, so that I could not but have trusted him, enemy though he shouldhave been. His title of Captain of the Kaolian Road explainedhis timely presence in the heart of the savage forest, for everyhighway upon Barsoom is patrolled by doughty warriors of the nobleclass, nor is there any service more honorable than this lonelyand dangerous duty in the less frequented sections of the domainsof the red men of Barsoom. 

"Torkar Bar has already placed a great debt of gratitude upon myshoulders, " I replied, pointing to the carcass of the creature fromwhose heart he was dragging his long spear. 

The red man smiled. 

"It was fortunate that I came when I did, " he said. "Only thispoisoned spear pricking the very heart of a sith can kill it quicklyenough to save its prey. In this section of Kaol we are all armedwith a long sith spear, whose point is smeared with the poison ofthe creature it is intended to kill; no other virus acts so quicklyupon the beast as its own. 

"Look, " he continued, drawing his dagger and making an incisionin the carcass a foot above the root of the sting, from which hepresently drew forth two sacs, each of which held fully a gallonof the deadly liquid. 

"Thus we maintain our supply, though were it not for certain commercialuses to which the virus is put, it would scarcely be necessary toadd to our present store, since the sith is almost extinct. 

"Only occasionally do we now run upon one. Of old, however, Kaolwas overrun with the frightful monsters that often came in herdsof twenty or thirty, darting down from above into our cities andcarrying away women, children, and even warriors. "

As he spoke I had been wondering just how much I might safely tellthis man of the mission which brought me to his land, but his nextwords anticipated the broaching of the subject on my part, andrendered me thankful that I had not spoken too soon. 

"And now as to yourself, John Carter, " he said, "I shall not askyour business here, nor do I wish to hear it. I have eyes and earsand ordinary intelligence, and yesterday morning I saw the partythat came to the city of Kaol from the north in a small flier. Butone thing I ask of you, and that is: the word of John Carter thathe contemplates no overt act against either the nation of Kaol orits jeddak. "

"You may have my word as to that, Torkar Bar, " I replied. 

"My way leads along the Kaolian road, away from the city of Kaol, "he continued. "I have seen no one--John Carter least of all. Norhave you seen Torkar Bar, nor ever heard of him. You understand?"

"Perfectly, " I replied. 

He laid his hand upon my shoulder. 

"This road leads directly into the city of Kaol, " he said. "I wishyou fortune, " and vaulting to the back of his thoat he trotted awaywithout even a backward glance. 

It was after dark when Woola and I spied through the mighty forestthe great wall which surrounds the city of Kaol. 

We had traversed the entire way without mishap or adventure, andthough the few we had met had eyed the great calot wonderingly, none had pierced the red pigment with which I had smoothly smearedevery square inch of my body. 

But to traverse the surrounding country, and to enter the guardedcity of Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol, were two very different things. No man enters a Martian city without giving a very detailed andsatisfactory account of himself, nor did I delude myself with thebelief that I could for a moment impose upon the acumen of theofficers of the guard to whom I should be taken the moment I appliedat any one of the gates. 

My only hope seemed to lie in entering the city surreptitiouslyunder cover of the darkness, and once in, trust to my own wits tohide myself in some crowded quarter where detection would be lessliable to occur. 

With this idea in view I circled the great wall, keeping within thefringe of the forest, which is cut away for a short distance fromthe wall all about the city, that no enemy may utilize the treesas a means of ingress. 

Several times I attempted to scale the barrier at different points, but not even my earthly muscles could overcome that cleverlyconstructed rampart. To a height of thirty feet the face of thewall slanted outward, and then for almost an equal distance it wasperpendicular, above which it slanted in again for some fifteenfeet to the crest. 

And smooth! Polished glass could not be more so. Finally I hadto admit that at last I had discovered a Barsoomian fortificationwhich I could not negotiate. 

Discouraged, I withdrew into the forest beside a broad highway whichentered the city from the east, and with Woola beside me lay downto sleep. 

A HERO IN KAOL

It was daylight when I was awakened by the sound of stealthy movementnear by. 

As I opened my eyes Woola, too, moved and, coming up to his haunches, stared through the intervening brush toward the road, each hairupon his neck stiffly erect. 

At first I could see nothing, but presently I caught a glimpse ofa bit of smooth and glossy green moving among the scarlet and purpleand yellow of the vegetation. 

Motioning Woola to remain quietly where he was, I crept forward toinvestigate, and from behind the bole of a great tree I saw a longline of the hideous green warriors of the dead sea bottoms hidingin the dense jungle beside the road. 

As far as I could see, the silent line of destruction and deathstretched away from the city of Kaol. There could be but oneexplanation. The green men were expecting an exodus of a body ofred troops from the nearest city gate, and they were lying therein ambush to leap upon them. 

I owed no fealty to the Jeddak of Kaol, but he was of the same raceof noble red men as my own princess, and I would not stand supinelyby and see his warriors butchered by the cruel and heartless demonsof the waste places of Barsoom. 

Cautiously I retraced my steps to where I had left Woola, and warninghim to silence, signaled him to follow me. Making a considerabledetour to avoid the chance of falling into the hands of the greenmen, I came at last to the great wall. 

A hundred yards to my right was the gate from which the troopswere evidently expected to issue, but to reach it I must pass theflank of the green warriors within easy sight of them, and, fearingthat my plan to warn the Kaolians might thus be thwarted, I decidedupon hastening toward the left, where another gate a mile awaywould give me ingress to the city. 

I knew that the word I brought would prove a splendid passport toKaol, and I must admit that my caution was due more to my ardentdesire to make my way into the city than to avoid a brush with thegreen men. As much as I enjoy a fight, I cannot always indulgemyself, and just now I had more weighty matters to occupy my timethan spilling the blood of strange warriors. 

Could I but win beyond the city's wall, there might be opportunityin the confusion and excitement which were sure to follow myannouncement of an invading force of green warriors to find my waywithin the palace of the jeddak, where I was sure Matai Shang andhis party would be quartered. 

But scarcely had I taken a hundred steps in the direction of thefarther gate when the sound of marching troops, the clank of metal, and the squealing of thoats just within the city apprised me of thefact that the Kaolians were already moving toward the other gate. 

There was no time to be lost. In another moment the gate would beopened and the head of the column pass out upon the death-borderedhighway. 

Turning back toward the fateful gate, I ran rapidly along the edgeof the clearing, taking the ground in the mighty leaps that hadfirst made me famous upon Barsoom. Thirty, fifty, a hundred feetat a bound are nothing for the muscles of an athletic Earth manupon Mars. 

As I passed the flank of the waiting green men they saw my eyesturned upon them, and in an instant, knowing that all secrecy wasat an end, those nearest me sprang to their feet in an effort tocut me off before I could reach the gate. 

At the same instant the mighty portal swung wide and the head ofthe Kaolian column emerged. A dozen green warriors had succeededin reaching a point between me and the gate, but they had but littleidea who it was they had elected to detain. 

I did not slacken my speed an iota as I dashed among them, and asthey fell before my blade I could not but recall the happy memoryof those other battles when Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, mightiestof Martian green men, had stood shoulder to shoulder with me throughlong, hot Martian days, as together we hewed down our enemies untilthe pile of corpses about us rose higher than a tall man's head. 

When several pressed me too closely, there before the carved gatewayof Kaol, I leaped above their heads, and fashioning my tacticsafter those of the hideous plant men of Dor, struck down upon myenemies' heads as I passed above them. 

From the city the red warriors were rushing toward us, and fromthe jungle the savage horde of green men were coming to meet them. In a moment I was in the very center of as fierce and bloody abattle as I had ever passed through. 

These Kaolians are most noble fighters, nor are the green men ofthe equator one whit less warlike than their cold, cruel cousins ofthe temperate zone. There were many times when either side mighthave withdrawn without dishonor and thus ended hostilities, butfrom the mad abandon with which each invariably renewed hostilitiesI soon came to believe that what need not have been more than atrifling skirmish would end only with the complete exterminationof one force or the other. 

With the joy of battle once roused within me, I took keen delightin the fray, and that my fighting was noted by the Kaolians wasoften evidenced by the shouts of applause directed at me. 

If I sometimes seem to take too great pride in my fighting ability, itmust be remembered that fighting is my vocation. If your vocationbe shoeing horses, or painting pictures, and you can do one orthe other better than your fellows, then you are a fool if you arenot proud of your ability. And so I am very proud that upon twoplanets no greater fighter has ever lived than John Carter, Princeof Helium. 

And I outdid myself that day to impress the fact upon the nativesof Kaol, for I wished to win a way into their hearts--and theircity. Nor was I to be disappointed in my desire. 

All day we fought, until the road was red with blood and cloggedwith corpses. Back and forth along the slippery highway the tideof battle surged, but never once was the gateway to Kaol really indanger. 

There were breathing spells when I had a chance to converse withthe red men beside whom I fought, and once the jeddak, Kulan Tithhimself, laid his hand upon my shoulder and asked my name. 

"I am Dotar Sojat, " I replied, recalling a name given me by theTharks many years before, from the surnames of the first two oftheir warriors I had killed, which is the custom among them. 

"You are a mighty warrior, Dotar Sojat, " he replied, "and whenthis day is done I shall speak with you again in the great audiencechamber. "

And then the fight surged upon us once more and we were separated, but my heart's desire was attained, and it was with renewed vigorand a joyous soul that I laid about me with my long-sword untilthe last of the green men had had enough and had withdrawn towardtheir distant sea bottom. 

Not until the battle was over did I learn why the red troops hadsallied forth that day. It seemed that Kulan Tith was expectinga visit from a mighty jeddak of the north--a powerful and the onlyally of the Kaolians, and it had been his wish to meet his guesta full day's journey from Kaol. 

But now the march of the welcoming host was delayed until thefollowing morning, when the troops again set out from Kaol. I hadnot been bidden to the presence of Kulan Tith after the battle, but he had sent an officer to find me and escort me to comfortablequarters in that part of the palace set aside for the officers ofthe royal guard. 

There, with Woola, I had spent a comfortable night, and rose muchrefreshed after the arduous labors of the past few days. Woolahad fought with me through the battle of the previous day, true tothe instincts and training of a Martian war dog, great numbers ofwhich are often to be found with the savage green hordes of thedead sea bottoms. 

Neither of us had come through the conflict unscathed, but themarvelous, healing salves of Barsoom had sufficed, overnight, tomake us as good as new. 

I breakfasted with a number of the Kaolian officers, whom I foundas courteous and delightful hosts as even the nobles of Helium, whoare renowned for their ease of manners and excellence of breeding. The meal was scarcely concluded when a messenger arrived from KulanTith summoning me before him. 

As I entered the royal presence the jeddak rose, and stepping fromthe dais which supported his magnificent throne, came forward tomeet me--a mark of distinction that is seldom accorded to otherthan a visiting ruler. 

"Kaor, Dotar Sojat!" he greeted me. "I have summoned you to receivethe grateful thanks of the people of Kaol, for had it not been foryour heroic bravery in daring fate to warn us of the ambuscade wemust surely have fallen into the well-laid trap. Tell me more ofyourself--from what country you come, and what errand brings youto the court of Kulan Tith. "

"I am from Hastor, " I said, for in truth I had a small palace inthat southern city which lies within the far-flung dominions ofthe Heliumetic nation. 

"My presence in the land of Kaol is partly due to accident, myflier being wrecked upon the southern fringe of your great forest. It was while seeking entrance to the city of Kaol that I discoveredthe green horde lying in wait for your troops. "

If Kulan Tith wondered what business brought me in a flier to thevery edge of his domain he was good enough not to press me furtherfor an explanation, which I should indeed have had difficulty inrendering. 

During my audience with the jeddak another party entered thechamber from behind me, so that I did not see their faces untilKulan Tith stepped past me to greet them, commanding me to followand be presented. 

As I turned toward them it was with difficulty that I controlledmy features, for there, listening to Kulan Tith's eulogistic wordsconcerning me, stood my arch-enemies, Matai Shang and Thurid. 

"Holy Hekkador of the Holy Therns, " the jeddak was saying, "showerthy blessings upon Dotar Sojat, the valorous stranger from distantHastor, whose wondrous heroism and marvelous ferocity saved theday for Kaol yesterday. "

Matai Shang stepped forward and laid his hand upon my shoulder. No slightest indication that he recognized me showed upon hiscountenance--my disguise was evidently complete. 

He spoke kindly to me and then presented me to Thurid. The black, too, was evidently entirely deceived. Then Kulan Tith regaledthem, much to my amusement, with details of my achievements uponthe field of battle. 

The thing that seemed to have impressed him most was my remarkableagility, and time and again he described the wondrous way in whichI had leaped completely over an antagonist, cleaving his skull wideopen with my long-sword as I passed above him. 

I thought that I saw Thurid's eyes widen a bit during the narrative, and several times I surprised him gazing intently into my facethrough narrowed lids. Was he commencing to suspect? And thenKulan Tith told of the savage calot that fought beside me, andafter that I saw suspicion in the eyes of Matai Shang--or did Ibut imagine it?

At the close of the audience Kulan Tith announced that he wouldhave me accompany him upon the way to meet his royal guest, andas I departed with an officer who was to procure proper trappingsand a suitable mount for me, both Matai Shang and Thurid seemed mostsincere in professing their pleasure at having had an opportunityto know me. It was with a sigh of relief that I quitted the chamber, convinced that nothing more than a guilty conscience had promptedmy belief that either of my enemies suspected my true identity. 

A half-hour later I rode out of the city gate with the column thataccompanied Kulan Tith upon the way to meet his friend and ally. Though my eyes and ears had been wide open during my audience withthe jeddak and my various passages through the palace, I had seenor heard nothing of Dejah Thoris or Thuvia of Ptarth. That theymust be somewhere within the great rambling edifice I was positive, and I should have given much to have found a way to remain behindduring Kulan Tith's absence, that I might search for them. 

Toward noon we came in touch with the head of the column we hadset out to meet. 

It was a gorgeous train that accompanied the visiting jeddak, andfor miles it stretched along the wide, white road to Kaol. Mountedtroops, their trappings of jewel and metal-incrusted leatherglistening in the sunlight, formed the vanguard of the body, andthen came a thousand gorgeous chariots drawn by huge zitidars. 

These low, commodious wagons moved two abreast, and on either sideof them marched solid ranks of mounted warriors, for in the chariotswere the women and children of the royal court. Upon the backof each monster zitidar rode a Martian youth, and the whole scenecarried me back to my first days upon Barsoom, now twenty-two yearsin the past, when I had first beheld the gorgeous spectacle of acaravan of the green horde of Tharks. 

Never before today had I seen zitidars in the service of red men. These brutes are huge mastodonian animals that tower to an immenseheight even beside the giant green men and their giant thoats;but when compared to the relatively small red man and his breedof thoats they assume Brobdingnagian proportions that are trulyappalling. 

The beasts were hung with jeweled trappings and saddlepads of gaysilk, embroidered in fanciful designs with strings of diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds, and the countless unnamed jewels of Mars, while from each chariot rose a dozen standards from which streamers, flags, and pennons fluttered in the breeze. 

Just in front of the chariots the visiting jeddak rode alone upona pure white thoat--another unusual sight upon Barsoom--and afterthem came interminable ranks of mounted spearmen, riflemen, andswordsmen. It was indeed a most imposing sight. 

Except for the clanking of accouterments and the occasional squealof an angry thoat or the low guttural of a zitidar, the passage ofthe cavalcade was almost noiseless, for neither thoat nor zitidaris a hoofed animal, and the broad tires of the chariots are of anelastic composition, which gives forth no sound. 

Now and then the gay laughter of a woman or the chatter of childrencould be heard, for the red Martians are a social, pleasure-lovingpeople--in direct antithesis to the cold and morbid race of greenmen. 

The forms and ceremonials connected with the meeting of the twojeddaks consumed an hour, and then we turned and retraced our waytoward the city of Kaol, which the head of the column reached justbefore dark, though it must have been nearly morning before therear guard passed through the gateway. 

Fortunately, I was well up toward the head of the column, and afterthe great banquet, which I attended with the officers of the royalguard, I was free to seek repose. There was so much activity andbustle about the palace all during the night with the constantarrival of the noble officers of the visiting jeddak's retinuethat I dared not attempt to prosecute a search for Dejah Thoris, and so, as soon as it was seemly for me to do so, I returned to myquarters. 

As I passed along the corridors between the banquet hall and theapartments that had been allotted me, I had a sudden feeling thatI was under surveillance, and, turning quickly in my tracks, caughta glimpse of a figure which darted into an open doorway the instantI wheeled about. 

Though I ran quickly back to the spot where the shadower haddisappeared I could find no trace of him, yet in the brief glimpsethat I had caught I could have sworn that I had seen a white facesurmounted by a mass of yellow hair. 

The incident gave me considerable food for speculation, since if Iwere right in the conclusion induced by the cursory glimpse I hadhad of the spy, then Matai Shang and Thurid must suspect my identity, and if that were true not even the service I had rendered KulanTith could save me from his religious fanaticism. 

But never did vague conjecture or fruitless fears for the futurelie with sufficient weight upon my mind to keep me from my rest, and so tonight I threw myself upon my sleeping silks and furs andpassed at once into dreamless slumber. 

Calots are not permitted within the walls of the palace proper, and so I had had to relegate poor Woola to quarters in the stableswhere the royal thoats are kept. He had comfortable, even luxuriousapartments, but I would have given much to have had him with me;and if he had been, the thing which happened that night would nothave come to pass. 

I could not have slept over a quarter of an hour when I was suddenlyawakened by the passing of some cold and clammy thing across myforehead. Instantly I sprang to my feet, clutching in the direction Ithought the presence lay. For an instant my hand touched againsthuman flesh, and then, as I lunged headforemost through thedarkness to seize my nocturnal visitor, my foot became entangledin my sleeping silks and I fell sprawling to the floor. 

By the time I had resumed my feet and found the button whichcontrolled the light my caller had disappeared. Careful search ofthe room revealed nothing to explain either the identity or businessof the person who had thus secretly sought me in the dead of night. 

That the purpose might be theft I could not believe, since thievesare practically unknown upon Barsoom. Assassination, however, isrampant, but even this could not have been the motive of my stealthyfriend, for he might easily have killed me had he desired. 

I had about given up fruitless conjecture and was on the pointof returning to sleep when a dozen Kaolian guardsmen entered myapartment. The officer in charge was one of my genial hosts ofthe morning, but now upon his face was no sign of friendship. 

"Kulan Tith commands your presence before him, " he said. "Come!"

NEW ALLIES

Surrounded by guardsmen I marched back along the corridors of thepalace of Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol, to the great audience chamberin the center of the massive structure. 

As I entered the brilliantly lighted apartment, filled with thenobles of Kaol and the officers of the visiting jeddak, all eyeswere turned upon me. Upon the great dais at the end of the chamberstood three thrones, upon which sat Kulan Tith and his two guests, Matai Shang, and the visiting jeddak. 

Up the broad center aisle we marched beneath deadly silence, andat the foot of the thrones we halted. 

"Prefer thy charge, " said Kulan Tith, turning to one who stoodamong the nobles at his right; and then Thurid, the black dator ofthe First Born, stepped forward and faced me. 

"Most noble Jeddak, " he said, addressing Kulan Tith, "from the firstI suspected this stranger within thy palace. Your description ofhis fiendish prowess tallied with that of the arch-enemy of truthupon Barsoom. 

"But that there might be no mistake I despatched a priest of yourown holy cult to make the test that should pierce his disguise andreveal the truth. Behold the result!" and Thurid pointed a rigidfinger at my forehead. 

All eyes followed the direction of that accusing digit--I aloneseemed at a loss to guess what fatal sign rested upon my brow. 

The officer beside me guessed my perplexity; and as the brows ofKulan Tith darkened in a menacing scowl as his eyes rested uponme, the noble drew a small mirror from his pocket-pouch and heldit before my face. 

One glance at the reflection it gave back to me was sufficient. 

From my forehead the hand of the sneaking thern had reached outthrough the concealing darkness of my bed-chamber and wiped away apatch of the disguising red pigment as broad as my palm. Beneathshowed the tanned texture of my own white skin. 

For a moment Thurid ceased speaking, to enhance, I suspect, thedramatic effect of his disclosure. Then he resumed. 

"Here, O Kulan Tith, " he cried, "is he who has desecrated the temples ofthe Gods of Mars, who has violated the persons of the Holy Thernsthemselves and turned a world against its age-old religion. Beforeyou, in your power, Jeddak of Kaol, Defender of the Holies, standsJohn Carter, Prince of Helium!"

Kulan Tith looked toward Matai Shang as though for corroborationof these charges. The Holy Thern nodded his head. 

"It is indeed the arch-blasphemer, " he said. "Even now he hasfollowed me to the very heart of thy palace, Kulan Tith, for thesole purpose of assassinating me. He--"

"He lies!" I cried. "Kulan Tith, listen that you may know thetruth. Listen while I tell you why John Carter has followed MataiShang to the heart of thy palace. Listen to me as well as to them, and then judge if my acts be not more in accord with true Barsoomianchivalry and honor than those of these revengeful devotees of thespurious creeds from whose cruel bonds I have freed your planet. "

"Silence!" roared the jeddak, leaping to his feet and laying hishand upon the hilt of his sword. "Silence, blasphemer! Kulan Tithneed not permit the air of his audience chamber to be defiled bythe heresies that issue from your polluted throat to judge you. 

"You stand already self-condemned. It but remains to determinethe manner of your death. Even the service that you rendered thearms of Kaol shall avail you naught; it was but a base subterfugewhereby you might win your way into my favor and reach the sideof this holy man whose life you craved. To the pits with him!" heconcluded, addressing the officer of my guard. 

Here was a pretty pass, indeed! What chance had I against a wholenation? What hope for me of mercy at the hands of the fanaticalKulan Tith with such advisers as Matai Shang and Thurid. The blackgrinned malevolently in my face. 

"You shall not escape this time, Earth man, " he taunted. 

The guards closed toward me. A red haze blurred my vision. Thefighting blood of my Virginian sires coursed hot through my veins. The lust of battle in all its mad fury was upon me. 

With a leap I was beside Thurid, and ere the devilish smirk hadfaded from his handsome face I had caught him full upon the mouthwith my clenched fist; and as the good, old American blow landed, the black dator shot back a dozen feet, to crumple in a heap atthe foot of Kulan Tith's throne, spitting blood and teeth from hishurt mouth. 

Then I drew my sword and swung round, on guard, to face a nation. 

In an instant the guardsmen were upon me, but before a blow hadbeen struck a mighty voice rose above the din of shouting warriors, and a giant figure leaped from the dais beside Kulan Tith and, withdrawn long-sword, threw himself between me and my adversaries. 

It was the visiting jeddak. 

"Hold!" he cried. "If you value my friendship, Kulan Tith, and theage-old peace that has existed between our peoples, call off yourswordsmen; for wherever or against whomsoever fights John Carter, Prince of Helium, there beside him and to the death fights ThuvanDihn, Jeddak of Ptarth. "

The shouting ceased and the menacing points were lowered as athousand eyes turned first toward Thuvan Dihn in surprise and thentoward Kulan Tith in question. At first the Jeddak of Kaol wentwhite in rage, but before he spoke he had mastered himself, sothat his tone was calm and even as befitted intercourse betweentwo great jeddaks. 

"Thuvan Dihn, " he said slowly, "must have great provocation thusto desecrate the ancient customs which inspire the deportment ofa guest within the palace of his host. Lest I, too, should forgetmyself as has my royal friend, I should prefer to remain silentuntil the Jeddak of Ptarth has won from me applause for his actionby relating the causes which provoked it. "

I could see that the Jeddak of Ptarth was of half a mind to throwhis metal in Kulan Tith's face, but he controlled himself even aswell as had his host. 

"None knows better than Thuvan Dihn, " he said, "the laws which governthe acts of men in the domains of their neighbors; but Thuvan Dihnowes allegiance to a higher law than these--the law of gratitude. Nor to any man upon Barsoom does he owe a greater debt of gratitudethan to John Carter, Prince of Helium. 

"Years ago, Kulan Tith, " he continued, "upon the occasion of yourlast visit to me, you were greatly taken with the charms and gracesof my only daughter, Thuvia. You saw how I adored her, and lateryou learned that, inspired by some unfathomable whim, she hadtaken the last, long, voluntary pilgrimage upon the cold bosom ofthe mysterious Iss, leaving me desolate. 

"Some months ago I first heard of the expedition which John Carterhad led against Issus and the Holy Therns. Faint rumors of theatrocities reported to have been committed by the therns upon thosewho for countless ages have floated down the mighty Iss came to myears. 

"I heard that thousands of prisoners had been released, few ofwhom dared to return to their own countries owing to the mandate ofterrible death which rests against all who return from the ValleyDor. 

"For a time I could not believe the heresies which I heard, andI prayed that my daughter Thuvia might have died before she evercommitted the sacrilege of returning to the outer world. But thenmy father's love asserted itself, and I vowed that I would prefereternal damnation to further separation from her if she could befound. 

"So I sent emissaries to Helium, and to the court of Xodar, Jeddakof the First Born, and to him who now rules those of the thernnation that have renounced their religion; and from each and allI heard the same story of unspeakable cruelties and atrocitiesperpetrated upon the poor defenseless victims of their religion bythe Holy Therns. 

"Many there were who had seen or known my daughter, and from thernswho had been close to Matai Shang I learned of the indignities thathe personally heaped upon her; and I was glad when I came here tofind that Matai Shang was also your guest, for I should have soughthim out had it taken a lifetime. 

"More, too, I heard, and that of the chivalrous kindness that JohnCarter had accorded my daughter. They told me how he fought forher and rescued her, and how he spurned escape from the savageWarhoons of the south, sending her to safety upon his own thoatand remaining upon foot to meet the green warriors. 

"Can you wonder, Kulan Tith, that I am willing to jeopardizemy life, the peace of my nation, or even your friendship, which Iprize more than aught else, to champion the Prince of Helium?"

For a moment Kulan Tith was silent. I could see by the expressionof his face that he was sore perplexed. Then he spoke. 

"Thuvan Dihn, " he said, and his tone was friendly though sad, "who am I to judge my fellow-man? In my eyes the Father of Thernsis still holy, and the religion which he teaches the only truereligion, but were I faced by the same problem that has vexed youI doubt not that I should feel and act precisely as you have. 

"In so far as the Prince of Helium is concerned I may act, but betweenyou and Matai Shang my only office can be one of conciliation. ThePrince of Helium shall be escorted in safety to the boundary ofmy domain ere the sun has set again, where he shall be free to gowhither he will; but upon pain of death must he never again enterthe land of Kaol. 

"If there be a quarrel between you and the Father of Therns, Ineed not ask that the settlement of it be deferred until both havepassed beyond the limits of my power. Are you satisfied, ThuvanDihn?"

The Jeddak of Ptarth nodded his assent, but the ugly scowl that hebent upon Matai Shang harbored ill for that pasty-faced godling. 

"The Prince of Helium is far from satisfied, " I cried, breakingrudely in upon the beginnings of peace, for I had no stomach forpeace at the price that had been named. 

"I have escaped death in a dozen forms to follow Matai Shang andovertake him, and I do not intend to be led, like a decrepit thoatto the slaughter, from the goal that I have won by the prowess ofmy sword arm and the might of my muscles. 

"Nor will Thuvan Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth, be satisfied when he hasheard me through. Do you know why I have followed Matai Shang andThurid, the black dator, from the forests of the Valley Dor acrosshalf a world through almost insurmountable difficulties?

"Think you that John Carter, Prince of Helium, would stoop toassassination? Can Kulan Tith be such a fool as to believe thatlie, whispered in his ear by the Holy Thern or Dator Thurid?

"I do not follow Matai Shang to kill him, though the God of mineown planet knows that my hands itch to be at his throat. I followhim, Thuvan Dihn, because with him are two prisoners--my wife, DejahThoris, Princess of Helium, and your daughter, Thuvia of Ptarth. 

"Now think you that I shall permit myself to be led beyond thewalls of Kaol unless the mother of my son accompanies me, and thydaughter be restored?"

Thuvan Dihn turned upon Kulan Tith. Rage flamed in his keen eyes;but by the masterfulness of his self-control he kept his toneslevel as he spoke. 

"Knew you this thing, Kulan Tith?" he asked. "Knew you that mydaughter lay a prisoner in your palace?"

"He could not know it, " interrupted Matai Shang, white with whatI am sure was more fear than rage. "He could not know it, for itis a lie. "

I would have had his life for that upon the spot, but even as Isprang toward him Thuvan Dihn laid a heavy hand upon my shoulder. 

"Wait, " he said to me, and then to Kulan Tith. "It is not a lie. This much have I learned of the Prince of Helium--he does not lie. Answer me, Kulan Tith--I have asked you a question. "

"Three women came with the Father of Therns, " replied Kulan Tith. "Phaidor, his daughter, and two who were reported to be her slaves. If these be Thuvia of Ptarth and Dejah Thoris of Helium I did notknow it--I have seen neither. But if they be, then shall they bereturned to you on the morrow. "

As he spoke he looked straight at Matai Shang, not as a devoteeshould look at a high priest, but as a ruler of men looks at oneto whom he issues a command. 

It must have been plain to the Father of Therns, as it was to me, that the recent disclosures of his true character had done muchalready to weaken the faith of Kulan Tith, and that it would requirebut little more to turn the powerful jeddak into an avowed enemy;but so strong are the seeds of superstition that even the greatKaolian still hesitated to cut the final strand that bound him tohis ancient religion. 

Matai Shang was wise enough to seem to accept the mandate of hisfollower, and promised to bring the two slave women to the audiencechamber on the morrow. 

"It is almost morning now, " he said, "and I should dislike to breakin upon the slumber of my daughter, or I would have them fetchedat once that you might see that the Prince of Helium is mistaken, "and he emphasized the last word in an effort to affront me sosubtlety that I could not take open offense. 

I was about to object to any delay, and demand that the Princessof Helium be brought to me forthwith, when Thuvan Dihn made suchinsistence seem unnecessary. 

"I should like to see my daughter at once, " he said, "but if KulanTith will give me his assurance that none will be permitted toleave the palace this night, and that no harm shall befall eitherDejah Thoris or Thuvia of Ptarth between now and the moment theyare brought into our presence in this chamber at daylight I shallnot insist. "

"None shall leave the palace tonight, " replied the Jeddak of Kaol, "and Matai Shang will give us assurance that no harm will come tothe two women?"

The thern assented with a nod. A few moments later Kulan Tithindicated that the audience was at an end, and at Thuvan Dihn'sinvitation I accompanied the Jeddak of Ptarth to his own apartments, where we sat until daylight, while he listened to the account ofmy experiences upon his planet and to all that had befallen hisdaughter during the time that we had been together. 

I found the father of Thuvia a man after my own heart, and thatnight saw the beginning of a friendship which has grown until itis second only to that which obtains between Tars Tarkas, the greenJeddak of Thark, and myself. 

The first burst of Mars's sudden dawn brought messengers from KulanTith, summoning us to the audience chamber where Thuvan Dihn wasto receive his daughter after years of separation, and I was tobe reunited with the glorious daughter of Helium after an almostunbroken separation of twelve years. 

My heart pounded within my bosom until I looked about me inembarrassment, so sure was I that all within the room must hear. My arms ached to enfold once more the divine form of her whoseeternal youth and undying beauty were but outward manifestationsof a perfect soul. 

At last the messenger despatched to fetch Matai Shang returned. Icraned my neck to catch the first glimpse of those who should befollowing, but the messenger was alone. 

Halting before the throne he addressed his jeddak in a voice thatwas plainly audible to all within the chamber. 

"O Kulan Tith, Mightiest of Jeddaks, " he cried, after the fashionof the court, "your messenger returns alone, for when he reachedthe apartments of the Father of Therns he found them empty, as werethose occupied by his suite. "

Kulan Tith went white. 

A low groan burst from the lips of Thuvan Dihn who stood next me, not having ascended the throne which awaited him beside his host. For a moment the silence of death reigned in the great audiencechamber of Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol. It was he who broke thespell. 

Rising from his throne he stepped down from the dais to the sideof Thuvan Dihn. Tears dimmed his eyes as he placed both his handsupon the shoulders of his friend. 

"O Thuvan Dihn, " he cried, "that this should have happened in thepalace of thy best friend! With my own hands would I have wrungthe neck of Matai Shang had I guessed what was in his foul heart. Last night my life-long faith was weakened--this morning it hasbeen shattered; but too late, too late. 

"To wrest your daughter and the wife of this royal warrior from theclutches of these archfiends you have but to command the resourcesof a mighty nation, for all Kaol is at your disposal. What may bedone? Say the word!"

"First, " I suggested, "let us find those of your people whobe responsible for the escape of Matai Shang and his followers. Without assistance on the part of the palace guard this thing couldnot have come to pass. Seek the guilty, and from them force anexplanation of the manner of their going and the direction theyhave taken. "

Before Kulan Tith could issue the commands that would initiate theinvestigation a handsome young officer stepped forward and addressedhis jeddak. 

"O Kulan Tith, Mightiest of Jeddaks, " he said, "I alone be responsiblefor this grievous error. Last night it was I who commanded thepalace guard. I was on duty in other parts of the palace during theaudience of the early morning, and knew nothing of what transpiredthen, so that when the Father of Therns summoned me and explainedthat it was your wish that his party be hastened from the citybecause of the presence here of a deadly enemy who sought the HolyHekkador's life I did only what a lifetime of training has taughtme was the proper thing to do--I obeyed him whom I believed to bethe ruler of us all, mightier even than thou, mightiest of jeddaks. 

"Let the consequences and the punishment fall on me alone, for Ialone am guilty. Those others of the palace guard who assisted inthe flight did so under my instructions. "

Kulan Tith looked first at me and then at Thuvan Dihn, as thoughto ask our judgment upon the man, but the error was so evidentlyexcusable that neither of us had any mind to see the young officersuffer for a mistake that any might readily have made. 

"How left they, " asked Thuvan Dihn, "and what direction did theytake?"

"They left as they came, " replied the officer, "upon their ownflier. For some time after they had departed I watched the vessel'slights, which vanished finally due north. "

"Where north could Matai Shang find an asylum?" asked Thuvan Dihnof Kulan Tith. 

For some moments the Jeddak of Kaol stood with bowed head, apparentlydeep in thought. Then a sudden light brightened his countenance. 

"I have it!" he cried. "Only yesterday Matai Shang let drop a hintof his destination, telling me of a race of people unlike ourselveswho dwell far to the north. They, he said, had always been knownto the Holy Therns and were devout and faithful followers of theancient cult. Among them would he find a perpetual haven of refuge, where no 'lying heretics' might seek him out. It is there thatMatai Shang has gone. "

"And in all Kaol there be no flier wherein to follow, " I cried. 

"Nor nearer than Ptarth, " replied Thuvan Dihn. 

"Wait!" I exclaimed, "beyond the southern fringe of this greatforest lies the wreck of the thern flier which brought me that farupon my way. If you will loan me men to fetch it, and artificersto assist me, I can repair it in two days, Kulan Tith. "

I had been more than half suspicious of the seeming sincerity ofthe Kaolian jeddak's sudden apostasy, but the alacrity with whichhe embraced my suggestion, and the despatch with which a force ofofficers and men were placed at my disposal entirely removed thelast vestige of my doubts. 

Two days later the flier rested upon the top of the watchtower, ready to depart. Thuvan Dihn and Kulan Tith had offered me theentire resources of two nations--millions of fighting men were atmy disposal; but my flier could hold but one other than myself andWoola. 

As I stepped aboard her, Thuvan Dihn took his place beside me. Icast a look of questioning surprise upon him. He turned to thehighest of his own officers who had accompanied him to Kaol. 

"To you I entrust the return of my retinue to Ptarth, " he said. "There my son rules ably in my absence. The Prince of Helium shallnot go alone into the land of his enemies. I have spoken. Farewell!"

THROUGH THE CARRION CAVES

Straight toward the north, day and night, our destination compassled us after the fleeing flier upon which it had remained set sinceI first attuned it after leaving the thern fortress. 

Early in the second night we noticed the air becoming perceptiblycolder, and from the distance we had come from the equator wereassured that we were rapidly approaching the north arctic region. 

My knowledge of the efforts that had been made by countlessexpeditions to explore that unknown land bade me to caution, fornever had flier returned who had passed to any considerable distancebeyond the mighty ice-barrier that fringes the southern hem of thefrigid zone. 

What became of them none knew--only that they passed forever outof the sight of man into that grim and mysterious country of thepole. 

The distance from the barrier to the pole was no more than a swiftflier should cover in a few hours, and so it was assumed that somefrightful catastrophe awaited those who reached the "forbidden land, "as it had come to be called by the Martians of the outer world. 

Thus it was that I went more slowly as we approached the barrier, for it was my intention to move cautiously by day over the ice-packthat I might discover, before I had run into a trap, if therereally lay an inhabited country at the north pole, for there onlycould I imagine a spot where Matai Shang might feel secure fromJohn Carter, Prince of Helium. 

We were flying at a snail's pace but a few feet above theground--literally feeling our way along through the darkness, forboth moons had set, and the night was black with the clouds thatare to be found only at Mars's two extremities. 

Suddenly a towering wall of white rose directly in our path, andthough I threw the helm hard over, and reversed our engine, I wastoo late to avoid collision. With a sickening crash we struck thehigh looming obstacle three-quarters on. 

The flier reeled half over; the engine stopped; as one, the patchedbuoyancy tanks burst, and we plunged, headforemost, to the groundtwenty feet beneath. 

Fortunately none of us was injured, and when we had disentangledourselves from the wreckage, and the lesser moon had burst again frombelow the horizon, we found that we were at the foot of a mightyice-barrier, from which outcropped great patches of the granitehills which hold it from encroaching farther toward the south. 

What fate! With the journey all but completed to be thus wreckedupon the wrong side of that precipitous and unscalable wall of rockand ice!

I looked at Thuvan Dihn. He but shook his head dejectedly. 

The balance of the night we spent shivering in our inadequatesleeping silks and furs upon the snow that lies at the foot of theice-barrier. 

With daylight my battered spirits regained something of theiraccustomed hopefulness, though I must admit that there was littleenough for them to feed upon. 

"What shall we do?" asked Thuvan Dihn. "How may we pass that whichis impassable?"

"First we must disprove its impassability, " I replied. "Nor shallI admit that it is impassable before I have followed its entirecircle and stand again upon this spot, defeated. The sooner westart, the better, for I see no other way, and it will take us morethan a month to travel the weary, frigid miles that lie before us. "

For five days of cold and suffering and privation we traversed therough and frozen way which lies at the foot of the ice-barrier. Fierce, fur-bearing creatures attacked us by daylight and by dark. Never for a moment were we safe from the sudden charge of some hugedemon of the north. 

The apt was our most consistent and dangerous foe. 

It is a huge, white-furred creature with six limbs, four of which, short and heavy, carry it swiftly over the snow and ice; while theother two, growing forward from its shoulders on either side ofits long, powerful neck, terminate in white, hairless hands, withwhich it seizes and holds its prey. 

Its head and mouth are more similar in appearance to those of ahippopotamus than to any other earthly animal, except that fromthe sides of the lower jawbone two mighty horns curve slightlydownward toward the front. 

Its two huge eyes inspired my greatest curiosity. They extend intwo vast, oval patches from the center of the top of the craniumdown either side of the head to below the roots of the horns, sothat these weapons really grow out from the lower part of the eyes, which are composed of several thousand ocelli each. 

This eye structure seemed remarkable in a beast whose haunts wereupon a glaring field of ice and snow, and though I found uponminute examination of several that we killed that each ocellus isfurnished with its own lid, and that the animal can at will closeas many of the facets of his huge eyes as he chooses, yet I waspositive that nature had thus equipped him because much of his lifewas to be spent in dark, subterranean recesses. 

Shortly after this we came upon the hugest apt that we had seen. The creature stood fully eight feet at the shoulder, and was sosleek and clean and glossy that I could have sworn that he had butrecently been groomed. 

He stood head-on eyeing us as we approached him, for we had foundit a waste of time to attempt to escape the perpetual bestial ragewhich seems to possess these demon creatures, who rove the dismalnorth attacking every living thing that comes within the scope oftheir far-seeing eyes. 

Even when their bellies are full and they can eat no more, theykill purely for the pleasure which they derive from taking life, and so when this particular apt failed to charge us, and insteadwheeled and trotted away as we neared him, I should have been greatlysurprised had I not chanced to glimpse the sheen of a golden collarabout its neck. 

Thuvan Dihn saw it, too, and it carried the same message of hopeto us both. Only man could have placed that collar there, and asno race of Martians of which we knew aught ever had attempted todomesticate the ferocious apt, he must belong to a people of thenorth of whose very existence we were ignorant--possibly to thefabled yellow men of Barsoom; that once powerful race which wassupposed to be extinct, though sometimes, by theorists, thoughtstill to exist in the frozen north. 

Simultaneously we started upon the trail of the great beast. Woola was quickly made to understand our desires, so that it wasunnecessary to attempt to keep in sight of the animal whose swiftflight over the rough ground soon put him beyond our vision. 

For the better part of two hours the trail paralleled the barrier, and then suddenly turned toward it through the roughest and seeminglymost impassable country I ever had beheld. 

Enormous granite boulders blocked the way on every hand; deep riftsin the ice threatened to engulf us at the least misstep; and fromthe north a slight breeze wafted to our nostrils an unspeakablestench that almost choked us. 

For another two hours we were occupied in traversing a few hundredyards to the foot of the barrier. 

Then, turning about the corner of a wall-like outcropping of granite, we came upon a smooth area of two or three acres before the baseof the towering pile of ice and rock that had baffled us for days, and before us beheld the dark and cavernous mouth of a cave. 

From this repelling portal the horrid stench was emanating, andas Thuvan Dihn espied the place he halted with an exclamation ofprofound astonishment. 

"By all my ancestors!" he ejaculated. "That I should have lived towitness the reality of the fabled Carrion Caves! If these indeedbe they, we have found a way beyond the ice-barrier. 

"The ancient chronicles of the first historians of Barsoom--soancient that we have for ages considered them mythology--recordthe passing of the yellow men from the ravages of the green hordesthat overran Barsoom as the drying up of the great oceans drovethe dominant races from their strongholds. 

"They tell of the wanderings of the remnants of this once powerfulrace, harassed at every step, until at last they found a way throughthe ice-barrier of the north to a fertile valley at the pole. 

"At the opening to the subterranean passage that led to their havenof refuge a mighty battle was fought in which the yellow men werevictorious, and within the caves that gave ingress to their newhome they piled the bodies of the dead, both yellow and green, thatthe stench might warn away their enemies from further pursuit. 

"And ever since that long-gone day have the dead of this fabledland been carried to the Carrion Caves, that in death and decay theymight serve their country and warn away invading enemies. Here, too, is brought, so the fable runs, all the waste stuff of thenation--everything that is subject to rot, and that can add to thefoul stench that assails our nostrils. 

"And death lurks at every step among rotting dead, for here the fierceapts lair, adding to the putrid accumulation with the fragments oftheir own prey which they cannot devour. It is a horrid avenue toour goal, but it is the only one. "

"You are sure, then, that we have found the way to the land of theyellow men?" I cried. 

"As sure as may be, " he replied; "having only ancient legend tosupport my belief. But see how closely, so far, each detail tallieswith the world-old story of the hegira of the yellow race. Yes, I am sure that we have discovered the way to their ancient hidingplace. "

"If it be true, and let us pray that such may be the case, " I said, "then here may we solve the mystery of the disappearance of TardosMors, Jeddak of Helium, and Mors Kajak, his son, for no other spotupon Barsoom has remained unexplored by the many expeditions andthe countless spies that have been searching for them for nearlytwo years. The last word that came from them was that they soughtCarthoris, my own brave son, beyond the ice-barrier. "

As we talked we had been approaching the entrance to the cave, andas we crossed the threshold I ceased to wonder that the ancientgreen enemies of the yellow men had been halted by the horrors ofthat awful way. 

The bones of dead men lay man high upon the broad floor of the firstcave, and over all was a putrid mush of decaying flesh, throughwhich the apts had beaten a hideous trail toward the entrance tothe second cave beyond. 

The roof of this first apartment was low, like all that we traversedsubsequently, so that the foul odors were confined and condensedto such an extent that they seemed to possess tangible substance. One was almost tempted to draw his short-sword and hew his waythrough in search of pure air beyond. 

"Can man breathe this polluted air and live?" asked Thuvan Dihn, choking. 

"Not for long, I imagine, " I replied; "so let us make haste. Iwill go first, and you bring up the rear, with Woola between. Come, " and with the words I dashed forward, across the fetid massof putrefaction. 

It was not until we had passed through seven caves of different sizesand varying but little in the power and quality of their stenchesthat we met with any physical opposition. Then, within the eighthcave, we came upon a lair of apts. 

A full score of the mighty beasts were disposed about the chamber. Some were sleeping, while others tore at the fresh-killed carcassesof new-brought prey, or fought among themselves in their love-making. 

Here in the dim light of their subterranean home the value oftheir great eyes was apparent, for these inner caves are shroudedin perpetual gloom that is but little less than utter darkness. 

To attempt to pass through the midst of that fierce herd seemed, even to me, the height of folly, and so I proposed to Thuvan Dihnthat he return to the outer world with Woola, that the two mightfind their way to civilization and come again with a sufficientforce to overcome not only the apts, but any further obstacles thatmight lie between us and our goal. 

"In the meantime, " I continued, "I may discover some means ofwinning my way alone to the land of the yellow men, but if I amunsuccessful one life only will have been sacrificed. Should weall go on and perish, there will be none to guide a succoring partyto Dejah Thoris and your daughter. "

"I shall not return and leave you here alone, John Carter, " repliedThuvan Dihn. "Whether you go on to victory or death, the Jeddakof Ptarth remains at your side. I have spoken. "

I knew from his tone that it were useless to attempt to argue thequestion, and so I compromised by sending Woola back with a hastilypenned note enclosed in a small metal case and fastened abouthis neck. I commanded the faithful creature to seek Carthoris atHelium, and though half a world and countless dangers lay betweenI knew that if the thing could be done Woola would do it. 

Equipped as he was by nature with marvelous speed and endurance, and with frightful ferocity that made him a match for any singleenemy of the way, his keen intelligence and wondrous instinctshould easily furnish all else that was needed for the successfulaccomplishment of his mission. 

It was with evident reluctance that the great beast turned to leaveme in compliance with my command, and ere he had gone I could notresist the inclination to throw my arms about his great neck in aparting hug. He rubbed his cheek against mine in a final caress, and a moment later was speeding through the Carrion Caves towardthe outer world. 

In my note to Carthoris I had given explicit directions for locatingthe Carrion Caves, impressing upon him the necessity for makingentrance to the country beyond through this avenue, and not to attemptunder any circumstances to cross the ice-barrier with a fleet. Itold him that what lay beyond the eighth cave I could not evenguess; but I was sure that somewhere upon the other side of theice-barrier his mother lay in the power of Matai Shang, and thatpossibly his grandfather and great-grandfather as well, if theylived. 

Further, I advised him to call upon Kulan Tith and the son ofThuvan Dihn for warriors and ships that the expedition might besufficiently strong to insure success at the first blow. 

"And, " I concluded, "if there be time bring Tars Tarkas with you, for if I live until you reach me I can think of few greater pleasuresthan to fight once more, shoulder to shoulder, with my old friend. "

When Woola had left us Thuvan Dihn and I, hiding in the seventhcave, discussed and discarded many plans for crossing the eighthchamber. From where we stood we saw that the fighting among theapts was growing less, and that many that had been feeding hadceased and lain down to sleep. 

Presently it became apparent that in a short time all the ferociousmonsters might be peacefully slumbering, and thus a hazardousopportunity be presented to us to cross through their lair. 

One by one the remaining brutes stretched themselves upon thebubbling decomposition that covered the mass of bones upon thefloor of their den, until but a single apt remained awake. Thishuge fellow roamed restlessly about, nosing among his companionand the abhorrent litter of the cave. 

Occasionally he would stop to peer intently toward first one ofthe exits from the chamber and then the other. His whole demeanorwas as of one who acts as sentry. 

We were at last forced to the belief that he would not sleepwhile the other occupants of the lair slept, and so cast about inour minds for some scheme whereby we might trick him. Finally Isuggested a plan to Thuvan Dihn, and as it seemed as good as anythat we had discussed we decided to put it to the test. 

To this end Thuvan Dihn placed himself close against the cave'swall, beside the entrance to the eighth chamber, while I deliberatelyshowed myself to the guardian apt as he looked toward our retreat. Then I sprang to the opposite side of the entrance, flattening mybody close to the wall. 

Without a sound the great beast moved rapidly toward the seventhcave to see what manner of intruder had thus rashly penetrated sofar within the precincts of his habitation. 

As he poked his head through the narrow aperture that connects thetwo caves a heavy long-sword was awaiting him upon either hand, and before he had an opportunity to emit even a single growl hissevered head rolled at our feet. 

Quickly we glanced into the eighth chamber--not an apt had moved. Crawling over the carcass of the huge beast that blocked the doorwayThuvan Dihn and I cautiously entered the forbidding and dangerousden. 

Like snails we wound our silent and careful way among the huge, recumbent forms. The only sound above our breathing was the suckingnoise of our feet as we lifted them from the ooze of decaying fleshthrough which we crept. 

Halfway across the chamber and one of the mighty beasts directlybefore me moved restlessly at the very instant that my foot waspoised above his head, over which I must step. 

Breathlessly I waited, balancing upon one foot, for I did not daremove a muscle. In my right hand was my keen short-sword, the pointhovering an inch above the thick fur beneath which beat the savageheart. 

Finally the apt relaxed, sighing, as with the passing of a bad dream, and resumed the regular respiration of deep slumber. I planted myraised foot beyond the fierce head and an instant later had steppedover the beast. 

Thuvan Dihn followed directly after me, and another moment foundus at the further door, undetected. 

The Carrion Caves consist of a series of twenty-seven connectingchambers, and present the appearance of having been eroded byrunning water in some far-gone age when a mighty river found itsway to the south through this single breach in the barrier of rockand ice that hems the country of the pole. 

Thuvan Dihn and I traversed the remaining nineteen caverns withoutadventure or mishap. 

We were afterward to learn that but once a month is it possible tofind all the apts of the Carrion Caves in a single chamber. 

At other times they roam singly or in pairs in and out of thecaves, so that it would have been practically impossible for twomen to have passed through the entire twenty-seven chambers withoutencountering an apt in nearly every one of them. Once a monththey sleep for a full day, and it was our good fortune to stumbleby accident upon one of these occasions. 

Beyond the last cave we emerged into a desolate country of snowand ice, but found a well-marked trail leading north. The way wasboulder-strewn, as had been that south of the barrier, so that wecould see but a short distance ahead of us at any time. 

After a couple of hours we passed round a huge boulder to come toa steep declivity leading down into a valley. 

Directly before us we saw a half dozen men--fierce, black-beardedfellows, with skins the color of a ripe lemon. 

"The yellow men of Barsoom!" ejaculated Thuvan Dihn, as thougheven now that he saw them he found it scarce possible to believethat the very race we expected to find hidden in this remote andinaccessible land did really exist. 

We withdrew behind an adjacent boulder to watch the actions ofthe little party, which stood huddled at the foot of another hugerock, their backs toward us. 

One of them was peering round the edge of the granite mass as thoughwatching one who approached from the opposite side. 

Presently the object of his scrutiny came within the range of myvision and I saw that it was another yellow man. All were clothedin magnificent furs--the six in the black and yellow striped hideof the orluk, while he who approached alone was resplendent in thepure white skin of an apt. 

The yellow men were armed with two swords, and a short javelinwas slung across the back of each, while from their left arms hungcuplike shields no larger than a dinner plate, the concave sidesof which turned outward toward an antagonist. 

They seemed puny and futile implements of safety against an evenordinary swordsman, but I was later to see the purpose of them andwith what wondrous dexterity the yellow men manipulate them. 

One of the swords which each of the warriors carried caughtmy immediate attention. I call it a sword, but really it was asharp-edged blade with a complete hook at the far end. 

The other sword was of about the same length as the hooked instrument, and somewhere between that of my long-sword and my short-sword. It was straight and two-edged. In addition to the weapons I haveenumerated each man carried a dagger in his harness. 

As the white-furred one approached, the six grasped their swordsmore firmly--the hooked instrument in the left hand, the straightsword in the right, while above the left wrist the small shieldwas held rigid upon a metal bracelet. 

As the lone warrior came opposite them the six rushed out upon himwith fiendish yells that resembled nothing more closely than thesavage war cry of the Apaches of the South-west. 

Instantly the attacked drew both his swords, and as the six fellupon him I witnessed as pretty fighting as one might care to see. 

With their sharp hooks the combatants attempted to take hold ofan adversary, but like lightning the cupshaped shield would springbefore the darting weapon and into its hollow the hook would plunge. 

Once the lone warrior caught an antagonist in the side with hishook, and drawing him close ran his sword through him. 

But the odds were too unequal, and, though he who fought alone wasby far the best and bravest of them all, I saw that it was but aquestion of time before the remaining five would find an openingthrough his marvelous guard and bring him down. 

Now my sympathies have ever been with the weaker side of an argument, and though I knew nothing of the cause of the trouble I could notstand idly by and see a brave man butchered by superior numbers. 

As a matter of fact I presume I gave little attention to seeking anexcuse, for I love a good fight too well to need any other reasonfor joining in when one is afoot. 

So it was that before Thuvan Dihn knew what I was about he saw mestanding by the side of the white-clad yellow man, battling likemad with his five adversaries. 

WITH THE YELLOW MEN

Thuvan Dihn was not long in joining me; and, though we found thehooked weapon a strange and savage thing with which to deal, thethree of us soon despatched the five black-bearded warriors whoopposed us. 

When the battle was over our new acquaintance turned to me, andremoving the shield from his wrist, held it out. I did not knowthe significance of his act, but judged that it was but a form ofexpressing his gratitude to me. 

I afterward learned that it symbolized the offering of a man's lifein return for some great favor done him; and my act of refusing, which I had immediately done, was what was expected of me. 

"Then accept from Talu, Prince of Marentina, " said the yellow man, "this token of my gratitude, " and reaching beneath one of his widesleeves he withdrew a bracelet and placed it upon my arm. He thenwent through the same ceremony with Thuvan Dihn. 

Next he asked our names, and from what land we hailed. He seemedquite familiar with the geography of the outerworld, and when Isaid I was from Helium he raised his brows. 

"Ah, " he said, "you seek your ruler and his company?"

"Know you of them?" I asked. 

"But little more than that they were captured by my uncle, SalensusOll, Jeddak of Jeddaks, Ruler of Okar, land of the yellow men ofBarsoom. As to their fate I know nothing, for I am at war with myuncle, who would crush my power in the principality of Marentina. 

"These from whom you have just saved me are warriors he has sentout to find and slay me, for they know that often I come alone tohunt and kill the sacred apt which Salensus Oll so much reveres. It is partly because I hate his religion that Salensus Oll hatesme; but mostly does he fear my growing power and the great factionwhich has arisen throughout Okar that would be glad to see me rulerof Okar and Jeddak of Jeddaks in his place. 

"He is a cruel and tyrannous master whom all hate, and were it notfor the great fear they have of him I could raise an army overnightthat would wipe out the few that might remain loyal to him. Myown people are faithful to me, and the little valley of Marentinahas paid no tribute to the court of Salensus Oll for a year. 

"Nor can he force us, for a dozen men may hold the narrow way toMarentina against a million. But now, as to thine own affairs. How may I aid you? My palace is at your disposal, if you wish tohonor me by coming to Marentina. "

"When our work is done we shall be glad to accept your invitation, "I replied. "But now you can assist us most by directing us to thecourt of Salensus Oll, and suggesting some means by which we maygain admission to the city and the palace, or whatever other placewe find our friends to be confined. "

Talu gazed ruefully at our smooth faces and at Thuvan Dihn's redskin and my white one. 

"First you must come to Marentina, " he said, "for a great changemust be wrought in your appearance before you can hope to enterany city in Okar. You must have yellow faces and black beards, and your apparel and trappings must be those least likely to arousesuspicion. In my palace is one who can make you appear as trulyyellow men as does Salensus Oll himself. "

His counsel seemed wise; and as there was apparently no other wayto insure a successful entry to Kadabra, the capital city of Okar, we set out with Talu, Prince of Marentina, for his little, rock-boundcountry. 

The way was over some of the worst traveling I have ever seen, andI do not wonder that in this land where there are neither thoatsnor fliers that Marentina is in little fear of invasion; but atlast we reached our destination, the first view of which I had froma slight elevation a half-mile from the city. 

Nestled in a deep valley lay a city of Martian concrete, whoseevery street and plaza and open space was roofed with glass. Allabout lay snow and ice, but there was none upon the rounded, domelike, crystal covering that enveloped the whole city. 

Then I saw how these people combated the rigors of the arctic, andlived in luxury and comfort in the midst of a land of perpetualice. Their cities were veritable hothouses, and when I had comewithin this one my respect and admiration for the scientific andengineering skill of this buried nation was unbounded. 

The moment we entered the city Talu threw off his outer garmentsof fur, as did we, and I saw that his apparel differed but littlefrom that of the red races of Barsoom. Except for his leathernharness, covered thick with jewels and metal, he was naked, nor couldone have comfortably worn apparel in that warm and humid atmosphere. 

For three days we remained the guests of Prince Talu, and duringthat time he showered upon us every attention and courtesy withinhis power. He showed us all that was of interest in his greatcity. 

The Marentina atmosphere plant will maintain life indefinitely inthe cities of the north pole after all life upon the balance ofdying Mars is extinct through the failure of the air supply, shouldthe great central plant again cease functioning as it did upon thatmemorable occasion that gave me the opportunity of restoring lifeand happiness to the strange world that I had already learned tolove so well. 

He showed us the heating system that stores the sun's rays in greatreservoirs beneath the city, and how little is necessary to maintainthe perpetual summer heat of the glorious garden spot within thisarctic paradise. 

Broad avenues of sod sewn with the seed of the ocher vegetationof the dead sea bottoms carried the noiseless traffic of light andairy ground fliers that are the only form of artificial transportationused north of the gigantic ice-barrier. 

The broad tires of these unique fliers are but rubber-like gas bagsfilled with the eighth Barsoomian ray, or ray of propulsion--thatremarkable discovery of the Martians that has made possible thegreat fleets of mighty airships that render the red man of theouter world supreme. It is this ray which propels the inherentor reflected light of the planet off into space, and when confinedgives to the Martian craft their airy buoyancy. 

The ground fliers of Marentina contain just sufficient buoyancy intheir automobile-like wheels to give the cars traction for steeringpurposes; and though the hind wheels are geared to the engine, andaid in driving the machine, the bulk of this work is carried by asmall propeller at the stern. 

I know of no more delightful sensation than that of riding in oneof these luxuriously appointed cars which skim, light and airy asfeathers, along the soft, mossy avenues of Marentina. They movewith absolute noiselessness between borders of crimson sward andbeneath arching trees gorgeous with the wondrous blooms that markso many of the highly cultivated varieties of Barsoomian vegetation. 

By the end of the third day the court barber--I can think of noother earthly appellation by which to describe him--had wroughtso remarkable a transformation in both Thuvan Dihn and myself thatour own wives would never have known us. Our skins were of thesame lemon color as his own, and great, black beards and mustacheshad been deftly affixed to our smooth faces. The trappings ofwarriors of Okar aided in the deception; and for wear beyond thehothouse cities we each had suits of the black- and yellow-stripedorluk. 

Talu gave us careful directions for the journey to Kadabra, thecapital city of the Okar nation, which is the racial name of theyellow men. This good friend even accompanied us part way, andthen, promising to aid us in any way that he found possible, badeus adieu. 

On parting he slipped upon my finger a curiously wrought ring setwith a dead-black, lusterless stone, which appeared more like abit of bituminous coal than the priceless Barsoomian gem which inreality it is. 

"There had been but three others cut from the mother stone, " hesaid, "which is in my possession. These three are worn by nobleshigh in my confidence, all of whom have been sent on secret missionsto the court of Salensus Oll. 

"Should you come within fifty feet of any of these three you willfeel a rapid, pricking sensation in the finger upon which you wearthis ring. He who wears one of its mates will experience the samefeeling; it is caused by an electrical action that takes place themoment two of these gems cut from the same mother stone come withinthe radius of each other's power. By it you will know that a friendis at hand upon whom you may depend for assistance in time of need. 

"Should another wearer of one of these gems call upon you for aiddo not deny him, and should death threaten you swallow the ringrather than let it fall into the hands of enemies. Guard it withyour life, John Carter, for some day it may mean more than life toyou. "

With this parting admonition our good friend turned back towardMarentina, and we set our faces in the direction of the city ofKadabra and the court of Salensus Oll, Jeddak of Jeddaks. 

That very evening we came within sight of the walled and glass-roofedcity of Kadabra. It lies in a low depression near the pole, surrounded by rocky, snow-clad hills. From the pass through whichwe entered the valley we had a splendid view of this great city ofthe north. Its crystal domes sparkled in the brilliant sunlightgleaming above the frost-covered outer wall that circles the entireone hundred miles of its circumference. 

At regular intervals great gates give entrance to the city; buteven at the distance from which we looked upon the massive pilewe could see that all were closed, and, in accordance with Talu'ssuggestion, we deferred attempting to enter the city until thefollowing morning. 

As he had said, we found numerous caves in the hillsides aboutus, and into one of these we crept for the night. Our warm orlukskins kept us perfectly comfortable, and it was only after amost refreshing sleep that we awoke shortly after daylight on thefollowing morning. 

Already the city was astir, and from several of the gates we sawparties of yellow men emerging. Following closely each detailof the instructions given us by our good friend of Marentina, weremained concealed for several hours until one party of some halfdozen warriors had passed along the trail below our hiding placeand entered the hills by way of the pass along which we had comethe previous evening. 

After giving them time to get well out of sight of our cave, ThuvanDihn and I crept out and followed them, overtaking them when theywere well into the hills. 

When we had come almost to them I called aloud to their leader, whenthe whole party halted and turned toward us. The crucial test hadcome. Could we but deceive these men the rest would be comparativelyeasy. 

"Kaor!" I cried as I came closer to them. 

"Kaor!" responded the officer in charge of the party. 

"We be from Illall, " I continued, giving the name of the most remotecity of Okar, which has little or no intercourse with Kadabra. "Only yesterday we arrived, and this morning the captain of thegate told us that you were setting out to hunt orluks, which isa sport we do not find in our own neighborhood. We have hastenedafter you to pray that you allow us to accompany you. "

The officer was entirely deceived, and graciously permitted us togo with them for the day. The chance guess that they were boundupon an orluk hunt proved correct, and Talu had said that thechances were ten to one that such would be the mission of any partyleaving Kadabra by the pass through which we entered the valley, since that way leads directly to the vast plains frequented by thiselephantine beast of prey. 

In so far as the hunt was concerned, the day was a failure, forwe did not see a single orluk; but this proved more than fortunatefor us, since the yellow men were so chagrined by their misfortunethat they would not enter the city by the same gate by which theyhad left it in the morning, as it seemed that they had made greatboasts to the captain of that gate about their skill at thisdangerous sport. 

We, therefore, approached Kadabra at a point several miles fromthat at which the party had quitted it in the morning, and so wererelieved of the danger of embarrassing questions and explanationson the part of the gate captain, whom we had said had directed usto this particular hunting party. 

We had come quite close to the city when my attention was attractedtoward a tall, black shaft that reared its head several hundredfeet into the air from what appeared to be a tangled mass of junkor wreckage, now partially snow-covered. 

I did not dare venture an inquiry for fear of arousing suspicionby evident ignorance of something which as a yellow man I shouldhave known; but before we reached the city gate I was to learn thepurpose of that grim shaft and the meaning of the mighty accumulationbeneath it. 

We had come almost to the gate when one of the party called tohis fellows, at the same time pointing toward the distant southernhorizon. Following the direction he indicated, my eyes descriedthe hull of a large flier approaching rapidly from above the crestof the encircling hills. 

"Still other fools who would solve the mysteries of the forbiddennorth, " said the officer, half to himself. "Will they never ceasetheir fatal curiosity?"

"Let us hope not, " answered one of the warriors, "for then whatshould we do for slaves and sport?"

"True; but what stupid beasts they are to continue to come to aregion from whence none of them ever has returned. "

"Let us tarry and watch the end of this one, " suggested one of themen. 

The officer looked toward the city. 

"The watch has seen him, " he said; "we may remain, for we may beneeded. "

I looked toward the city and saw several hundred warriors issuingfrom the nearest gate. They moved leisurely, as though there wereno need for haste--nor was there, as I was presently to learn. 

Then I turned my eyes once more toward the flier. She was movingrapidly toward the city, and when she had come close enough I wassurprised to see that her propellers were idle. 

Straight for that grim shaft she bore. At the last minute I sawthe great blades move to reverse her, yet on she came as thoughdrawn by some mighty, irresistible power. 

Intense excitement prevailed upon her deck, where men were runninghither and thither, manning the guns and preparing to launch thesmall, one-man fliers, a fleet of which is part of the equipmentof every Martian war vessel. Closer and closer to the black shaftthe ship sped. In another instant she must strike, and then I sawthe familiar signal flown that sends the lesser boats in a greatflock from the deck of the mother ship. 

Instantly a hundred tiny fliers rose from her deck, like a swarm ofhuge dragon flies; but scarcely were they clear of the battleshipthan the nose of each turned toward the shaft, and they, too, rushedon at frightful speed toward the same now seemingly inevitable endthat menaced the larger vessel. 

A moment later the collision came. Men were hurled in everydirection from the ship's deck, while she, bent and crumpled, tookthe last, long plunge to the scrap-heap at the shaft's base. 

With her fell a shower of her own tiny fliers, for each of themhad come in violent collision with the solid shaft. 

I noticed that the wrecked fliers scraped down the shaft's side, and that their fall was not as rapid as might have been expected;and then suddenly the secret of the shaft burst upon me, and withit an explanation of the cause that prevented a flier that passedtoo far across the ice-barrier ever returning. 

The shaft was a mighty magnet, and when once a vessel came withinthe radius of its powerful attraction for the aluminum steel thatenters so largely into the construction of all Barsoomian craft, no power on earth could prevent such an end as we had just witnessed. 

I afterward learned that the shaft rests directly over the magneticpole of Mars, but whether this adds in any way to its incalculablepower of attraction I do not know. I am a fighting man, not ascientist. 

Here, at last, was an explanation of the long absence of Tardos Morsand Mors Kajak. These valiant and intrepid warriors had dared themysteries and dangers of the frozen north to search for Carthoris, whose long absence had bowed in grief the head of his beautifulmother, Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium. 

The moment that the last of the fliers came to rest at the base ofthe shaft the black-bearded, yellow warriors swarmed over the massof wreckage upon which they lay, making prisoners of those who wereuninjured and occasionally despatching with a sword-thrust one ofthe wounded who seemed prone to resent their taunts and insults. 

A few of the uninjured red men battled bravely against their cruelfoes, but for the most part they seemed too overwhelmed by thehorror of the catastrophe that had befallen them to do more thansubmit supinely to the golden chains with which they were manacled. 

When the last of the prisoners had been confined, the partyreturned to the city, at the gate of which we met a pack of fierce, gold-collared apts, each of which marched between two warriors, who held them with strong chains of the same metal as their collars. 

Just beyond the gate the attendants loosened the whole terribleherd, and as they bounded off toward the grim, black shaft I didnot need to ask to know their mission. Had there not been thosewithin the cruel city of Kadabra who needed succor far worse thanthe poor unfortunate dead and dying out there in the cold upon thebent and broken carcasses of a thousand fliers I could not haverestrained my desire to hasten back and do battle with those horridcreatures that had been despatched to rend and devour them. 

As it was I could but follow the yellow warriors, with bowed head, and give thanks for the chance that had given Thuvan Dihn and mesuch easy ingress to the capital of Salensus Oll. 

Once within the gates, we had no difficulty in eluding our friendsof the morning, and presently found ourselves in a Martian hostelry. 

IN DURANCE

The public houses of Barsoom, I have found, vary but little. Thereis no privacy for other than married couples. 

Men without their wives are escorted to a large chamber, the floorof which is usually of white marble or heavy glass, kept scrupulouslyclean. Here are many small, raised platforms for the guest's sleepingsilks and furs, and if he have none of his own clean, fresh onesare furnished at a nominal charge. 

Once a man's belongings have been deposited upon one of theseplatforms he is a guest of the house, and that platform his ownuntil he leaves. No one will disturb or molest his belongings, asthere are no thieves upon Mars. 

As assassination is the one thing to be feared, the proprietorsof the hostelries furnish armed guards, who pace back and forththrough the sleeping-rooms day and night. The number of guards andgorgeousness of their trappings quite usually denote the status ofthe hotel. 

No meals are served in these houses, but generally a public eatingplace adjoins them. Baths are connected with the sleeping chambers, and each guest is required to bathe daily or depart from the hotel. 

Usually on a second or third floor there is a large sleeping-roomfor single women guests, but its appointments do not vary materiallyfrom the chamber occupied by men. The guards who watch the womenremain in the corridor outside the sleeping chamber, while femaleslaves pace back and forth among the sleepers within, ready tonotify the warriors should their presence be required. 

I was surprised to note that all the guards with the hotel at whichwe stopped were red men, and on inquiring of one of them I learnedthat they were slaves purchased by the proprietors of the hotels fromthe government. The man whose post was past my sleeping platformhad been commander of the navy of a great Martian nation; but fatehad carried his flagship across the ice-barrier within the radiusof power of the magnetic shaft, and now for many tedious years hehad been a slave of the yellow men. 

He told me that princes, jeds, and even jeddaks of the outerworld, were among the menials who served the yellow race; but whenI asked him if he had heard of the fate of Mors Kajak or Tardos Morshe shook his head, saying that he never had heard of their beingprisoners here, though he was very familiar with the reputationsand fame they bore in the outer world. 

Neither had he heard any rumor of the coming of the Father of Thernsand the black dator of the First Born, but he hastened to explainthat he knew little of what took place within the palace. I couldsee that he wondered not a little that a yellow man should be soinquisitive about certain red prisoners from beyond the ice-barrier, and that I should be so ignorant of customs and conditions amongmy own race. 

In fact, I had forgotten my disguise upon discovering a red manpacing before my sleeping platform; but his growing expression ofsurprise warned me in time, for I had no mind to reveal my identityto any unless some good could come of it, and I did not see howthis poor fellow could serve me yet, though I had it in my mindthat later I might be the means of serving him and all the otherthousands of prisoners who do the bidding of their stern mastersin Kadabra. 

Thuvan Dihn and I discussed our plans as we sat together among oursleeping silks and furs that night in the midst of the hundredsof yellow men who occupied the apartment with us. We spoke in lowwhispers, but, as that is only what courtesy demands in a publicsleeping place, we roused no suspicion. 

At last, determining that all must be but idle speculation untilafter we had had a chance to explore the city and attempt to putinto execution the plan Talu had suggested, we bade each other goodnight and turned to sleep. 

After breakfasting the following morning we set out to see Kadabra, and as, through the generosity of the prince of Marentina, we werewell supplied with the funds current in Okar we purchased a handsomeground flier. Having learned to drive them while in Marentina, wespent a delightful and profitable day exploring the city, and latein the afternoon at the hour Talu told us we would find governmentofficials in their offices, we stopped before a magnificent buildingon the plaza opposite the royal grounds and the palace. 

Here we walked boldly in past the armed guard at the door, to bemet by a red slave within who asked our wishes. 

"Tell Sorav, your master, that two warriors from Illall wish totake service in the palace guard, " I said. 

Sorav, Talu had told us, was the commander of the forces of thepalace, and as men from the further cities of Okar--and especiallyIllall--were less likely to be tainted with the germ of intriguewhich had for years infected the household of Salensus Oll, he wassure that we would be welcomed and few questions asked us. 

He had primed us with such general information as he thought wouldbe necessary for us to pass muster before Sorav, after which we wouldhave to undergo a further examination before Salensus Oll that hemight determine our physical fitness and our ability as warriors. 

The little experience we had had with the strange hooked sword ofthe yellow man and his cuplike shield made it seem rather unlikelythat either of us could pass this final test, but there was thechance that we might be quartered in the palace of Salensus Ollfor several days after being accepted by Sorav before the Jeddakof Jeddaks would find time to put us to the final test. 

After a wait of several minutes in an ante-chamber we were summonedinto the private office of Sorav, where we were courteously greetedby this ferocious-appearing, black-bearded officer. He asked usour names and stations in our own city, and having received repliesthat were evidently satisfactory to him, he put certain questionsto us that Talu had foreseen and prepared us for. 

The interview could not have lasted over ten minutes when Soravsummoned an aid whom he instructed to record us properly, and thenescort us to the quarters in the palace which are set aside foraspirants to membership in the palace guard. 

The aid took us to his own office first, where he measured andweighed and photographed us simultaneously with a machine ingeniouslydevised for that purpose, five copies being instantly reproduced infive different offices of the government, two of which are locatedin other cities miles distant. Then he led us through the palacegrounds to the main guardroom of the palace, there turning us overto the officer in charge. 

This individual again questioned us briefly, and finally despatcheda soldier to guide us to our quarters. These we found located uponthe second floor of the palace in a semi-detached tower at the rearof the edifice. 

When we asked our guide why we were quartered so far from theguardroom he replied that the custom of the older members of theguard of picking quarrels with aspirants to try their metal hadresulted in so many deaths that it was found difficult to maintainthe guard at its full strength while this custom prevailed. SalensusOll had, therefore, set apart these quarters for aspirants, and herethey were securely locked against the danger of attack by membersof the guard. 

This unwelcome information put a sudden check to all our well-laidplans, for it meant that we should virtually be prisoners in thepalace of Salensus Oll until the time that he should see fit togive us the final examination for efficiency. 

As it was this interval upon which we had banked to accomplishso much in our search for Dejah Thoris and Thuvia of Ptarth, ourchagrin was unbounded when we heard the great lock click behind ourguide as he had quitted us after ushering us into the chambers wewere to occupy. 

With a wry face I turned to Thuvan Dihn. My companion but shookhis head disconsolately and walked to one of the windows upon thefar side of the apartment. 

Scarcely had he gazed beyond them than he called to me in a toneof suppressed excitement and surprise. In an instant I was by hisside. 

"Look!" said Thuvan Dihn, pointing toward the courtyard below. 

As my eyes followed the direction indicated I saw two women pacingback and forth in an enclosed garden. 

At the same moment I recognized them--they were Dejah Thoris andThuvia of Ptarth!

There were they whom I had trailed from one pole to another, thelength of a world. Only ten feet of space and a few metal barsseparated me from them. 

With a cry I attracted their attention, and as Dejah Thoris lookedup full into my eyes I made the sign of love that the men of Barsoommake to their women. 

To my astonishment and horror her head went high, and as a lookof utter contempt touched her finely chiseled features she turnedher back full upon me. My body is covered with the scars of athousand conflicts, but never in all my long life have I sufferedsuch anguish from a wound, for this time the steel of a woman'slook had entered my heart. 

With a groan I turned away and buried my face in my arms. Iheard Thuvan Dihn call aloud to Thuvia, but an instant later hisexclamation of surprise betokened that he, too, had been repulsedby his own daughter. 

"They will not even listen, " he cried to me. "They have put theirhands over their ears and walked to the farther end of the garden. Ever heard you of such mad work, John Carter? The two must bebewitched. "

Presently I mustered the courage to return to the window, foreven though she spurned me I loved her, and could not keep my eyesfrom feasting upon her divine face and figure, but when she saw melooking she again turned away. 

I was at my wit's end to account for her strange actions, and thatThuvia, too, had turned against her father seemed incredible. Couldit be that my incomparable princess still clung to the hideous faithfrom which I had rescued her world? Could it be that she lookedupon me with loathing and contempt because I had returned from theValley Dor, or because I had desecrated the temples and persons ofthe Holy Therns?

To naught else could I ascribe her strange deportment, yet it seemedfar from possible that such could be the case, for the love ofDejah Thoris for John Carter had been a great and wondrous love--farabove racial distinctions, creed, or religion. 

As I gazed ruefully at the back of her haughty, royal head a gateat the opposite end of the garden opened and a man entered. As hedid so he turned and slipped something into the hand of the yellowguardsman beyond the gate, nor was the distance too great that Imight not see that money had passed between them. 

Instantly I knew that this newcomer had bribed his way within thegarden. Then he turned in the direction of the two women, andI saw that he was none other than Thurid, the black dator of theFirst Born. 

He approached quite close to them before he spoke, and as they turnedat the sound of his voice I saw Dejah Thoris shrink from him. 

There was a nasty leer upon his face as he stepped close to herand spoke again. I could not hear his words, but her answer cameclearly. 

"The granddaughter of Tardos Mors can always die, " she said, "butshe could never live at the price you name. "

Then I saw the black scoundrel go upon his knees beside her, fairlygroveling in the dirt, pleading with her. Only part of what he saidcame to me, for though he was evidently laboring under the stressof passion and excitement, it was equally apparent that he did notdare raise his voice for fear of detection. 

"I would save you from Matai Shang, " I heard him say. "You knowthe fate that awaits you at his hands. Would you not choose merather than the other?"

"I would choose neither, " replied Dejah Thoris, "even were I freeto choose, as you know well I am not. "

"You ARE free!" he cried. "John Carter, Prince of Helium, is dead. "

"I know better than that; but even were he dead, and I must needschoose another mate, it should be a plant man or a great whiteape in preference to either Matai Shang or you, black calot, " sheanswered with a sneer of contempt. 

Of a sudden the vicious beast lost all control of himself, as witha vile oath he leaped at the slender woman, gripping her tenderthroat in his brute clutch. Thuvia screamed and sprang to aid herfellow-prisoner, and at the same instant I, too, went mad, andtearing at the bars that spanned my window I ripped them from theirsockets as they had been but copper wire. 

Hurling myself through the aperture I reached the garden, but ahundred feet from where the black was choking the life from my DejahThoris, and with a single great bound I was upon him. I spoke noword as I tore his defiling fingers from that beautiful throat, nor did I utter a sound as I hurled him twenty feet from me. 

Foaming with rage, Thurid regained his feet and charged me like amad bull. 

"Yellow man, " he shrieked, "you knew not upon whom you had laidyour vile hands, but ere I am done with you, you will know wellwhat it means to offend the person of a First Born. "

Then he was upon me, reaching for my throat, and precisely as I haddone that day in the courtyard of the Temple of Issus I did herein the garden of the palace of Salensus Oll. I ducked beneath hisoutstretched arms, and as he lunged past me I planted a terrificright upon the side of his jaw. 

Just as he had done upon that other occasion he did now. Like atop he spun round, his knees gave beneath him, and he crumpled tothe ground at my feet. Then I heard a voice behind me. 

It was the deep voice of authority that marks the ruler of men, and when I turned to face the resplendent figure of a giant yellowman I did not need to ask to know that it was Salensus Oll. Athis right stood Matai Shang, and behind them a score of guardsmen. 

"Who are you, " he cried, "and what means this intrusion within theprecincts of the women's garden? I do not recall your face. Howcame you here?"

But for his last words I should have forgotten my disguise entirelyand told him outright that I was John Carter, Prince of Helium;but his question recalled me to myself. I pointed to the dislodgedbars of the window above. 

"I am an aspirant to membership in the palace guard, " I said, "andfrom yonder window in the tower where I was confined awaiting thefinal test for fitness I saw this brute attack the--this woman. Icould not stand idly by, O Jeddak, and see this thing done withinthe very palace grounds, and yet feel that I was fit to serve andguard your royal person. "

I had evidently made an impression upon the ruler of Okar by myfair words, and when he had turned to Dejah Thoris and Thuvia ofPtarth, and both had corroborated my statements it began to lookpretty dark for Thurid. 

I saw the ugly gleam in Matai Shang's evil eyes as Dejah Thorisnarrated all that had passed between Thurid and herself, and whenshe came to that part which dealt with my interference with thedator of the First Born her gratitude was quite apparent, thoughI could see by her eyes that something puzzled her strangely. 

I did not wonder at her attitude toward me while others were present;but that she should have denied me while she and Thuvia were theonly occupants of the garden still cut me sorely. 

As the examination proceeded I cast a glance at Thurid and startledhim looking wide-eyed and wonderingly at me, and then of a suddenhe laughed full in my face. 

A moment later Salensus Oll turned toward the black. 

"What have you to say in explanation of these charges?" he askedin a deep and terrible voice. "Dare you aspire to one whom theFather of Therns has chosen--one who might even be a fit mate forthe Jeddak of Jeddaks himself?"

And then the black-bearded tyrant turned and cast a sudden greedylook upon Dejah Thoris, as though with the words a new thought anda new desire had sprung up within his mind and breast. 

Thurid had been about to reply and, with a malicious grin upon hisface, was pointing an accusing finger at me, when Salensus Oll'swords and the expression of his face cut him short. 

A cunning look crept into his eyes, and I knew from the expressionof his face that his next words were not the ones he had intendedto speak. 

"O Mightiest of Jeddaks, " he said, "the man and the women do notspeak the truth. The fellow had come into the garden to assistthem to escape. I was beyond and overheard their conversation, and when I entered, the woman screamed and the man sprang upon meand would have killed me. 

"What know you of this man? He is a stranger to you, and I daresay that you will find him an enemy and a spy. Let him be put ontrial, Salensus Oll, rather than your friend and guest, Thurid, Dator of the First Born. "

Salensus Oll looked puzzled. He turned again and looked upon DejahThoris, and then Thurid stepped quite close to him and whisperedsomething in his ear--what, I know not. 

Presently the yellow ruler turned to one of his officers. 

"See that this man be securely confined until we have time to godeeper into this affair, " he commanded, "and as bars alone seeminadequate to restrain him, let chains be added. "

Then he turned and left the garden, taking Dejah Thoris with him--hishand upon her shoulder. Thurid and Matai Shang went also, and asthey reached the gateway the black turned and laughed again aloudin my face. 

What could be the meaning of his sudden change toward me? Couldhe suspect my true identity? It must be that, and the thing thathad betrayed me was the trick and blow that had laid him low forthe second time. 

As the guards dragged me away my heart was very sad and bitterindeed, for now to the two relentless enemies that had hounded herfor so long another and a more powerful one had been added, forI would have been but a fool had I not recognized the sudden lovefor Dejah Thoris that had just been born in the terrible breast ofSalensus Oll, Jeddak of Jeddaks, ruler of Okar. 

THE PIT OF PLENTY

I did not languish long within the prison of Salensus Oll. Duringthe short time that I lay there, fettered with chains of gold, Ioften wondered as to the fate of Thuvan Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth. 

My brave companion had followed me into the garden as I attackedThurid, and when Salensus Oll had left with Dejah Thoris and theothers, leaving Thuvia of Ptarth behind, he, too, had remainedin the garden with his daughter, apparently unnoticed, for he wasappareled similarly to the guards. 

The last I had seen of him he stood waiting for the warriors whoescorted me to close the gate behind them, that he might be alonewith Thuvia. Could it be possible that they had escaped? I doubtedit, and yet with all my heart I hoped that it might be true. 

The third day of my incarceration brought a dozen warriors to escortme to the audience chamber, where Salensus Oll himself was to tryme. A great number of nobles crowded the room, and among them Isaw Thurid, but Matai Shang was not there. 

Dejah Thoris, as radiantly beautiful as ever, sat upon a small thronebeside Salensus Oll. The expression of sad hopelessness upon herdear face cut deep into my heart. 

Her position beside the Jeddak of Jeddaks boded ill for her and me, and on the instant that I saw her there, there sprang to my mindthe firm intention never to leave that chamber alive if I mustleave her in the clutches of this powerful tyrant. 

I had killed better men than Salensus Oll, and killed them with mybare hands, and now I swore to myself that I should kill him if Ifound that the only way to save the Princess of Helium. That itwould mean almost instant death for me I cared not, except thatit would remove me from further efforts in behalf of Dejah Thoris, and for this reason alone I would have chosen another way, foreven though I should kill Salensus Oll that act would not restoremy beloved wife to her own people. I determined to wait the finaloutcome of the trial, that I might learn all that I could of theOkarian ruler's intentions, and then act accordingly. 

Scarcely had I come before him than Salensus Oll summoned Thuridalso. 

"Dator Thurid, " he said, "you have made a strange request of me;but, in accordance with your wishes and your promise that it willresult only to my interests, I have decided to accede. 

"You tell me that a certain announcement will be the means ofconvicting this prisoner and, at the same time, open the way tothe gratification of my dearest wish. "

Thurid nodded. 

"Then shall I make the announcement here before all my nobles, "continued Salensus Oll. "For a year no queen has sat upon thethrone beside me, and now it suits me to take to wife one who isreputed the most beautiful woman upon Barsoom. A statement whichnone may truthfully deny. 

"Nobles of Okar, unsheathe your swords and do homage to Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium and future Queen of Okar, for at the end of theallotted ten days she shall become the wife of Salensus Oll. "

As the nobles drew their blades and lifted them on high, inaccordance with the ancient custom of Okar when a jeddak announceshis intention to wed, Dejah Thoris sprang to her feet and, raisingher hand aloft, cried in a loud voice that they desist. 

"I may not be the wife of Salensus Oll, " she pleaded, "for already Ibe a wife and mother. John Carter, Prince of Helium, still lives. I know it to be true, for I overheard Matai Shang tell his daughterPhaidor that he had seen him in Kaor, at the court of Kulan Tith, Jeddak. A jeddak does not wed a married woman, nor will SalensusOll thus violate the bonds of matrimony. "

Salensus Oll turned upon Thurid with an ugly look. 

"Is this the surprise you held in store for me?" he cried. "Youassured me that no obstacle which might not be easily overcome stoodbetween me and this woman, and now I find that the one insuperableobstacle intervenes. What mean you, man? What have you to say?"

"And should I deliver John Carter into your hands, Salensus Oll, would you not feel that I had more than satisfied the promise thatI made you?" answered Thurid. 

"Talk not like a fool, " cried the enraged jeddak. "I am no childto be thus played with. "

"I am talking only as a man who knows, " replied Thurid. "Knowsthat he can do all that he claims. "

"Then turn John Carter over to me within ten days or yourselfsuffer the end that I should mete out to him were he in my power!"snapped the Jeddak of Jeddaks, with an ugly scowl. 

"You need not wait ten days, Salensus Oll, " replied Thurid; andthen, turning suddenly upon me as he extended a pointing finger, he cried: "There stands John Carter, Prince of Helium!"

"Fool!" shrieked Salensus Oll. "Fool! John Carter is a whiteman. This fellow be as yellow as myself. John Carter's face issmooth--Matai Shang has described him to me. This prisoner hasa beard and mustache as large and black as any in Okar. Quick, guardsmen, to the pits with the black maniac who wishes to throwhis life away for a poor joke upon your ruler!"

"Hold!" cried Thurid, and springing forward before I could guesshis intention, he had grasped my beard and ripped the whole falsefabric from my face and head, revealing my smooth, tanned skinbeneath and my close-cropped black hair. 

Instantly pandemonium reigned in the audience chamber of SalensusOll. Warriors pressed forward with drawn blades, thinking that Imight be contemplating the assassination of the Jeddak of Jeddaks;while others, out of curiosity to see one whose name was familiarfrom pole to pole, crowded behind their fellows. 

As my identity was revealed I saw Dejah Thoris spring to herfeet--amazement writ large upon her face--and then through thatjam of armed men she forced her way before any could prevent. Amoment only and she was before me with outstretched arms and eyesfilled with the light of her great love. 

"John Carter! John Carter!" she cried as I folded her to my breast, and then of a sudden I knew why she had denied me in the gardenbeneath the tower. 

What a fool I had been! Expecting that she would penetrate themarvelous disguise that had been wrought for me by the barber ofMarentina! She had not known me, that was all; and when she sawthe sign of love from a stranger she was offended and righteouslyindignant. Indeed, but I had been a fool. 

"And it was you, " she cried, "who spoke to me from the tower! Howcould I dream that my beloved Virginian lay behind that fiercebeard and that yellow skin?"

She had been wont to call me her Virginian as a term of endearment, for she knew that I loved the sound of that beautiful name, made athousand times more beautiful and hallowed by her dear lips, and asI heard it again after all those long years my eyes became dimmedwith tears and my voice choked with emotion. 

But an instant did I crush that dear form to me ere Salensus Oll, trembling with rage and jealousy, shouldered his way to us. 

"Seize the man, " he cried to his warriors, and a hundred ruthlesshands tore us apart. 

Well it was for the nobles of the court of Okar that John Carterhad been disarmed. As it was, a dozen of them felt the weight ofmy clenched fists, and I had fought my way half up the steps beforethe throne to which Salensus Oll had carried Dejah Thoris ere everthey could stop me. 

Then I went down, fighting, beneath a half-hundred warriors; butbefore they had battered me into unconsciousness I heard that fromthe lips of Dejah Thoris that made all my suffering well worthwhile. 

Standing there beside the great tyrant, who clutched her by thearm, she pointed to where I fought alone against such awful odds. 

"Think you, Salensus Oll, that the wife of such as he is, " shecried, "would ever dishonor his memory, were he a thousand timesdead, by mating with a lesser mortal? Lives there upon any worldsuch another as John Carter, Prince of Helium? Lives there anotherman who could fight his way back and forth across a warlike planet, facing savage beasts and hordes of savage men, for the love of awoman?

"I, Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, am his. He fought for meand won me. If you be a brave man you will honor the bravery thatis his, and you will not kill him. Make him a slave if you will, Salensus Oll; but spare his life. I would rather be a slave withsuch as he than be Queen of Okar. "

"Neither slave nor queen dictates to Salensus Oll, " replied theJeddak of Jeddaks. "John Carter shall die a natural death in thePit of Plenty, and the day he dies Dejah Thoris shall become myqueen. "

I did not hear her reply, for it was then that a blow upon myhead brought unconsciousness, and when I recovered my senses onlya handful of guardsmen remained in the audience chamber with me. As I opened my eyes they goaded me with the points of their swordsand bade me rise. 

Then they led me through long corridors to a court far toward thecenter of the palace. 

In the center of the court was a deep pit, near the edge of whichstood half a dozen other guardsmen, awaiting me. One of themcarried a long rope in his hands, which he commenced to make readyas we approached. 

We had come to within fifty feet of these men when I felt a suddenstrange and rapid pricking sensation in one of my fingers. 

For a moment I was nonplused by the odd feeling, and then therecame to me recollection of that which in the stress of my adventureI had entirely forgotten--the gift ring of Prince Talu of Marentina. 

Instantly I looked toward the group we were nearing, at the sametime raising my left hand to my forehead, that the ring might bevisible to one who sought it. Simultaneously one of the waitingwarriors raised his left hand, ostensibly to brush back his hair, and upon one of his fingers I saw the duplicate of my own ring. 

A quick look of intelligence passed between us, after which I keptmy eyes turned away from the warrior and did not look at him again, for fear that I might arouse the suspicion of the Okarians. Whenwe reached the edge of the pit I saw that it was very deep, andpresently I realized I was soon to judge just how far it extendedbelow the surface of the court, for he who held the rope passed itabout my body in such a way that it could be released from aboveat any time; and then, as all the warriors grasped it, he pushedme forward, and I fell into the yawning abyss. 

After the first jerk as I reached the end of the rope that hadbeen paid out to let me fall below the pit's edge they lowered mequickly but smoothly. The moment before the plunge, while two orthree of the men had been assisting in adjusting the rope aboutme, one of them had brought his mouth close to my cheek, and inthe brief interval before I was cast into the forbidding hole hebreathed a single word into my ear:

"Courage!"

The pit, which my imagination had pictured as bottomless, provedto be not more than a hundred feet in depth; but as its walls weresmoothly polished it might as well have been a thousand feet, forI could never hope to escape without outside assistance. 

For a day I was left in darkness; and then, quite suddenly, abrilliant light illumined my strange cell. I was reasonably hungryand thirsty by this time, not having tasted food or drink sincethe day prior to my incarceration. 

To my amazement I found the sides of the pit, that I had thoughtsmooth, lined with shelves, upon which were the most deliciousviands and liquid refreshments that Okar afforded. 

With an exclamation of delight I sprang forward to partake ofsome of the welcome food, but ere ever I reached it the light wasextinguished, and, though I groped my way about the chamber, myhands came in contact with nothing beside the smooth, hard wallthat I had felt on my first examination of my prison. 

Immediately the pangs of hunger and thirst began to assail me. Where before I had had but a mild craving for food and drink, I nowactually suffered for want of it, and all because of the tantalizingsight that I had had of food almost within my grasp. 

Once more darkness and silence enveloped me, a silence that wasbroken only by a single mocking laugh. 

For another day nothing occurred to break the monotony of myimprisonment or relieve the suffering superinduced by hunger andthirst. Slowly the pangs became less keen, as suffering deadenedthe activity of certain nerves; and then the light flashed on onceagain, and before me stood an array of new and tempting dishes, with great bottles of clear water and flagons of refreshing wine, upon the outside of which the cold sweat of condensation stood. 

Again, with the hunger madness of a wild beast, I sprang forwardto seize those tempting dishes; but, as before, the light went outand I came to a sudden stop against a hard wall. 

Then the mocking laugh rang out for a second time. 

The Pit of Plenty!

Ah, what a cruel mind must have devised this exquisite, hellishtorture! Day after day was the thing repeated, until I was onthe verge of madness; and then, as I had done in the pits of theWarhoons, I took a new, firm hold upon my reason and forced it backinto the channels of sanity. 

By sheer will-power I regained control over my tottering mentality, and so successful was I that the next time that the light came Isat quite still and looked indifferently at the fresh and temptingfood almost within my reach. Glad I was that I had done so, forit gave me an opportunity to solve the seeming mystery of thosevanishing banquets. 

As I made no move to reach the food, the torturers left the lightturned on in the hope that at last I could refrain no longer fromgiving them the delicious thrill of enjoyment that my former futileefforts to obtain it had caused. 

And as I sat scrutinizing the laden shelves I presently saw howthe thing was accomplished, and so simple was it that I wondered Ihad not guessed it before. The wall of my prison was of clearestglass--behind the glass were the tantalizing viands. 

After nearly an hour the light went out, but this time there wasno mocking laughter--at least not upon the part of my tormentors;but I, to be at quits with them, gave a low laugh that none mightmistake for the cackle of a maniac. 

Nine days passed, and I was weak from hunger and thirst, but nolonger suffering--I was past that. Then, down through the darknessabove, a little parcel fell to the floor at my side. 

Indifferently I groped for it, thinking it but some new inventionof my jailers to add to my sufferings. 

At last I found it--a tiny package wrapped in paper, at the end ofa strong and slender cord. As I opened it a few lozenges fell tothe floor. As I gathered them up, feeling of them and smellingof them, I discovered that they were tablets of concentrated foodsuch as are quite common in all parts of Barsoom. 

Poison! I thought. 

Well, what of it? Why not end my misery now rather than drag outa few more wretched days in this dark pit? Slowly I raised one ofthe little pellets to my lips. 

"Good-bye, my Dejah Thoris!" I breathed. "I have lived for youand fought for you, and now my next dearest wish is to be realized, for I shall die for you, " and, taking the morsel in my mouth, Idevoured it. 

One by one I ate them all, nor ever did anything taste better thanthose tiny bits of nourishment, within which I knew must lie theseeds of death--possibly of some hideous, torturing death. 

As I sat quietly upon the floor of my prison, waiting for the end, my fingers by accident came in contact with the bit of paper inwhich the things had been wrapped; and as I idly played with it, my mind roaming far back into the past, that I might live again fora few brief moments before I died some of the many happy momentsof a long and happy life, I became aware of strange protuberancesupon the smooth surface of the parchment-like substance in my hands. 

For a time they carried no special significance to my mind--I merelywas mildly wondrous that they were there; but at last they seemedto take form, and then I realized that there was but a single lineof them, like writing. 

Now, more interestedly, my fingers traced and retraced them. Therewere four separate and distinct combinations of raised lines. Couldit be that these were four words, and that they were intended tocarry a message to me?

The more I thought of it the more excited I became, until my fingersraced madly back and forth over those bewildering little hills andvalleys upon that bit of paper. 

But I could make nothing of them, and at last I decided that my veryhaste was preventing me from solving the mystery. Then I took itmore slowly. Again and again my forefinger traced the first ofthose four combinations. 

Martian writing is rather difficult to explain to an Earth man--itis something of a cross between shorthand and picture-writing, andis an entirely different language from the spoken language of Mars. 

Upon Barsoom there is but a single oral language. 

It is spoken today by every race and nation, just as it was atthe beginning of human life upon Barsoom. It has grown with thegrowth of the planet's learning and scientific achievements, butso ingenious a thing it is that new words to express new thoughtsor describe new conditions or discoveries form themselves--no otherword could explain the thing that a new word is required for otherthan the word that naturally falls to it, and so, no matter how farremoved two nations or races, their spoken languages are identical. 

Not so their written languages, however. No two nations have thesame written language, and often cities of the same nation have awritten language that differs greatly from that of the nation towhich they belong. 

Thus it was that the signs upon the paper, if in reality they werewords, baffled me for some time; but at last I made out the firstone. 

It was "courage, " and it was written in the letters of Marentina. 

Courage!

That was the word the yellow guardsman had whispered in my ear asI stood upon the verge of the Pit of Plenty. 

The message must be from him, and he I knew was a friend. 

With renewed hope I bent my every energy to the deciphering of thebalance of the message, and at last success rewarded my endeavor--Ihad read the four words:

"Courage! Follow the rope. "

"FOLLOW THE ROPE"

What could it mean?

"Follow the rope. " What rope?

Presently I recalled the cord that had been attached to the parcelwhen it fell at my side, and after a little groping my hand came incontact with it again. It depended from above, and when I pulledupon it I discovered that it was rigidly fastened, possibly at thepit's mouth. 

Upon examination I found that the cord, though small, was amplyable to sustain the weight of several men. Then I made anotherdiscovery--there was a second message knotted in the rope at aboutthe height of my head. This I deciphered more easily, now thatthe key was mine. 

"Bring the rope with you. Beyond the knots lies danger. "

That was all there was to this message. It was evidently hastilyformed--an afterthought. 

I did not pause longer than to learn the contents of the secondmessage, and, though I was none too sure of the meaning of thefinal admonition, "Beyond the knots lies danger, " yet I was surethat here before me lay an avenue of escape, and that the soonerI took advantage of it the more likely was I to win to liberty. 

At least, I could be but little worse off than I had been in thePit of Plenty. 

I was to find, however, ere I was well out of that damnable holethat I might have been very much worse off had I been compelled toremain there another two minutes. 

It had taken me about that length of time to ascend some fifty feetabove the bottom when a noise above attracted my attention. To mychagrin I saw that the covering of the pit was being removed farabove me, and in the light of the courtyard beyond I saw a numberof yellow warriors. 

Could it be that I was laboriously working my way into some newtrap? Were the messages spurious, after all? And then, just asmy hope and courage had ebbed to their lowest, I saw two things. 

One was the body of a huge, struggling, snarling apt being loweredover the side of the pit toward me, and the other was an aperturein the side of the shaft--an aperture larger than a man's body, into which my rope led. 

Just as I scrambled into the dark hole before me the apt passedme, reaching out with his mighty hands to clutch me, and snapping, growling, and roaring in a most frightful manner. 

Plainly now I saw the end for which Salensus Oll had destined me. After first torturing me with starvation he had caused this fiercebeast to be lowered into my prison to finish the work that thejeddak's hellish imagination had conceived. 

And then another truth flashed upon me--I had lived nine days ofthe allotted ten which must intervene before Salensus Oll couldmake Dejah Thoris his queen. The purpose of the apt was to insuremy death before the tenth day. 

I almost laughed aloud as I thought how Salensus Oll's measure ofsafety was to aid in defeating the very end he sought, for whenthey discovered that the apt was alone in the Pit of Plenty theycould not know but that he had completely devoured me, and so nosuspicion of my escape would cause a search to be made for me. 

Coiling the rope that had carried me thus far upon my strangejourney, I sought for the other end, but found that as I followedit forward it extended always before me. So this was the meaningof the words: "Follow the rope. "

The tunnel through which I crawled was low and dark. I had followedit for several hundred yards when I felt a knot beneath my fingers. "Beyond the knots lies danger. "

Now I went with the utmost caution, and a moment later a sharp turnin the tunnel brought me to an opening into a large, brilliantlylighted chamber. 

The trend of the tunnel I had been traversing had been slightlyupward, and from this I judged that the chamber into which I nowfound myself looking must be either on the first floor of the palaceor directly beneath the first floor. 

Upon the opposite wall were many strange instruments and devices, and in the center of the room stood a long table, at which two menwere seated in earnest conversation. 

He who faced me was a yellow man--a little, wizened-up, pasty-facedold fellow with great eyes that showed the white round the entirecircumference of the iris. 

His companion was a black man, and I did not need to see his faceto know that it was Thurid, for there was no other of the FirstBorn north of the ice-barrier. 

Thurid was speaking as I came within hearing of the men's voices. 

"Solan, " he was saying, "there is no risk and the reward is great. You know that you hate Salensus Oll and that nothing would pleaseyou more than to thwart him in some cherished plan. There benothing that he more cherishes today than the idea of wedding thebeautiful Princess of Helium; but I, too, want her, and with yourhelp I may win her. 

"You need not more than step from this room for an instant whenI give you the signal. I will do the rest, and then, when I amgone, you may come and throw the great switch back into its place, and all will be as before. I need but an hour's start to be safebeyond the devilish power that you control in this hidden chamberbeneath the palace of your master. See how easy, " and with thewords the black dator rose from his seat and, crossing the room, laid his hand upon a large, burnished lever that protruded fromthe opposite wall. 

"No! No!" cried the little old man, springing after him, with a wildshriek. "Not that one! Not that one! That controls the sunraytanks, and should you pull it too far down, all Kadabra would beconsumed by heat before I could replace it. Come away! Come away!You know not with what mighty powers you play. This is the leverthat you seek. Note well the symbol inlaid in white upon its ebonsurface. "

Thurid approached and examined the handle of the lever. 

"Ah, a magnet, " he said. "I will remember. It is settled then Itake it, " he continued. 

The old man hesitated. A look of combined greed and apprehensionoverspread his none too beautiful features. 

"Double the figure, " he said. "Even that were all too small an amountfor the service you ask. Why, I risk my life by even entertainingyou here within the forbidden precincts of my station. ShouldSalensus Oll learn of it he would have me thrown to the apts beforethe day was done. "

"He dare not do that, and you know it full well, Solan, " contradictedthe black. "Too great a power of life and death you hold over thepeople of Kadabra for Salensus Oll ever to risk threatening youwith death. Before ever his minions could lay their hands upon you, you might seize this very lever from which you have just warned meand wipe out the entire city. "

"And myself into the bargain, " said Solan, with a shudder. 

"But if you were to die, anyway, you would find the nerve to doit, " replied Thurid. 

"Yes, " muttered Solan, "I have often thought upon that very thing. Well, First Born, is your red princess worth the price I ask formy services, or will you go without her and see her in the arms ofSalensus Oll tomorrow night?"

"Take your price, yellow man, " replied Thurid, with an oath. "Halfnow and the balance when you have fulfilled your contract. "

With that the dator threw a well-filled money-pouch upon the table. 

Solan opened the pouch and with trembling fingers counted its contents. His weird eyes assumed a greedy expression, and his unkempt beardand mustache twitched with the muscles of his mouth and chin. Itwas quite evident from his very mannerism that Thurid had keenlyguessed the man's weakness--even the clawlike, clutching movementof the fingers betokened the avariciousness of the miser. 

Having satisfied himself that the amount was correct, Solan replacedthe money in the pouch and rose from the table. 

"Now, " he said, "are you quite sure that you know the way to yourdestination? You must travel quickly to cover the ground to thecave and from thence beyond the Great Power, all within a briefhour, for no more dare I spare you. "

"Let me repeat it to you, " said Thurid, "that you may see if I beletter-perfect. "

"Proceed, " replied Solan. 

"Through yonder door, " he commenced, pointing to a door at the farend of the apartment, "I follow a corridor, passing three divergingcorridors upon my right; then into the fourth right-hand corridorstraight to where three corridors meet; here again I follow to theright, hugging the left wall closely to avoid the pit. 

"At the end of this corridor I shall come to a spiral runway, whichI must follow down instead of up; after that the way is along buta single branchless corridor. Am I right?"

"Quite right, Dator, " answered Solan; "and now begone. Alreadyhave you tempted fate too long within this forbidden place. "

"Tonight, or tomorrow, then, you may expect the signal, " saidThurid, rising to go. 

"Tonight, or tomorrow, " repeated Solan, and as the door closedbehind his guest the old man continued to mutter as he turned backto the table, where he again dumped the contents of the money-pouch, running his fingers through the heap of shining metal; piling thecoins into little towers; counting, recounting, and fondling thewealth the while he muttered on and on in a crooning undertone. 

Presently his fingers ceased their play; his eyes popped widerthan ever as they fastened upon the door through which Thuridhad disappeared. The croon changed to a querulous muttering, andfinally to an ugly growl. 

Then the old man rose from the table, shaking his fist at the closeddoor. Now he raised his voice, and his words came distinctly. 

"Fool!" he muttered. "Think you that for your happiness Solan willgive up his life? If you escaped, Salensus Oll would know thatonly through my connivance could you have succeeded. Then wouldhe send for me. What would you have me do? Reduce the city andmyself to ashes? No, fool, there is a better way--a better wayfor Solan to keep thy money and be revenged upon Salensus Oll. "

He laughed in a nasty, cackling note. 

"Poor fool! You may throw the great switch that will give youthe freedom of the air of Okar, and then, in fatuous security, goon with thy red princess to the freedom of--death. When you havepassed beyond this chamber in your flight, what can prevent Solanreplacing the switch as it was before your vile hand touched it?Nothing; and then the Guardian of the North will claim you andyour woman, and Salensus Oll, when he sees your dead bodies, willnever dream that the hand of Solan had aught to do with the thing. "

Then his voice dropped once more into mutterings that I could nottranslate, but I had heard enough to cause me to guess a great dealmore, and I thanked the kind Providence that had led me to thischamber at a time so filled with importance to Dejah Thoris andmyself as this. 

But how to pass the old man now! The cord, almost invisible uponthe floor, stretched straight across the apartment to a door uponthe far side. 

There was no other way of which I knew, nor could I afford toignore the advice to "follow the rope. " I must cross this room, but however I should accomplish it undetected with that old man inthe very center of it baffled me. 

Of course I might have sprung in upon him and with my bare handssilenced him forever, but I had heard enough to convince me thatwith him alive the knowledge that I had gained might serve me atsome future moment, while should I kill him and another be stationedin his place Thurid would not come hither with Dejah Thoris, aswas quite evidently his intention. 

As I stood in the dark shadow of the tunnel's end racking my brainfor a feasible plan the while I watched, catlike, the old man'severy move, he took up the money-pouch and crossed to one end ofthe apartment, where, bending to his knees, he fumbled with a panelin the wall. 

Instantly I guessed that here was the hiding place in which hehoarded his wealth, and while he bent there, his back toward me, I entered the chamber upon tiptoe, and with the utmost stealthessayed to reach the opposite side before he should complete histask and turn again toward the room's center. 

Scarcely thirty steps, all told, must I take, and yet it seemed tomy overwrought imagination that that farther wall was miles away;but at last I reached it, nor once had I taken my eyes from theback of the old miser's head. 

He did not turn until my hand was upon the button that controlledthe door through which my way led, and then he turned away from meas I passed through and gently closed the door. 

For an instant I paused, my ear close to the panel, to learn if hehad suspected aught, but as no sound of pursuit came from withinI wheeled and made my way along the new corridor, following therope, which I coiled and brought with me as I advanced. 

But a short distance farther on I came to the rope's end at a pointwhere five corridors met. What was I to do? Which way should Iturn? I was nonplused. 

A careful examination of the end of the rope revealed the fact thatit had been cleanly cut with some sharp instrument. This fact andthe words that had cautioned me that danger lay beyond the KNOTSconvinced me that the rope had been severed since my friend hadplaced it as my guide, for I had but passed a single knot, whereasthere had evidently been two or more in the entire length of thecord. 

Now, indeed, was I in a pretty fix, for neither did I know whichavenue to follow nor when danger lay directly in my path; but therewas nothing else to be done than follow one of the corridors, forI could gain nothing by remaining where I was. 

So I chose the central opening, and passed on into its gloomy depthswith a prayer upon my lips. 

The floor of the tunnel rose rapidly as I advanced, and a momentlater the way came to an abrupt end before a heavy door. 

I could hear nothing beyond, and, with my accustomed rashness, pushedthe portal wide to step into a room filled with yellow warriors. 

The first to see me opened his eyes wide in astonishment, and atthe same instant I felt the tingling sensation in my finger thatdenoted the presence of a friend of the ring. 

Then others saw me, and there was a concerted rush to lay hands uponme, for these were all members of the palace guard--men familiarwith my face. 

The first to reach me was the wearer of the mate to my strangering, and as he came close he whispered: "Surrender to me!" thenin a loud voice shouted: "You are my prisoner, white man, " andmenaced me with his two weapons. 

And so John Carter, Prince of Helium, meekly surrendered to asingle antagonist. The others now swarmed about us, asking manyquestions, but I would not talk to them, and finally my captorannounced that he would lead me back to my cell. 

An officer ordered several other warriors to accompany him, and amoment later we were retracing the way I had just come. My friendwalked close beside me, asking many silly questions about thecountry from which I had come, until finally his fellows paid nofurther attention to him or his gabbling. 

Gradually, as he spoke, he lowered his voice, so that presentlyhe was able to converse with me in a low tone without attractingattention. His ruse was a clever one, and showed that Talu hadnot misjudged the man's fitness for the dangerous duty upon whichhe was detailed. 

When he had fully assured himself that the other guardsmen were notlistening, he asked me why I had not followed the rope, and whenI told him that it had ended at the five corridors he said that itmust have been cut by someone in need of a piece of rope, for hewas sure that "the stupid Kadabrans would never have guessed itspurpose. "

Before we had reached the spot from which the five corridors divergemy Marentinian friend had managed to drop to the rear of the littlecolumn with me, and when we came in sight of the branching ways hewhispered:

"Run up the first upon the right. It leads to the watchtower uponthe south wall. I will direct the pursuit up the next corridor, "and with that he gave me a great shove into the dark mouth of thetunnel, at the same time crying out in simulated pain and alarm ashe threw himself upon the floor as though I had felled him with ablow. 

From behind the voices of the excited guardsmen came reverberatingalong the corridor, suddenly growing fainter as Talu's spy led themup the wrong passageway in fancied pursuit. 

As I ran for my life through the dark galleries beneath the palace ofSalensus Oll I must indeed have presented a remarkable appearancehad there been any to note it, for though death loomed largeabout me, my face was split by a broad grin as I thought of theresourcefulness of the nameless hero of Marentina to whom I owedmy life. 

Of such stuff are the men of my beloved Helium, and when I meetanother of their kind, of whatever race or color, my heart goesout to him as it did now to my new friend who had risked his lifefor me simply because I wore the mate to the ring his ruler hadput upon his finger. 

The corridor along which I ran led almost straight for a considerabledistance, terminating at the foot of a spiral runway, up whichI proceeded to emerge presently into a circular chamber upon thefirst floor of a tower. 

In this apartment a dozen red slaves were employed polishing orrepairing the weapons of the yellow men. The walls of the roomwere lined with racks in which were hundreds of straight and hookedswords, javelins, and daggers. It was evidently an armory. Therewere but three warriors guarding the workers. 

My eyes took in the entire scene at a glance. Here were weaponsin plenty! Here were sinewy red warriors to wield them!

And here now was John Carter, Prince of Helium, in need both ofweapons and warriors!

As I stepped into the apartment, guards and prisoners saw mesimultaneously. 

Close to the entrance where I stood was a rack of straight swords, and as my hand closed upon the hilt of one of them my eyes fellupon the faces of two of the prisoners who worked side by side. 

One of the guards started toward me. "Who are you?" he demanded. "What do you here?"

"I come for Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium, and his son, Mors Kajak, "I cried, pointing to the two red prisoners, who had now sprung totheir feet, wide-eyed in astonished recognition. 

"Rise, red men! Before we die let us leave a memorial in the palaceof Okar's tyrant that will stand forever in the annals of Kadabrato the honor and glory of Helium, " for I had seen that all theprisoners there were men of Tardos Mors's navy. 

Then the first guardsman was upon me and the fight was on, butscarce did we engage ere, to my horror, I saw that the red slaveswere shackled to the floor. 

THE MAGNET SWITCH

The guardsmen paid not the slightest attention to their wards, forthe red men could not move over two feet from the great rings towhich they were padlocked, though each had seized a weapon uponwhich he had been engaged when I entered the room, and stood readyto join me could they have but done so. 

The yellow men devoted all their attention to me, nor were theylong in discovering that the three of them were none too many todefend the armory against John Carter. Would that I had had my owngood long-sword in my hand that day; but, as it was, I rendered asatisfactory account of myself with the unfamiliar weapon of theyellow man. 

At first I had a time of it dodging their villainous hook-swords, but after a minute or two I had succeeded in wresting a secondstraight sword from one of the racks along the wall, and thereafter, using it to parry the hooks of my antagonists, I felt more evenlyequipped. 

The three of them were on me at once, and but for a lucky circumstancemy end might have come quickly. The foremost guardsman madea vicious lunge for my side with his hook after the three of themhad backed me against the wall, but as I sidestepped and raised myarm his weapon but grazed my side, passing into a rack of javelins, where it became entangled. 

Before he could release it I had run him through, and then, fallingback upon the tactics that have saved me a hundred times in tightpinches, I rushed the two remaining warriors, forcing them backwith a perfect torrent of cuts and thrusts, weaving my sword inand out about their guards until I had the fear of death upon them. 

Then one of them commenced calling for help, but it was too lateto save them. 

They were as putty in my hands now, and I backed them about thearmory as I would until I had them where I wanted them--within reachof the swords of the shackled slaves. In an instant both lay deadupon the floor. But their cries had not been entirely fruitless, for now I heard answering shouts and the footfalls of many menrunning and the clank of accouterments and the commands of officers. 

"The door! Quick, John Carter, bar the door!" cried Tardos Mors. 

Already the guard was in sight, charging across the open court thatwas visible through the doorway. 

A dozen seconds would bring them into the tower. A single leapcarried me to the heavy portal. With a resounding bang I slammedit shut. 

"The bar!" shouted Tardos Mors. 

I tried to slip the huge fastening into place, but it defied myevery attempt. 

"Raise it a little to release the catch, " cried one of the red men. 

I could hear the yellow warriors leaping along the flagging justbeyond the door. I raised the bar and shot it to the right justas the foremost of the guardsmen threw himself against the oppositeside of the massive panels. 

The barrier held--I had been in time, but by the fraction of asecond only. 

Now I turned my attention to the prisoners. To Tardos Mors I wentfirst, asking where the keys might be which would unfasten theirfetters. 

"The officer of the guard has them, " replied the Jeddak of Helium, "and he is among those without who seek entrance. You will haveto force them. "

Most of the prisoners were already hacking at their bonds with theswords in their hands. The yellow men were battering at the doorwith javelins and axes. 

I turned my attention to the chains that held Tardos Mors. Againand again I cut deep into the metal with my sharp blade, but everfaster and faster fell the torrent of blows upon the portal. 

At last a link parted beneath my efforts, and a moment later TardosMors was free, though a few inches of trailing chain still dangledfrom his ankle. 

A splinter of wood falling inward from the door announced theheadway that our enemies were making toward us. 

The mighty panels trembled and bent beneath the furious onslaughtof the enraged yellow men. 

What with the battering upon the door and the hacking of the redmen at their chains the din within the armory was appalling. Nosooner was Tardos Mors free than he turned his attention to anotherof the prisoners, while I set to work to liberate Mors Kajak. 

We must work fast if we would have all those fetters cut beforethe door gave way. Now a panel crashed inward upon the floor, andMors Kajak sprang to the opening to defend the way until we shouldhave time to release the others. 

With javelins snatched from the wall he wrought havoc among theforemost of the Okarians while we battled with the insensate metalthat stood between our fellows and freedom. 

At length all but one of the prisoners were freed, and then the doorfell with a mighty crash before a hastily improvised battering-ram, and the yellow horde was upon us. 

"To the upper chambers!" shouted the red man who was still fetteredto the floor. "To the upper chambers! There you may defend thetower against all Kadabra. Do not delay because of me, who couldpray for no better death than in the service of Tardos Mors andthe Prince of Helium. "

But I would have sacrificed the life of every man of us ratherthan desert a single red man, much less the lion-hearted hero whobegged us to leave him. 

"Cut his chains, " I cried to two of the red men, "while the balanceof us hold off the foe. "

There were ten of us now to do battle with the Okarian guard, and Iwarrant that that ancient watchtower never looked down upon a morehotly contested battle than took place that day within its own grimwalls. 

The first inrushing wave of yellow warriors recoiled from theslashing blades of ten of Helium's veteran fighting men. A dozenOkarian corpses blocked the doorway, but over the gruesome barriera score more of their fellows dashed, shouting their hoarse andhideous war-cry. 

Upon the bloody mound we met them, hand to hand, stabbing wherethe quarters were too close to cut, thrusting when we could pusha foeman to arm's length; and mingled with the wild cry of theOkarian there rose and fell the glorious words: "For Helium! ForHelium!" that for countless ages have spurred on the bravest of thebrave to those deeds of valor that have sent the fame of Helium'sheroes broadcast throughout the length and breadth of a world. 

Now were the fetters struck from the last of the red men, andthirteen strong we met each new charge of the soldiers of SalensusOll. Scarce one of us but bled from a score of wounds, yet nonehad fallen. 

From without we saw hundreds of guardsmen pouring into the courtyard, and along the lower corridor from which I had found my way to thearmory we could hear the clank of metal and the shouting of men. 

In a moment we should be attacked from two sides, and with allour prowess we could not hope to withstand the unequal odds whichwould thus divide our attention and our small numbers. 

"To the upper chambers!" cried Tardos Mors, and a moment later wefell back toward the runway that led to the floors above. 

Here another bloody battle was waged with the force of yellow menwho charged into the armory as we fell back from the doorway. Herewe lost our first man, a noble fellow whom we could ill spare; butat length all had backed into the runway except myself, who remainedto hold back the Okarians until the others were safe above. 

In the mouth of the narrow spiral but a single warrior could attackme at a time, so that I had little difficulty in holding them allback for the brief moment that was necessary. Then, backing slowlybefore them, I commenced the ascent of the spiral. 

All the long way to the tower's top the guardsmen pressed me closely. When one went down before my sword another scrambled over the deadman to take his place; and thus, taking an awful toll with eachfew feet gained, I came to the spacious glass-walled watchtower ofKadabra. 

Here my companions clustered ready to take my place, and for amoment's respite I stepped to one side while they held the enemyoff. 

From the lofty perch a view could be had for miles in every direction. Toward the south stretched the rugged, ice-clad waste to the edgeof the mighty barrier. Toward the east and west, and dimly towardthe north I descried other Okarian cities, while in the immediateforeground, just beyond the walls of Kadabra, the grim guardianshaft reared its somber head. 

Then I cast my eyes down into the streets of Kadabra, from whicha sudden tumult had arisen, and there I saw a battle raging, andbeyond the city's walls I saw armed men marching in great columnstoward a near-by gate. 

Eagerly I pressed forward against the glass wall of the observatory, scarce daring to credit the testimony of my own eyes. But atlast I could doubt no longer, and with a shout of joy that rosestrangely in the midst of the cursing and groaning of the battlingmen at the entrance to the chamber, I called to Tardos Mors. 

As he joined me I pointed down into the streets of Kadabra and tothe advancing columns beyond, above which floated bravely in thearctic air the flags and banners of Helium. 

An instant later every red man in the lofty chamber had seen theinspiring sight, and such a shout of thanksgiving arose as I warrantnever before echoed through that age-old pile of stone. 

But still we must fight on, for though our troops had enteredKadabra, the city was yet far from capitulation, nor had the palacebeen even assaulted. Turn and turn about we held the top of therunway while the others feasted their eyes upon the sight of ourvaliant countrymen battling far beneath us. 

Now they have rushed the palace gate! Great battering-rams aredashed against its formidable surface. Now they are repulsed bya deadly shower of javelins from the wall's top!

Once again they charge, but a sortie by a large force of Okariansfrom an intersecting avenue crumples the head of the column, andthe men of Helium go down, fighting, beneath an overwhelming force. 

The palace gate flies open and a force of the jeddak's own guard, picked men from the flower of the Okarian army, sallies forthto shatter the broken regiments. For a moment it looks as thoughnothing could avert defeat, and then I see a noble figure upona mighty thoat--not the tiny thoat of the red man, but one of hishuge cousins of the dead sea bottoms. 

The warrior hews his way to the front, and behind him rally thedisorganized soldiers of Helium. As he raises his head aloft tofling a challenge at the men upon the palace walls I see his face, and my heart swells in pride and happiness as the red warriors leapto the side of their leader and win back the ground that they hadbut just lost--the face of him upon the mighty thoat is the faceof my son--Carthoris of Helium. 

At his side fights a huge Martian war-hound, nor did I need asecond look to know that it was Woola--my faithful Woola who hadthus well performed his arduous task and brought the succoringlegions in the nick of time. 

"In the nick of time?"

Who yet might say that they were not too late to save, but surelythey could avenge! And such retribution as that unconquered armywould deal out to the hateful Okarians! I sighed to think that Imight not be alive to witness it. 

Again I turned to the windows. The red men had not yet forced theouter palace wall, but they were fighting nobly against the bestthat Okar afforded--valiant warriors who contested every inch ofthe way. 

Now my attention was caught by a new element without the city wall--agreat body of mounted warriors looming large above the red men. They were the huge green allies of Helium--the savage hordes fromthe dead sea bottoms of the far south. 

In grim and terrible silence they sped on toward the gate, thepadded hoofs of their frightful mounts giving forth no sound. Intothe doomed city they charged, and as they wheeled across the wideplaza before the palace of the Jeddak of Jeddaks I saw, riding attheir head, the mighty figure of their mighty leader--Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark. 

My wish, then, was to be gratified, for I was to see my old friendbattling once again, and though not shoulder to shoulder with him, I, too, would be fighting in the same cause here in the high towerof Okar. 

Nor did it seem that our foes would ever cease their stubbornattacks, for still they came, though the way to our chamber wasoften clogged with the bodies of their dead. At times they wouldpause long enough to drag back the impeding corpses, and then freshwarriors would forge upward to taste the cup of death. 

I had been taking my turn with the others in defending the approachto our lofty retreat when Mors Kajak, who had been watching thebattle in the street below, called aloud in sudden excitement. There was a note of apprehension in his voice that brought me tohis side the instant that I could turn my place over to another, and as I reached him he pointed far out across the waste of snowand ice toward the southern horizon. 

"Alas!" he cried, "that I should be forced to witness cruel fatebetray them without power to warn or aid; but they be past eithernow. "

As I looked in the direction he indicated I saw the cause of hisperturbation. A mighty fleet of fliers was approaching majesticallytoward Kadabra from the direction of the ice-barrier. On and onthey came with ever increasing velocity. 

"The grim shaft that they call the Guardian of the North is beckoningto them, " said Mors Kajak sadly, "just as it beckoned to TardosMors and his great fleet; see where they lie, crumpled and broken, a grim and terrible monument to the mighty force of destructionwhich naught can resist. "

I, too, saw; but something else I saw that Mors Kajak did not; inmy mind's eye I saw a buried chamber whose walls were lined withstrange instruments and devices. 

In the center of the chamber was a long table, and before it sat alittle, pop-eyed old man counting his money; but, plainest of all, I saw upon the wall a great switch with a small magnet inlaid withinthe surface of its black handle. 

Then I glanced out at the fast-approaching fleet. In five minutesthat mighty armada of the skies would be bent and worthless scrap, lying at the base of the shaft beyond the city's wall, and yellowhordes would be loosed from another gate to rush out upon the fewsurvivors stumbling blindly down through the mass of wreckage;then the apts would come. I shuddered at the thought, for I couldvividly picture the whole horrible scene. 

Quick have I always been to decide and act. The impulse that movesme and the doing of the thing seem simultaneous; for if my mindgoes through the tedious formality of reasoning, it must be asubconscious act of which I am not objectively aware. Psychologiststell me that, as the subconscious does not reason, too close ascrutiny of my mental activities might prove anything but flattering;but be that as it may, I have often won success while the thinkerwould have been still at the endless task of comparing variousjudgments. 

And now celerity of action was the prime essential to the successof the thing that I had decided upon. 

Grasping my sword more firmly in my hand, I called to the red manat the opening to the runway to stand aside. 

"Way for the Prince of Helium!" I shouted; and before the astonishedyellow man whose misfortune it was to be at the fighting end ofthe line at that particular moment could gather his wits togethermy sword had decapitated him, and I was rushing like a mad bulldown upon those behind him. 

"Way for the Prince of Helium!" I shouted as I cut a path throughthe astonished guardsmen of Salensus Oll. 

Hewing to right and left, I beat my way down that warrior-chokedspiral until, near the bottom, those below, thinking that an armywas descending upon them, turned and fled. 

The armory at the first floor was vacant when I entered it, thelast of the Okarians having fled into the courtyard, so none sawme continue down the spiral toward the corridor beneath. 

Here I ran as rapidly as my legs would carry me toward the fivecorners, and there plunged into the passageway that led to thestation of the old miser. 

Without the formality of a knock, I burst into the room. There satthe old man at his table; but as he saw me he sprang to his feet, drawing his sword. 

With scarce more than a glance toward him I leaped for the greatswitch; but, quick as I was, that wiry old fellow was there beforeme. 

How he did it I shall never know, nor does it seem credible thatany Martian-born creature could approximate the marvelous speed ofmy earthly muscles. 

Like a tiger he turned upon me, and I was quick to see why Solanhad been chosen for this important duty. 

Never in all my life have I seen such wondrous swordsmanship andsuch uncanny agility as that ancient bag of bones displayed. He wasin forty places at the same time, and before I had half a chanceto awaken to my danger he was like to have made a monkey of me, and a dead monkey at that. 

It is strange how new and unexpected conditions bring out unguessedability to meet them. 

That day in the buried chamber beneath the palace of Salensus OllI learned what swordsmanship meant, and to what heights of swordmastery I could achieve when pitted against such a wizard of theblade as Solan. 

For a time he liked to have bested me; but presently the latentpossibilities that must have been lying dormant within me for alifetime came to the fore, and I fought as I had never dreamed ahuman being could fight. 

That that duel-royal should have taken place in the dark recessesof a cellar, without a single appreciative eye to witness it hasalways seemed to me almost a world calamity--at least from theviewpoint Barsoomian, where bloody strife is the first and greatestconsideration of individuals, nations, and races. 

I was fighting to reach the switch, Solan to prevent me; and, thoughwe stood not three feet from it, I could not win an inch towardit, for he forced me back an inch for the first five minutes ofour battle. 

I knew that if I were to throw it in time to save the oncomingfleet it must be done in the next few seconds, and so I tried myold rushing tactics; but I might as well have rushed a brick wallfor all that Solan gave way. 

In fact, I came near to impaling myself upon his point for mypains; but right was on my side, and I think that that must give aman greater confidence than though he knew himself to be battlingin a wicked cause. 

At least, I did not want in confidence; and when I next rushed Solanit was to one side with implicit confidence that he must turn tomeet my new line of attack, and turn he did, so that now we foughtwith our sides towards the coveted goal--the great switch stoodwithin my reach upon my right hand. 

To uncover my breast for an instant would have been to court suddendeath, but I saw no other way than to chance it, if by so doing Imight rescue that oncoming, succoring fleet; and so, in the faceof a wicked sword-thrust, I reached out my point and caught thegreat switch a sudden blow that released it from its seating. 

So surprised and horrified was Solan that he forgot to finish histhrust; instead, he wheeled toward the switch with a loud shriek--ashriek which was his last, for before his hand could touch thelever it sought, my sword's point had passed through his heart. 

THE TIDE OF BATTLE

But solan's last loud cry had not been without effect, for a momentlater a dozen guardsmen burst into the chamber, though not beforeI had so bent and demolished the great switch that it could not beagain used to turn the powerful current into the mighty magnet ofdestruction it controlled. 

The result of the sudden coming of the guardsmen had been to compelme to seek seclusion in the first passageway that I could find, and that to my disappointment proved to be not the one with whichI was familiar, but another upon its left. 

They must have either heard or guessed which way I went, for I hadproceeded but a short distance when I heard the sound of pursuit. I had no mind to stop and fight these men here when there wasfighting aplenty elsewhere in the city of Kadabra--fighting thatcould be of much more avail to me and mine than useless life-takingfar below the palace. 

But the fellows were pressing me; and as I did not know the way atall, I soon saw that they would overtake me unless I found a placeto conceal myself until they had passed, which would then give mean opportunity to return the way I had come and regain the tower, or possibly find a way to reach the city streets. 

The passageway had risen rapidly since leaving the apartment ofthe switch, and now ran level and well lighted straight into thedistance as far as I could see. The moment that my pursuers reachedthis straight stretch I would be in plain sight of them, with nochance to escape from the corridor undetected. 

Presently I saw a series of doors opening from either side of thecorridor, and as they all looked alike to me I tried the firstone that I reached. It opened into a small chamber, luxuriouslyfurnished, and was evidently an ante-chamber off some office oraudience chamber of the palace. 

On the far side was a heavily curtained doorway beyond which Iheard the hum of voices. Instantly I crossed the small chamber, and, parting the curtains, looked within the larger apartment. 

Before me were a party of perhaps fifty gorgeously clad nobles ofthe court, standing before a throne upon which sat Salensus Oll. The Jeddak of Jeddaks was addressing them. 

"The allotted hour has come, " he was saying as I entered theapartment; "and though the enemies of Okar be within her gates, naught may stay the will of Salensus Oll. The great ceremony mustbe omitted that no single man may be kept from his place in thedefenses other than the fifty that custom demands shall witnessthe creation of a new queen in Okar. 

"In a moment the thing shall have been done and we may return tothe battle, while she who is now the Princess of Helium looks downfrom the queen's tower upon the annihilation of her former countrymenand witnesses the greatness which is her husband's. "

Then, turning to a courtier, he issued some command in a low voice. 

The addressed hastened to a small door at the far end of the chamberand, swinging it wide, cried: "Way for Dejah Thoris, future Queenof Okar!"

Immediately two guardsmen appeared dragging the unwilling bride towardthe altar. Her hands were still manacled behind her, evidently toprevent suicide. 

Her disheveled hair and panting bosom betokened that, chained thoughshe was, still had she fought against the thing that they would doto her. 

At sight of her Salensus Oll rose and drew his sword, and the swordof each of the fifty nobles was raised on high to form an arch, beneath which the poor, beautiful creature was dragged toward herdoom. 

A grim smile forced itself to my lips as I thought of the rudeawakening that lay in store for the ruler of Okar, and my itchingfingers fondled the hilt of my bloody sword. 

As I watched the procession that moved slowly toward the throne--aprocession which consisted of but a handful of priests, who followedDejah Thoris and the two guardsmen--I caught a fleeting glimpseof a black face peering from behind the draperies that covered thewall back of the dais upon which stood Salensus Oll awaiting hisbride. 

Now the guardsmen were forcing the Princess of Helium up the fewsteps to the side of the tyrant of Okar, and I had no eyes and nothoughts for aught else. A priest opened a book and, raising hishand, commenced to drone out a sing-song ritual. Salensus Ollreached for the hand of his bride. 

I had intended waiting until some circumstance should give me areasonable hope of success; for, even though the entire ceremonyshould be completed, there could be no valid marriage while Ilived. What I was most concerned in, of course, was the rescuingof Dejah Thoris--I wished to take her from the palace of SalensusOll, if such a thing were possible; but whether it were accomplishedbefore or after the mock marriage was a matter of secondary import. 

When, however, I saw the vile hand of Salensus Oll reach out forthe hand of my beloved princess I could restrain myself no longer, and before the nobles of Okar knew that aught had happened I hadleaped through their thin line and was upon the dais beside DejahThoris and Salensus Oll. 

With the flat of my sword I struck down his polluting hand; andgrasping Dejah Thoris round the waist, I swung her behind me as, with my back against the draperies of the dais, I faced the tyrantof the north and his roomful of noble warriors. 

The Jeddak of Jeddaks was a great mountain of a man--a coarse, brutal beast of a man--and as he towered above me there, his fierceblack whiskers and mustache bristling in rage, I can well imaginethat a less seasoned warrior might have trembled before him. 

With a snarl he sprang toward me with naked sword, but whetherSalensus Oll was a good swordsman or a poor I never learned; forwith Dejah Thoris at my back I was no longer human--I was a superman, and no man could have withstood me then. 

With a single, low: "For the Princess of Helium!" I ran my bladestraight through the rotten heart of Okar's rotten ruler, and beforethe white, drawn faces of his nobles Salensus Oll rolled, grinningin horrible death, to the foot of the steps below his marriagethrone. 

For a moment tense silence reigned in the nuptial-room. Then thefifty nobles rushed upon me. Furiously we fought, but the advantagewas mine, for I stood upon a raised platform above them, and Ifought for the most glorious woman of a glorious race, and I foughtfor a great love and for the mother of my boy. 

And from behind my shoulder, in the silvery cadence of that dearvoice, rose the brave battle anthem of Helium which the nation'swomen sing as their men march out to victory. 

That alone was enough to inspire me to victory over even greaterodds, and I verily believe that I should have bested the entireroomful of yellow warriors that day in the nuptial chamber of thepalace at Kadabra had not interruption come to my aid. 

Fast and furious was the fighting as the nobles of Salensus Ollsprang, time and again, up the steps before the throne only to fallback before a sword hand that seemed to have gained a new wizardryfrom its experience with the cunning Solan. 

Two were pressing me so closely that I could not turn when I hearda movement behind me, and noted that the sound of the battle anthemhad ceased. Was Dejah Thoris preparing to take her place besideme?

Heroic daughter of a heroic world! It would not be unlike her tohave seized a sword and fought at my side, for, though the womenof Mars are not trained in the arts of war, the spirit is theirs, and they have been known to do that very thing upon countlessoccasions. 

But she did not come, and glad I was, for it would have doubled myburden in protecting her before I should have been able to forceher back again out of harm's way. She must be contemplating somecunning strategy, I thought, and so I fought on secure in the beliefthat my divine princess stood close behind me. 

For half an hour at least I must have fought there against thenobles of Okar ere ever a one placed a foot upon the dais where Istood, and then of a sudden all that remained of them formed belowme for a last, mad, desperate charge; but even as they advancedthe door at the far end of the chamber swung wide and a wild-eyedmessenger sprang into the room. 

"The Jeddak of Jeddaks!" he cried. "Where is the Jeddak of Jeddaks?The city has fallen before the hordes from beyond the barrier, andbut now the great gate of the palace itself has been forced andthe warriors of the south are pouring into its sacred precincts. 

"Where is Salensus Oll? He alone may revive the flagging courageof our warriors. He alone may save the day for Okar. Where isSalensus Oll?"

The nobles stepped back from about the dead body of their ruler, and one of them pointed to the grinning corpse. 

The messenger staggered back in horror as though from a blow inthe face. 

"Then fly, nobles of Okar!" he cried, "for naught can save you. Hark! They come!"

As he spoke we heard the deep roar of angry men from the corridorwithout, and the clank of metal and the clang of swords. 

Without another glance toward me, who had stood a spectator ofthe tragic scene, the nobles wheeled and fled from the apartmentthrough another exit. 

Almost immediately a force of yellow warriors appeared in thedoorway through which the messenger had come. They were backingtoward the apartment, stubbornly resisting the advance of a handfulof red men who faced them and forced them slowly but inevitablyback. 

Above the heads of the contestants I could see from my elevatedstation upon the dais the face of my old friend Kantos Kan. He wasleading the little party that had won its way into the very heartof the palace of Salensus Oll. 

In an instant I saw that by attacking the Okarians from the rearI could so quickly disorganize them that their further resistancewould be short-lived, and with this idea in mind I sprang fromthe dais, casting a word of explanation to Dejah Thoris over myshoulder, though I did not turn to look at her. 

With myself ever between her enemies and herself, and with KantosKan and his warriors winning to the apartment, there could be nodanger to Dejah Thoris standing there alone beside the throne. 

I wanted the men of Helium to see me and to know that their belovedprincess was here, too, for I knew that this knowledge would inspirethem to even greater deeds of valor than they had performed in thepast, though great indeed must have been those which won for thema way into the almost impregnable palace of the tyrant of the north. 

As I crossed the chamber to attack the Kadabrans from the rear asmall doorway at my left opened, and, to my surprise, revealed thefigures of Matai Shang, Father of Therns and Phaidor, his daughter, peering into the room. 

A quick glance about they took. Their eyes rested for a moment, wide in horror, upon the dead body of Salensus Oll, upon the bloodthat crimsoned the floor, upon the corpses of the nobles who hadfallen thick before the throne, upon me, and upon the battlingwarriors at the other door. 

They did not essay to enter the apartment, but scanned its everycorner from where they stood, and then, when their eyes had soughtits entire area, a look of fierce rage overspread the featuresof Matai Shang, and a cold and cunning smile touched the lips ofPhaidor. 

Then they were gone, but not before a taunting laugh was throwndirectly in my face by the woman. 

I did not understand then the meaning of Matai Shang's rage orPhaidor's pleasure, but I knew that neither boded good for me. 

A moment later I was upon the backs of the yellow men, and as thered men of Helium saw me above the shoulders of their antagonistsa great shout rang through the corridor, and for a moment drownedthe noise of battle. 

"For the Prince of Helium!" they cried. "For the Prince of Helium!"and, like hungry lions upon their prey, they fell once more uponthe weakening warriors of the north. 

The yellow men, cornered between two enemies, fought with thedesperation that utter hopelessness often induces. Fought as Ishould have fought had I been in their stead, with the determinationto take as many of my enemies with me when I died as lay withinthe power of my sword arm. 

It was a glorious battle, but the end seemed inevitable, whenpresently from down the corridor behind the red men came a greatbody of reenforcing yellow warriors. 

Now were the tables turned, and it was the men of Helium who seemeddoomed to be ground between two millstones. All were compelled toturn to meet this new assault by a greatly superior force, so thatto me was left the remnants of the yellow men within the throneroom. 

They kept me busy, too; so busy that I began to wonder if indeedI should ever be done with them. Slowly they pressed me back intothe room, and when they had all passed in after me, one of themclosed and bolted the door, effectually barring the way againstthe men of Kantos Kan. 

It was a clever move, for it put me at the mercy of a dozen menwithin a chamber from which assistance was locked out, and it gavethe red men in the corridor beyond no avenue of escape should theirnew antagonists press them too closely. 

But I have faced heavier odds myself than were pitted against methat day, and I knew that Kantos Kan had battled his way from ahundred more dangerous traps than that in which he now was. So itwas with no feelings of despair that I turned my attention to thebusiness of the moment. 

Constantly my thoughts reverted to Dejah Thoris, and I longed forthe moment when, the fighting done, I could fold her in my arms, and hear once more the words of love which had been denied me forso many years. 

During the fighting in the chamber I had not even a single chanceto so much as steal a glance at her where she stood behind me besidethe throne of the dead ruler. I wondered why she no longer urgedme on with the strains of the martial hymn of Helium; but I did notneed more than the knowledge that I was battling for her to bringout the best that is in me. 

It would be wearisome to narrate the details of that bloody struggle;of how we fought from the doorway, the full length of the room tothe very foot of the throne before the last of my antagonists fellwith my blade piercing his heart. 

And then, with a glad cry, I turned with outstretched arms to seizemy princess, and as my lips smothered hers to reap the reward thatwould be thrice ample payment for the bloody encounters throughwhich I had passed for her dear sake from the south pole to thenorth. 

The glad cry died, frozen upon my lips; my arms dropped limp andlifeless to my sides; as one who reels beneath the burden of amortal wound I staggered up the steps before the throne. 

Dejah Thoris was gone. 

REWARDS

With the realization that Dejah Thoris was no longer within thethroneroom came the belated recollection of the dark face that I hadglimpsed peering from behind the draperies that backed the throneof Salensus Oll at the moment that I had first come so unexpectedlyupon the strange scene being enacted within the chamber. 

Why had the sight of that evil countenance not warned me to greatercaution? Why had I permitted the rapid development of new situationsto efface the recollection of that menacing danger? But, alas, vain regret would not erase the calamity that had befallen. 

Once again had Dejah Thoris fallen into the clutches of thatarchfiend, Thurid, the black dator of the First Born. Again wasall my arduous labor gone for naught. Now I realized the causeof the rage that had been writ so large upon the features of MataiShang and the cruel pleasure that I had seen upon the face ofPhaidor. 

They had known or guessed the truth, and the hekkador of theHoly Therns, who had evidently come to the chamber in the hope ofthwarting Salensus Oll in his contemplated perfidy against the highpriest who coveted Dejah Thoris for himself, realized that Thuridhad stolen the prize from beneath his very nose. 

Phaidor's pleasure had been due to her realization of what this lastcruel blow would mean to me, as well as to a partial satisfactionof her jealous hatred for the Princess of Helium. 

My first thought was to look beyond the draperies at the back ofthe throne, for there it was that I had seen Thurid. With a singlejerk I tore the priceless stuff from its fastenings, and therebefore me was revealed a narrow doorway behind the throne. 

No question entered my mind but that here lay the opening of theavenue of escape which Thurid had followed, and had there been itwould have been dissipated by the sight of a tiny, jeweled ornamentwhich lay a few steps within the corridor beyond. 

As I snatched up the bauble I saw that it bore the device of thePrincess of Helium, and then pressing it to my lips I dashed madlyalong the winding way that led gently downward toward the lowergalleries of the palace. 

I had followed but a short distance when I came upon the room inwhich Solan formerly had held sway. His dead body still lay whereI had left it, nor was there any sign that another had passedthrough the room since I had been there; but I knew that two haddone so--Thurid, the black dator, and Dejah Thoris. 

For a moment I paused uncertain as to which of the several exitsfrom the apartment would lead me upon the right path. I tried torecollect the directions which I had heard Thurid repeat to Solan, and at last, slowly, as though through a heavy fog, the memory ofthe words of the First Born came to me:

"Follow a corridor, passing three diverging corridors upon the right;then into the fourth right-hand corridor to where three corridorsmeet; here again follow to the right, hugging the left wall closelyto avoid the pit. At the end of this corridor I shall come to aspiral runway which I must follow down instead of up; after thatthe way is along but a single branchless corridor. "

And I recalled the exit at which he had pointed as he spoke. 

It did not take me long to start upon that unknown way, nor did Igo with caution, although I knew that there might be grave dangersbefore me. 

Part of the way was black as sin, but for the most it was fairlywell lighted. The stretch where I must hug the left wall to avoidthe pits was darkest of them all, and I was nearly over the edge ofthe abyss before I knew that I was near the danger spot. A narrowledge, scarce a foot wide, was all that had been left to carrythe initiated past that frightful cavity into which the unknowingmust surely have toppled at the first step. But at last I had wonsafely beyond it, and then a feeble light made the balance of theway plain, until, at the end of the last corridor, I came suddenlyout into the glare of day upon a field of snow and ice. 

Clad for the warm atmosphere of the hothouse city of Kadabra, thesudden change to arctic frigidity was anything but pleasant; butthe worst of it was that I knew I could not endure the bitter cold, almost naked as I was, and that I would perish before ever I couldovertake Thurid and Dejah Thoris. 

To be thus blocked by nature, who had had all the arts and wilesof cunning man pitted against him, seemed a cruel fate, and as Istaggered back into the warmth of the tunnel's end I was as nearhopelessness as I ever have been. 

I had by no means given up my intention of continuing the pursuit, for if needs be I would go ahead though I perished ere ever Ireached my goal, but if there were a safer way it were well worththe delay to attempt to discover it, that I might come again tothe side of Dejah Thoris in fit condition to do battle for her. 

Scarce had I returned to the tunnel than I stumbled over a portionof a fur garment that seemed fastened to the floor of the corridorclose to the wall. In the darkness I could not see what held it, but by groping with my hands I discovered that it was wedged beneaththe bottom of a closed door. 

Pushing the portal aside, I found myself upon the threshold of asmall chamber, the walls of which were lined with hooks from whichdepended suits of the complete outdoor apparel of the yellow men. 

Situated as it was at the mouth of a tunnel leading from the palace, it was quite evident that this was the dressing-room used by thenobles leaving and entering the hothouse city, and that Thurid, having knowledge of it, had stopped here to outfit himself andDejah Thoris before venturing into the bitter cold of the arcticworld beyond. 

In his haste he had dropped several garments upon the floor, andthe telltale fur that had fallen partly within the corridor hadproved the means of guiding me to the very spot he would least havewished me to have knowledge of. 

It required but the matter of a few seconds to don the necessaryorluk-skin clothing, with the heavy, fur-lined boots that are soessential a part of the garmenture of one who would successfullycontend with the frozen trails and the icy winds of the bleaknorthland. 

Once more I stepped beyond the tunnel's mouth to find the freshtracks of Thurid and Dejah Thoris in the new-fallen snow. Now, atlast, was my task an easy one, for though the going was rough inthe extreme, I was no longer vexed by doubts as to the directionI should follow, or harassed by darkness or hidden dangers. 

Through a snow-covered canyon the way led up toward the summit oflow hills. Beyond these it dipped again into another canon, onlyto rise a quarter-mile farther on toward a pass which skirted theflank of a rocky hill. 

I could see by the signs of those who had gone before that when DejahThoris had walked she had been continually holding back, and thatthe black man had been compelled to drag her. For other stretchesonly his foot-prints were visible, deep and close together inthe heavy snow, and I knew from these signs that then he had beenforced to carry her, and I could well imagine that she had foughthim fiercely every step of the way. 

As I came round the jutting promontory of the hill's shoulder I sawthat which quickened my pulses and set my heart to beating high, for within a tiny basin between the crest of this hill and the nextstood four people before the mouth of a great cave, and beside themupon the gleaming snow rested a flier which had evidently but justbeen dragged from its hiding place. 

The four were Dejah Thoris, Phaidor, Thurid, and Matai Shang. Thetwo men were engaged in a heated argument--the Father of Thernsthreatening, while the black scoffed at him as he went about thework at which he was engaged. 

As I crept toward them cautiously that I might come as near aspossible before being discovered, I saw that finally the men appearedto have reached some sort of a compromise, for with Phaidor'sassistance they both set about dragging the resisting Dejah Thoristo the flier's deck. 

Here they made her fast, and then both again descended to the groundto complete the preparations for departure. Phaidor entered thesmall cabin upon the vessel's deck. 

I had come to within a quarter of a mile of them when Matai Shangespied me. I saw him seize Thurid by the shoulder, wheeling himaround in my direction as he pointed to where I was now plainlyvisible, for the moment that I knew I had been perceived I castaside every attempt at stealth and broke into a mad race for theflier. 

The two redoubled their efforts at the propeller at which they wereworking, and which very evidently was being replaced after havingbeen removed for some purpose of repair. 

They had the thing completed before I had covered half the distancethat lay between me and them, and then both made a rush for theboarding-ladder. 

Thurid was the first to reach it, and with the agility of a monkeyclambered swiftly to the boat's deck, where a touch of the buttoncontrolling the buoyancy tanks sent the craft slowly upward, thoughnot with the speed that marks the well-conditioned flier. 

I was still some hundred yards away as I saw them rising from mygrasp. 

Back by the city of Kadabra lay a great fleet of mighty fliers--theships of Helium and Ptarth that I had saved from destruction earlierin the day; but before ever I could reach them Thurid could easilymake good his escape. 

As I ran I saw Matai Shang clambering up the swaying, swingingladder toward the deck, while above him leaned the evil face of theFirst Born. A trailing rope from the vessel's stern put new hopein me, for if I could but reach it before it whipped too high abovemy head there was yet a chance to gain the deck by its slender aid. 

That there was something radically wrong with the flier was evidentfrom its lack of buoyancy, and the further fact that though Thuridhad turned twice to the starting lever the boat still hung motionlessin the air, except for a slight drifting with a low breeze fromthe north. 

Now Matai Shang was close to the gunwale. A long, claw-like handwas reaching up to grasp the metal rail. 

Thurid leaned farther down toward his co-conspirator. 

Suddenly a raised dagger gleamed in the upflung hand of the black. Down it drove toward the white face of the Father of Therns. Witha loud shriek of fear the Holy Hekkador grasped frantically at thatmenacing arm. 

I was almost to the trailing rope by now. The craft was stillrising slowly, the while it drifted from me. Then I stumbled onthe icy way, striking my head upon a rock as I fell sprawling butan arm's length from the rope, the end of which was now just leavingthe ground. 

With the blow upon my head came unconsciousness. 

It could not have been more than a few seconds that I lay senselessthere upon the northern ice, while all that was dearest to medrifted farther from my reach in the clutches of that black fiend, for when I opened my eyes Thurid and Matai Shang yet battled at theladder's top, and the flier drifted but a hundred yards farther tothe south--but the end of the trailing rope was now a good thirtyfeet above the ground. 

Goaded to madness by the cruel misfortune that had tripped me whensuccess was almost within my grasp, I tore frantically across theintervening space, and just beneath the rope's dangling end I putmy earthly muscles to the supreme test. 

With a mighty, catlike bound I sprang upward toward that slenderstrand--the only avenue which yet remained that could carry me tomy vanishing love. 

A foot above its lowest end my fingers closed. Tightly as I clungI felt the rope slipping, slipping through my grasp. I tried toraise my free hand to take a second hold above my first, but thechange of position that resulted caused me to slip more rapidlytoward the end of the rope. 

Slowly I felt the tantalizing thing escaping me. In a moment allthat I had gained would be lost--then my fingers reached a knot atthe very end of the rope and slipped no more. 

With a prayer of gratitude upon my lips I scrambled upward towardthe boat's deck. I could not see Thurid and Matai Shang now, but I heard the sounds of conflict and thus knew that they stillfought--the thern for his life and the black for the increasedbuoyancy that relief from the weight of even a single body wouldgive the craft. 

Should Matai Shang die before I reached the deck my chances of everreaching it would be slender indeed, for the black dator need butcut the rope above me to be freed from me forever, for the vesselhad drifted across the brink of a chasm into whose yawning depthsmy body would drop to be crushed to a shapeless pulp should Thuridreach the rope now. 

At last my hand closed upon the ship's rail and that very instanta horrid shriek rang out below me that sent my blood cold and turnedmy horrified eyes downward to a shrieking, hurtling, twisting thingthat shot downward into the awful chasm beneath me. 

It was Matai Shang, Holy Hekkador, Father of Therns, gone to hislast accounting. 

Then my head came above the deck and I saw Thurid, dagger in hand, leaping toward me. He was opposite the forward end of the cabin, while I was attempting to clamber aboard near the vessel's stern. But a few paces lay between us. No power on earth could raise meto that deck before the infuriated black would be upon me. 

My end had come. I knew it; but had there been a doubt in my mindthe nasty leer of triumph upon that wicked face would have convincedme. Beyond Thurid I could see my Dejah Thoris, wide-eyed andhorrified, struggling at her bonds. That she should be forced towitness my awful death made my bitter fate seem doubly cruel. 

I ceased my efforts to climb across the gunwale. Instead I tooka firm grasp upon the rail with my left hand and drew my dagger. 

I should at least die as I had lived--fighting. 

As Thurid came opposite the cabin's doorway a new element projecteditself into the grim tragedy of the air that was being enacted uponthe deck of Matai Shang's disabled flier. 

It was Phaidor. 

With flushed face and disheveled hair, and eyes that betrayed therecent presence of mortal tears--above which this proud goddess hadalways held herself--she leaped to the deck directly before me. 

In her hand was a long, slim dagger. I cast a last look uponmy beloved princess, smiling, as men should who are about to die. Then I turned my face up toward Phaidor--waiting for the blow. 

Never have I seen that beautiful face more beautiful than it wasat that moment. It seemed incredible that one so lovely couldyet harbor within her fair bosom a heart so cruel and relentless, and today there was a new expression in her wondrous eyes that Inever before had seen there--an unfamiliar softness, and a look ofsuffering. 

Thurid was beside her now--pushing past to reach me first, andthen what happened happened so quickly that it was all over beforeI could realize the truth of it. 

Phaidor's slim hand shot out to close upon the black's dagger wrist. Her right hand went high with its gleaming blade. 

"That for Matai Shang!" she cried, and she buried her blade deepin the dator's breast. "That for the wrong you would have doneDejah Thoris!" and again the sharp steel sank into the bloody flesh. 

"And that, and that, and that!" she shrieked, "for John Carter, Prince of Helium, " and with each word her sharp point pierced thevile heart of the great villain. Then, with a vindictive shove shecast the carcass of the First Born from the deck to fall in awfulsilence after the body of his victim. 

I had been so paralyzed by surprise that I had made no move to reachthe deck during the awe-inspiring scene which I had just witnessed, and now I was to be still further amazed by her next act, forPhaidor extended her hand to me and assisted me to the deck, whereI stood gazing at her in unconcealed and stupefied wonderment. 

A wan smile touched her lips--it was not the cruel and haughtysmile of the goddess with which I was familiar. "You wonder, JohnCarter, " she said, "what strange thing has wrought this change inme? I will tell you. It is love--love of you, " and when I darkenedmy brows in disapproval of her words she raised an appealing hand. 

"Wait, " she said. "It is a different love from mine--it is thelove of your princess, Dejah Thoris, for you that has taught mewhat true love may be--what it should be, and how far from reallove was my selfish and jealous passion for you. 

"Now I am different. Now could I love as Dejah Thoris loves, andso my only happiness can be to know that you and she are once moreunited, for in her alone can you find true happiness. 

"But I am unhappy because of the wickedness that I have wrought. Ihave many sins to expiate, and though I be deathless, life is alltoo short for the atonement. 

"But there is another way, and if Phaidor, daughter of the HolyHekkador of the Holy Therns, has sinned she has this day alreadymade partial reparation, and lest you doubt the sincerity of herprotestations and her avowal of a new love that embraces DejahThoris also, she will prove her sincerity in the only way thatlies open--having saved you for another, Phaidor leaves you to herembraces. "

With her last word she turned and leaped from the vessel's deckinto the abyss below. 

With a cry of horror I sprang forward in a vain attempt to save thelife that for two years I would so gladly have seen extinguished. I was too late. 

With tear-dimmed eyes I turned away that I might not see the awfulsight beneath. 

A moment later I had struck the bonds from Dejah Thoris, and as herdear arms went about my neck and her perfect lips pressed to mineI forgot the horrors that I had witnessed and the suffering thatI had endured in the rapture of my reward. 

THE NEW RULER

The flier upon whose deck Dejah Thoris and I found ourselves aftertwelve long years of separation proved entirely useless. Herbuoyancy tanks leaked badly. Her engine would not start. We werehelpless there in mid air above the arctic ice. 

The craft had drifted across the chasm which held the corpses ofMatai Shang, Thurid, and Phaidor, and now hung above a low hill. Opening the buoyancy escape valves I permitted her to come slowlyto the ground, and as she touched, Dejah Thoris and I stepped fromher deck and, hand in hand, turned back across the frozen wastetoward the city of Kadabra. 

Through the tunnel that had led me in pursuit of them we passed, walking slowly, for we had much to say to each other. 

She told me of that last terrible moment months before when thedoor of her prison cell within the Temple of the Sun was slowlyclosing between us. Of how Phaidor had sprung upon her withuplifted dagger, and of Thuvia's shriek as she had realized thefoul intention of the thern goddess. 

It had been that cry that had rung in my ears all the long, wearymonths that I had been left in cruel doubt as to my princess' fate;for I had not known that Thuvia had wrested the blade from thedaughter of Matai Shang before it had touched either Dejah Thorisor herself. 

She told me, too, of the awful eternity of her imprisonment. Ofthe cruel hatred of Phaidor, and the tender love of Thuvia, andof how even when despair was the darkest those two red girls hadclung to the same hope and belief--that John Carter would find away to release them. 

Presently we came to the chamber of Solan. I had been proceedingwithout thought of caution, for I was sure that the city and thepalace were both in the hands of my friends by this time. 

And so it was that I bolted into the chamber full into the midstof a dozen nobles of the court of Salensus Oll. They were passingthrough on their way to the outside world along the corridors wehad just traversed. 

At sight of us they halted in their tracks, and then an ugly smileoverspread the features of their leader. 

"The author of all our misfortunes!" he cried, pointing at me. "Weshall have the satisfaction of a partial vengeance at least when weleave behind us here the dead and mutilated corpses of the Princeand Princess of Helium. 

"When they find them, " he went on, jerking his thumb upward towardthe palace above, "they will realize that the vengeance of theyellow man costs his enemies dear. Prepare to die, John Carter, but that your end may be the more bitter, know that I may change myintention as to meting a merciful death to your princess--possiblyshe shall be preserved as a plaything for my nobles. "

I stood close to the instrument-covered wall--Dejah Thoris at myside. She looked up at me wonderingly as the warriors advancedupon us with drawn swords, for mine still hung within its scabbardat my side, and there was a smile upon my lips. 

The yellow nobles, too, looked in surprise, and then as I made nomove to draw they hesitated, fearing a ruse; but their leader urgedthem on. When they had come almost within sword's reach of meI raised my hand and laid it upon the polished surface of a greatlever, and then, still smiling grimly, I looked my enemies full inthe face. 

As one they came to a sudden stop, casting affrighted glances atme and at one another. 

"Stop!" shrieked their leader. "You dream not what you do!"

"Right you are, " I replied. "John Carter does not dream. Heknows--knows that should one of you take another step toward DejahThoris, Princess of Helium, I pull this lever wide, and she and Ishall die together; but we shall not die alone. "

The nobles shrank back, whispering together for a few moments. Atlast their leader turned to me. 

"Go your way, John Carter, " he said, "and we shall go ours. "

"Prisoners do not go their own way, " I answered, "and you areprisoners--prisoners of the Prince of Helium. "

Before they could make answer a door upon the opposite side of theapartment opened and a score of yellow men poured into the apartment. For an instant the nobles looked relieved, and then as their eyesfell upon the leader of the new party their faces fell, for he wasTalu, rebel Prince of Marentina, and they knew that they could lookfor neither aid nor mercy at his hands. 

"Well done, John Carter, " he cried. "You turn their own mightypower against them. Fortunate for Okar is it that you were hereto prevent their escape, for these be the greatest villains northof the ice-barrier, and this one"--pointing to the leader of theparty--"would have made himself Jeddak of Jeddaks in the placeof the dead Salensus Oll. Then indeed would we have had a morevillainous ruler than the hated tyrant who fell before your sword. "

The Okarian nobles now submitted to arrest, since nothing but deathfaced them should they resist, and, escorted by the warriors ofTalu, we made our way to the great audience chamber that had beenSalensus Oll's. Here was a vast concourse of warriors. 

Red men from Helium and Ptarth, yellow men of the north, rubbingelbows with the blacks of the First Born who had come under myfriend Xodar to help in the search for me and my princess. Therewere savage, green warriors from the dead sea bottoms of the south, and a handful of white-skinned therns who had renounced theirreligion and sworn allegiance to Xodar. 

There was Tardos Mors and Mors Kajak, and tall and mighty in hisgorgeous warrior trappings, Carthoris, my son. These three fellupon Dejah Thoris as we entered the apartment, and though the livesand training of royal Martians tend not toward vulgar demonstration, I thought that they would suffocate her with their embraces. 

And there were Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, and Kantos Kan, my old-time friends, and leaping and tearing at my harness in theexuberance of his great love was dear old Woola--frantic mad withhappiness. 

Long and loud was the cheering that burst forth at sight of us;deafening was the din of ringing metal as the veteran warriors ofevery Martian clime clashed their blades together on high in tokenof success and victory, but as I passed among the throng of salutingnobles and warriors, jeds and jeddaks, my heart still was heavy, for there were two faces missing that I would have given much tohave seen there--Thuvan Dihn and Thuvia of Ptarth were not to befound in the great chamber. 

I made inquiries concerning them among men of every nation, and atlast from one of the yellow prisoners of war I learned that theyhad been apprehended by an officer of the palace as they sought toreach the Pit of Plenty while I lay imprisoned there. 

I did not need to ask to know what had sent them thither--thecourageous jeddak and his loyal daughter. My informer said thatthey lay now in one of the many buried dungeons of the palacewhere they had been placed pending a decision as to their fate bythe tyrant of the north. 

A moment later searching parties were scouring the ancient pile insearch of them, and my cup of happiness was full when I saw thembeing escorted into the room by a cheering guard of honor. 

Thuvia's first act was to rush to the side of Dejah Thoris, and Ineeded no better proof of the love these two bore for each otherthan the sincerity with which they embraced. 

Looking down upon that crowded chamber stood the silent and emptythrone of Okar. 

Of all the strange scenes it must have witnessed since that long-deadage that had first seen a Jeddak of Jeddaks take his seat uponit, none might compare with that upon which it now looked down, and as I pondered the past and future of that long-buried race ofblack-bearded yellow men I thought that I saw a brighter and moreuseful existence for them among the great family of friendly nationsthat now stretched from the south pole almost to their very doors. 

Twenty-two years before I had been cast, naked and a stranger, intothis strange and savage world. The hand of every race and nationwas raised in continual strife and warring against the men ofevery other land and color. Today, by the might of my sword and theloyalty of the friends my sword had made for me, black man and white, red man and green rubbed shoulders in peace and good-fellowship. All the nations of Barsoom were not yet as one, but a greatstride forward toward that goal had been taken, and now if I couldbut cement the fierce yellow race into this solidarity of nationsI should feel that I had rounded out a great lifework, and repaidto Mars at least a portion of the immense debt of gratitude I owedher for having given me my Dejah Thoris. 

And as I thought, I saw but one way, and a single man who couldinsure the success of my hopes. As is ever the way with me, I actedthen as I always act--without deliberation and without consultation. 

Those who do not like my plans and my ways of promoting them havealways their swords at their sides wherewith to back up theirdisapproval; but now there seemed to be no dissenting voice, as, grasping Talu by the arm, I sprang to the throne that had once beenSalensus Oll's. 

"Warriors of Barsoom, " I cried, "Kadabra has fallen, and with herthe hateful tyrant of the north; but the integrity of Okar must bepreserved. The red men are ruled by red jeddaks, the green warriorsof the ancient seas acknowledge none but a green ruler, the FirstBorn of the south pole take their law from black Xodar; nor wouldit be to the interests of either yellow or red man were a red jeddakto sit upon the throne of Okar. 

"There be but one warrior best fitted for the ancient and mightytitle of Jeddak of Jeddaks of the North. Men of Okar, raise yourswords to your new ruler--Talu, the rebel prince of Marentina!"

And then a great cry of rejoicing rose among the free men ofMarentina and the Kadabran prisoners, for all had thought that thered men would retain that which they had taken by force of arms, for such had been the way upon Barsoom, and that they should beruled henceforth by an alien Jeddak. 

The victorious warriors who had followed Carthoris joined in themad demonstration, and amidst the wild confusion and the tumultand the cheering, Dejah Thoris and I passed out into the gorgeousgarden of the jeddaks that graces the inner courtyard of the palaceof Kadabra. 

At our heels walked Woola, and upon a carved seat of wondrousbeauty beneath a bower of purple blooms we saw two who had precededus--Thuvia of Ptarth and Carthoris of Helium. 

The handsome head of the handsome youth was bent low above thebeautiful face of his companion. I looked at Dejah Thoris, smiling, and as I drew her close to me I whispered: "Why not?"

Indeed, why not? What matter ages in this world of perpetual youth?

We remained at Kadabra, the guests of Talu, until after his formalinduction into office, and then, upon the great fleet which I hadbeen so fortunate to preserve from destruction, we sailed southacross the ice-barrier; but not before we had witnessed the totaldemolition of the grim Guardian of the North under orders of thenew Jeddak of Jeddaks. 

"Henceforth, " he said, as the work was completed, "the fleetsof the red men and the black are free to come and go across theice-barrier as over their own lands. 

"The Carrion Caves shall be cleansed, that the green men may findan easy way to the land of the yellow, and the hunting of the sacredapt shall be the sport of my nobles until no single specimen ofthat hideous creature roams the frozen north. "

We bade our yellow friends farewell with real regret, as we setsail for Ptarth. There we remained, the guest of Thuvan Dihn, fora month; and I could see that Carthoris would have remained foreverhad he not been a Prince of Helium. 

Above the mighty forests of Kaol we hovered until word from KulanTith brought us to his single landing-tower, where all day and halfa night the vessels disembarked their crews. At the city of Kaolwe visited, cementing the new ties that had been formed betweenKaol and Helium, and then one long-to-be-remembered day we sightedthe tall, thin towers of the twin cities of Helium. 

The people had long been preparing for our coming. The sky wasgorgeous with gaily trimmed fliers. Every roof within both citieswas spread with costly silks and tapestries. 

Gold and jewels were scattered over roof and street and plaza, so that the two cities seemed ablaze with the fires of the heartsof the magnificent stones and burnished metal that reflected thebrilliant sunlight, changing it into countless glorious hues. 

At last, after twelve years, the royal family of Helium was reunitedin their own mighty city, surrounded by joy-mad millions beforethe palace gates. Women and children and mighty warriors wept ingratitude for the fate that had restored their beloved Tardos Morsand the divine princess whom the whole nation idolized. Nor didany of us who had been upon that expedition of indescribable dangerand glory lack for plaudits. 

That night a messenger came to me as I sat with Dejah Thoris andCarthoris upon the roof of my city palace, where we had long sincecaused a lovely garden to be made that we three might find seclusionand quiet happiness among ourselves, far from the pomp and ceremonyof court, to summon us to the Temple of Reward--"where one is tobe judged this night, " the summons concluded. 

I racked my brain to try and determine what important case theremight be pending which could call the royal family from their palaceson the eve of their return to Helium after years of absence; butwhen the jeddak summons no man delays. 

As our flier touched the landing stage at the temple's top we sawcountless other craft arriving and departing. In the streets belowa great multitude surged toward the great gates of the temple. 

Slowly there came to me the recollection of the deferred doom thatawaited me since that time I had been tried here in the Temple byZat Arras for the sin of returning from the Valley Dor and the LostSea of Korus. 

Could it be possible that the strict sense of justice which dominatesthe men of Mars had caused them to overlook the great good thathad come out of my heresy? Could they ignore the fact that to me, and me alone, was due the rescue of Carthoris, of Dejah Thoris, ofMors Kajak, of Tardos Mors?

I could not believe it, and yet for what other purpose could I havebeen summoned to the Temple of Reward immediately upon the returnof Tardos Mors to his throne?

My first surprise as I entered the temple and approached the Throneof Righteousness was to note the men who sat there as judges. Therewas Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol, whom we had but just left withinhis own palace a few days since; there was Thuvan Dihn, Jeddak ofPtarth--how came he to Helium as soon as we?

There was Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, and Xodar, Jeddak of theFirst Born; there was Talu, Jeddak of Jeddaks of the North, whomI could have sworn was still in his ice-bound hothouse city beyondthe northern barrier, and among them sat Tardos Mors and Mors Kajak, with enough lesser jeds and jeddaks to make up the thirty-one whomust sit in judgment upon their fellow-man. 

A right royal tribunal indeed, and such a one, I warrant, as neverbefore sat together during all the history of ancient Mars. 

As I entered, silence fell upon the great concourse of people thatpacked the auditorium. Then Tardos Mors arose. 

"John Carter, " he said in his deep, martial voice, "take your placeupon the Pedestal of Truth, for you are to be tried by a fair andimpartial tribunal of your fellow-men. "

With level eye and high-held head I did as he bade, and as I glancedabout that circle of faces that a moment before I could have sworncontained the best friends I had upon Barsoom, I saw no singlefriendly glance--only stern, uncompromising judges, there to dotheir duty. 

A clerk rose and from a great book read a long list of the morenotable deeds that I had thought to my credit, covering a long periodof twenty-two years since first I had stepped the ocher sea bottombeside the incubator of the Tharks. With the others he read ofall that I had done within the circle of the Otz Mountains wherethe Holy Therns and the First Born had held sway. 

It is the way upon Barsoom to recite a man's virtues with his sinswhen he is come to trial, and so I was not surprised that all thatwas to my credit should be read there to my judges--who knew itall by heart--even down to the present moment. When the readinghad ceased Tardos Mors arose. 

"Most righteous judges, " he exclaimed, "you have heard recited allthat is known of John Carter, Prince of Helium--the good with thebad. What is your judgment?"

Then Tars Tarkas came slowly to his feet, unfolding all his mighty, towering height until he loomed, a green-bronze statue, far aboveus all. He turned a baleful eye upon me--he, Tars Tarkas, with whomI had fought through countless battles; whom I loved as a brother. 

I could have wept had I not been so mad with rage that I almostwhipped my sword out and had at them all upon the spot. 

"Judges, " he said, "there can be but one verdict. No longer mayJohn Carter be Prince of Helium"--he paused--"but instead let himbe Jeddak of Jeddaks, Warlord of Barsoom!"

As the thirty-one judges sprang to their feet with drawn andupraised swords in unanimous concurrence in the verdict, the stormbroke throughout the length and breadth and height of that mightybuilding until I thought the roof would fall from the thunder ofthe mad shouting. 

Now, at last, I saw the grim humor of the method they had adoptedto do me this great honor, but that there was any hoax in the realityof the title they had conferred upon me was readily disproved bythe sincerity of the congratulations that were heaped upon me bythe judges first and then the nobles. 

Presently fifty of the mightiest nobles of the greatest courts ofMars marched down the broad Aisle of Hope bearing a splendid carupon their shoulders, and as the people saw who sat within, thecheers that had rung out for me paled into insignificance besidethose which thundered through the vast edifice now, for she whomthe nobles carried was Dejah Thoris, beloved Princess of Helium. 

Straight to the Throne of Righteousness they bore her, and thereTardos Mors assisted her from the car, leading her forward to myside. 

"Let a world's most beautiful woman share the honor of her husband, "he said. 

Before them all I drew my wife close to me and kissed her upon the lips.