The Warlord Of Mars / Burroughs, Edgar Rice

[pg/etext93/wmars10.txt]

June, 1993  [Etext #68]
This etext was typed by Judy Boss, proofread by Charles Keller.

The 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

THE WARLORD OF MARS

ON THE RIVER ISS

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

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

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

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

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

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

The smoke from the burning temple had come then to blot out
the tragedy, but in my ears rang the single shriek as the knife
fell.  Then silence, and when the smoke had cleared, the revolving
temple had shut off all sight or sound from the chamber in which
the three beautiful 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,
and all the time that I could spare from the numerous duties that
had devolved upon me in the reconstruction of the government of the
First Born since our victorious fleet and land forces had
overwhelmed them, had been spent close to the grim shaft that held
the mother of my boy, Carthoris of Helium.

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

From the high pinnacle of their egotism the First Born had
been plunged to the depths of humiliation.  Their deity was gone,
and with her the whole false fabric of their religion.  Their
vaunted navy had fallen in defeat before the superior ships and
fighting men of the red men of Helium.

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

Almost unanimous was the request that I ascend the ancient throne
of 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 race
that had heaped indignities upon my princess and my son.

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

The peace of the Valley Dor thus assured, the green warriors
dispersed to their desolate sea bottoms, while we of Helium
returned to our own country.  Here again was a throne offered me,
since no word had 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
northern hemisphere in search of Carthoris, and at last their
disheartened people had accepted as truth the vague rumors of their
death that had filtered in from the frozen region of the pole.

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

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

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

As one, the nobles and the people lifted their voices in a
long cheer of approbation.  Ten thousand swords sprang on high from
as many scabbards, and the glorious fighting men of ancient Helium
hailed 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 arranged this important duty for Helium, I started
the following day for the Valley Dor that I might remain close to
the Temple of the Sun until the fateful day that should see the
opening of the prison cell where my lost love lay buried.

Hor Vastus and Kantos Kan, with my other noble lieutenants,
I left with Carthoris at Helium, that he might have the benefit
of their wisdom, bravery, and loyalty in the performance of the
arduous duties 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 his ten short, muscular legs; but to me he was the
embodiment of love and 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 low with my bare hands in the courtyard of the Temple of Issus,
and bound him with his own harness before the noble men and women
who had but a moment before been extolling his prowess.

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

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

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

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

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

So it was that I remained hidden until after Thurid had
disappeared over the edge of the steep bank beside the sea a
quarter of a mile away.  Then, with Woola following, I hastened
across the open after the 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 south
pole of the dying planet.  In the far distance the Golden Cliffs
raised their mighty barrier faces far into the starlit heavens,
the precious metals and scintillating jewels that composed them
sparkling in the brilliant light of Mars's two gorgeous moons.

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

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

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

There was no longer a Holy Thern upon the balcony in the Golden
Cliffs above the Iss to summon them with weird cry to the victims
floating down to their maws upon the cold, broad bosom of ancient Iss.

The navies of Helium and the First Born had cleared the
fortresses and the temples of the therns when they had refused to
surrender and accept the new order of things that had swept their
false religion from 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
driven from his temple.  Strenuous had been our endeavors to
capture him; but with a few of the faithful he had escaped, and was
in hiding--where we knew not.

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

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

The pursuit of Thurid carried me along the edge of the sea
toward the 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 near four hours, so that I was ensured concealing darkness for
that length of time at least.

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

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

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

It seemed hopeless to attempt to follow him here where I could
not see my hand before my face, and I was almost on the point of
giving up the pursuit and drifting back to the mouth of the river,
there to await his return, when a sudden bend showed a faint
luminosity ahead.

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

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

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

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

In the awful stench of these frightful charnel isles haggard
maniacs screamed and gibbered and fought among the torn remnants of
their grisly feasts; while on those which contained but clean-
picked bones they battled with one another, the weaker furnishing
sustenance for the stronger; or with clawlike hands clutched at the
bloated bodies that drifted down with the current.

Thurid paid not the slightest attention to the screaming things
that either menaced or pleaded with him as the mood directed
them--evidently he was familiar with the horrid sights that
surrounded him.  He continued up the river for perhaps a mile;
and then, crossing over to the left bank, drew his craft up on
a low ledge that lay almost on a level with the water.

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

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

As I lay there beneath the dark rocks I noticed that a strong
current seemed to flow directly toward the center of the river,
so that it was difficult to hold my craft in its position.  I edged
farther into the shadow that I might find a hold upon the bank;
but, though I proceeded several yards, I touched nothing; and then,
finding that I would soon reach a point from where I could no
longer see the black man, I was compelled to remain where I was,
holding my position as best I could by paddling strongly against
the current which flowed from beneath the rocky mass behind me.

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

While I was still speculating upon the phenomenon, my
attention was suddenly riveted upon Thurid, who had raised both
palms forward above his head in the universal salute of Martians,
and a moment later his "Kaor!" the Barsoomian word of greeting,
came in low but distinct 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
long boat, in which were six men.  Five were at the paddles,
while the sixth sat in the seat of honor.

The white skins, the flowing yellow wigs which covered their
bald pates, and the gorgeous diadems set in circlets of gold
about their heads 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 that it was none other than Matai Shang, Father of Therns.

The evident cordiality with which the two men exchanged
greetings filled me with wonder, for the black and white men of
Barsoom were hereditary enemies--nor ever before had I known of
two meeting other than in battle.

Evidently the reverses that had recently overtaken both peoples
had resulted in an alliance between these two individuals--at
least against the common enemy--and now I saw why Thurid had
come so often out into the Valley Dor by night, and that the
nature of his conspiring might be such as to strike very close
to me or to my friends.

I wished that I might have found a point closer to the two men
from which to have heard their conversation; but it was out of the
question now to attempt to cross the river, and so I lay quietly
watching them, who would have given so much to have known how close
I lay to them, and how easily they might have overcome and killed
me with their superior force.

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

As they advanced I moved my boat farther and farther in
beneath the overhanging wall, but at last it became evident that
their craft was holding the same course.  The five paddlers sent
the larger boat 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
saw the faint tinge of a distant radiance, and still the water
before me was open.

At last the truth dawned upon me--I was following a subterranean
river which emptied into the Iss at the very point where I had hidden.

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

There was no time to be lost.  Whatever action I was to take must
be 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 Shang
and Thurid approached up the center of the stream, which was much
narrower than the Iss.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ah," he continued with a malicious snarl, "but the Earth man
shall suffer for the indignities he has put upon the holy of
holies, nor shall any vileness be too vile to inflict upon his
princess.  Would that it were in my power to force him to witness
the humiliation and 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
before the 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,"
replied Thurid.  "Only Issus knew this; nor was it ever Issus' way
to divulge more of her secrets than were necessary.  By chance,
after her death, I came upon an ancient plan of the temple,
and there I found, plainly writ, the most minute directions
for reaching the cells at any time.

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

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

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

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

It was with difficulty that I restrained myself from rushing upon
them and slaying the two vile plotters; but quickly I saw the mad
rashness of such an act, which would cut down the only man who
could lead the way to Dejah Thoris' prison before the long
Martian year had 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
Cliffs out of the bowels of the Mountains of Otz to mingle its dark
waters with the grim and mysterious Iss the faint glow which had
appeared before us grew gradually into an all-enveloping radiance.

The river widened until it presented the aspect of a large
lake whose vaulted dome, lighted by glowing phosphorescent rock,
was splashed with the vivid rays of the diamond, the sapphire,
the ruby, and the countless, nameless jewels of Barsoom which lay
incrusted in the virgin gold which forms the major portion of these
magnificent cliffs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here the way was through utter darkness.  The stream was narrow--
so narrow that in the blackness I was constantly bumping first
one rock wall and then another as the river wound hither and
thither along its flinty bed.

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

Directly before me the river thundered down from above in a
mighty waterfall that filled the narrow gorge from side to side,
rising far above me several hundred feet--as magnificent a
spectacle as I ever had seen.

But the roar--the awful, deafening roar of those tumbling
waters penned in the rocky, subterranean vault!  Had the fall not
entirely blocked my further passage and shown me that I had
followed the wrong course I believe that I should have fled anyway
before the maddening tumult.

Thurid and the therns could not have come this way.  By
stumbling upon the wrong course I had lost the trail, and they had
gained so much ahead of me that now I might not be able to find
them before it 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
against the strong current, and other hours would be required for
the descent, although the pace would be much swifter.

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

Two unexplored channels still remained from which to choose;
nor was there any means by which I could judge which was the more
likely to lead me to the plotters.

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

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

Several times I essayed the right-hand entrance only to turn
back as though warned by some strange intuitive sense that
this was not the way.  At last, convinced by the oft-recurring
phenomenon, I cast my all upon the left-hand archway; yet it was
with a lingering doubt that I turned a parting look at the sullen
waters which rolled, dark and forbidding, from beneath the grim,
low archway on the right.

And as I looked there came bobbing out upon the current from
the Stygian 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, insensate
messenger floated past me, on toward the Iss and Korus, for it
told me that journeying Martians were above me on that very stream.

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

Quickly I abandoned all thought of the left-hand passage, and
a moment 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
behind those I was tracking.  Neither Woola nor I had eaten since
the previous day, but in so far as he was concerned it mattered but
little, since practically all the animals of the dead sea bottoms
of Mars are able to go for incredible periods without nourishment.

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

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

My heart sank within me.  The sorapus nutshell had proved a
false prophet, and, after all, my intuition had been correct--it
was the left-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 overhanging side,
and to rest my tired muscles before turning back I let my boat drift
into its embrace.

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

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

In an instant I was on the alert, for there could be no wood
within that buried river that had not been man brought.  Almost
coincidentally with my first apprehension of the noise, my hand
shot out across the boat's side, and a second later I felt my
fingers gripping the gunwale of another craft.

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

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

Peer as I would I could not penetrate the darkness, and then
I listened intently for the sound of breathing near me; but except
for the noise of the rapids, the soft scraping of the boats, and
the lapping 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
I gathered it up, and making one end fast to the bronze ring in the
prow I stepped gingerly into the boat beside me.  In one hand I
grasped the rope, in the other my keen long-sword.

For a full minute, perhaps, I stood motionless after entering
the strange craft.  It had rocked a trifle beneath my weight, but
it had been the scraping of its side against the side of my own
boat that had seemed most likely to alarm its occupants, if there
were any.

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

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

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

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

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

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

As I turned to discover the cause of his act he continued to pull
me steadily in the opposite direction, nor would he desist until I
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,
so it was with a feeling of entire security that I moved cautiously
in the huge beast's wake.  Through Cimmerian darkness he moved
along the narrow ledge beside the boiling rapids.

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

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

Even as my mind framed the thought, Woola halted suddenly
before a narrow, arched doorway in the cliff by the trail's side.
Quickly he crouched back away from the entrance, at the same time
turning his eyes toward me.

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

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

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

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

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

"I believe you, Lakor," replied the other, "there can never be
aught else than deadly hatred between thern and First Born.  And
what think you of the ridiculous matter of the light?  `Let the
light shine with the intensity of three radium units for fifty
tals, and for one xat let it shine with the intensity of one radium
unit, and then for twenty-five tals with nine units.'  Those were
his very words, and to think that wise old Matai Shang should
listen to such foolishness."

"Indeed, it is silly," replied Lakor.  "It will open nothing
other than the way to a quick death for us all.  He had to make
some answer when Matai Shang asked him flatly what he should do
when he came to the Temple of the Sun, and so he made his answer
quickly from his imagination--I would wager a hekkador's diadem
that he could 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 rescue
Matai Shang, and wreak our own vengeance upon the black dator.
What say you?"

"Never in a long life," answered Lakor, "have I disobeyed a
single command of the Father of Therns.  I shall stay here
until I rot if he 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
from Woola's actions that the trail led through the room where the
two therns held guard.  I had no reason to harbor any considerable
love for this race of self-deified demons, yet I would have passed
them by 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 have
gone down before fighters of meaner ability than that possessed
by the fierce thern warriors.

Signaling Woola to heel I stepped suddenly into the room before the
two men.  At sight of me their long-swords flashed from the harness
at 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 he is
as much your enemy as mine, and you can have no cause to protect him."

They lowered their swords and Lakor spoke.

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

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

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

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

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

"I believe that you will see the wisdom of permitting me to
pass unmolested," I said, "for it would avail you nothing to die
uselessly in 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 by
the moldering corpses of all the many great Barsoomian warriors who
have gone down beneath this blade--I am John Carter, Prince of Helium."

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

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

"Hold!" commanded Lakor.  "There will be plenty of time to
fight if we find it wise to fight at all.  There be good reasons
why every thern 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
still be here to bar his way to the outer world, and thus we shall
have rid ourselves of two enemies, nor have incurred the
displeasure of the Father of Therns."

As he spoke I could not but note the crafty glint in his evil eyes,
and while I saw the apparent logic of his reasoning I felt,
subconsciously perhaps, that his words did but veil some sinister
intent.  The other thern turned toward him in evident surprise,
but when 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
does not lay you low there will be those awaiting your return
who will see that you never pass again into the sunlight of
the upper world.  Go!"

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

Beyond the therns several doorways opened off the guardroom,
and toward 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
beast whined and held back, and at last ran quickly to the first
opening at the left, where he stood emitting his coughing bark,
as though urging 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
your superior knowledge, Thern, I think that I shall do well to
listen to the voice of instinct that is backed by love and loyalty."

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

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

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

These same lamps may have been doing continuous duty in these
subterranean chambers for ages, since they require no attention
and are so compounded that they give off but the minutest of
their substance in the generation of years of luminosity.

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

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

Here we waited; nor did we have long to wait, for presently we
saw the shadows of two men fall upon the floor of the main corridor
athwart the doorway of our hiding place.  Very cautiously they were
moving now--the accidental clank that had alarmed me was not repeated.

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

They walked very softly, and in the right hand of each gleamed
a keen long-sword.  They halted quite close to the entrance of
our retreat, 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 shorter
to this point--for him who knows it.  John Carter would have found
it a short road to death had he taken it as you suggested to him."

"Yes," said Lakor, "no amount of fighting ability would have
saved him from the pivoted flagstone.  He surely would have
stepped upon it, and by now, if the pit beneath it has a bottom,
which Thurid denies, he should have been rapidly approaching it.
Curses on that calot 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 escaping our two good swords.  Consider, for example, what
chance he will have, coming unexpectedly into the chamber of----"

I would have given much to have heard the balance of that conversation
that I might have been warned of the perils that lay ahead,
but fate intervened, and just at the very instant of all other
instants that 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
have any advantage as I sprang, sword in hand, into the corridor
before the two therns, for my untimely sneeze had warned them of
my presence and 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.  That
they 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
very name of thern, I must in all fairness admit that they are
mighty swordsmen; and these two were no exception, unless it were
that they were even more skilled and fearless than the average
among their race.

While it lasted it was indeed as joyous a conflict as I ever
had experienced.  Twice at least I saved my breast from the mortal
thrust of piercing steel only by the wondrous agility with which my
earthly muscles endow me under the conditions of lesser gravity and
air pressure upon Mars.

Yet even so I came near to tasting death that day in the gloomy
corridor beneath Mars's southern pole, for Lakor played a
trick upon me that in all my experience of fighting upon two
planets I never before had witnessed the like of.

The other thern was engaging me at the time, and I was forcing
him back--touching him here and there with my point until he was
bleeding from a dozen wounds, yet not being able to penetrate his
marvelous guard to reach a vulnerable spot for the brief instant
that 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 end
of it about my left ankle so that it wound there for an instant,
while he jerked suddenly upon the other end, throwing me
heavily upon my back.

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

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

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

Never had I had the heart to punish Woola during the long years that
had passed since that first day upon Mars when the green jed of the
Tharks had placed him on guard over me, and I had won his love and
loyalty from the cruel and loveless masters of his former life,
yet I believe he would have submitted to any cruelty that I might
have inflicted upon him, so wondrous was his affection for me.

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

As I stood for a moment looking at the gruesome havoc Woola
had wrought, there recurred to me the memory of that other occasion
upon which I had masqueraded in the wig, diadem, and harness of
Sator Throg, the Holy Thern whom Thuvia of Ptarth had slain, and
now it occurred to me that it might prove of worth to utilize
Lakor's trappings for the same purpose.

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

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

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

At the bottom of a flight of narrow steps the corridor turned
sharply back upon itself, immediately making another turn in the
original direction, so that at that point it formed a perfect
letter S, the top leg of which debouched suddenly into a large
chamber, illy lighted, and the floor of which was completely
covered by venomous snakes and loathsome reptiles.

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

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

These were the only reptiles I had ever seen upon Barsoom,
but I knew from their similarity to the fossilized remains of
supposedly extinct species I had seen in the museums of Helium
that they comprised many of the known prehistoric reptilian genera,
as well as others undiscovered.

A more hideous aggregation of monsters had never before assailed
my vision.  It would be futile to attempt to describe them
to Earth men, since substance is the only thing which they possess
in common with any creature of the past or present with which you
are familiar--even their venom is of an unearthly virulence that,
by comparison, would make the cobra de capello seem quite as
harmless as an angleworm.

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

I had been quite sure that they would not venture beyond the
room in which I had discovered them, though I had not guessed at
what deterred them.  The simple fact that we had found no reptiles
in the corridor through which we had just come was sufficient
assurance that they did not venture there.

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

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

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

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

From the high dome of this mighty apartment a huge circular column
extended to the floor, and as I watched I saw that it slowly revolved.

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
reach them, now that I had found the only vulnerable spot
in their mighty prison, 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 examined it in mild curiosity as to its presence there in this
almost inaccessible and unknown spot, I came suddenly upon the
insignia of the house of Thurid jewel-inset in its metal case.

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

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

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

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

Turning away abruptly, I called to him to follow me.  For a
moment he hesitated, and then leaped after me, whining and tugging
at my harness to draw me back.  I walked on, however, some distance
from the door before I let him have his way, that I might see
precisely what he would do.  Then I permitted him to lead me
wherever he would.

Straight back to that baffling portal he dragged me, again
taking up his position facing the blank stone, gazing straight at
its shining surface.  For an hour I worked to solve the mystery of
the combination 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
Thurid had come this way without other assistance than his own
knowledge and passed through the door that barred my progress,
unaided from within.  But how had he accomplished it?

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

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

As I examined the heterogeneous collection of odds and ends that
is always to be found in the pocket-pouch of a Martian warrior my
hand 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
present predicament my eyes chanced upon a few strange characters
roughly and freshly scratched upon the soft gold of the case.

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

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

For only an instant my curiosity was piqued, and then I
replaced the torch in my pocket-pouch, but my fingers had not
unclasped from it when there rushed to my memory the recollection
of the conversation between Lakor and his companion when the lesser
thern had quoted the words of Thurid and scoffed at them:  "And what
think you of the ridiculous matter of the light?  Let the light
shine with the intensity of three radium units for fifty tals"--ah,
there was the first line of characters upon the torch's metal case--
3--50 T; "and for one xat let it shine with the intensity of one
radium unit"--there was the second line; "and then for twenty-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 the litter of my pocket-pouch, I applied myself to a careful
examination of the marble immediately about the pinhole in the door.
I could have cried aloud in exultation when my scrutiny
disclosed the almost invisible incrustation of particles of
carbonized electrons which are thrown off by these Martian torches.

It was evident that for countless ages radium torches had been
applied to this pinhole, and for what purpose there could be but a
single answer--the mechanism of the lock was actuated by light
rays; and I, John Carter, Prince of Helium, held the combination in
my hand--scratched by the hand of my enemy upon his own torch case.

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

Timing my operations carefully, I held the torch to the small
aperture in the door, regulating the intensity of the light by
means of the thumb-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
seconds of my life.  Would the lock click at the end of those
seemingly interminable intervals of time?

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

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

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

Back and back it slid for ten feet until it had disclosed at its
right a narrow doorway leading into a dark and narrow corridor
that paralleled the outer wall.  Scarcely was the entrance
uncovered than Woola and I had leaped through--then the door
slipped quietly back into place.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We had proceeded but a few yards along the corridor that had
given us entrance to this strange maze when Woola gave mouth to
a most frightful roar, at the same time dashing against the clear
partition at our left.

The resounding echoes of that fearsome cry were still
reverberating through the subterranean chambers when I saw the
thing that had startled it from the faithful beast.

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

At the same instant, evidently startled by Woola's fierce cry,
they halted 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 could see that her lips moved--it was Dejah Thoris, my ever
beautiful and 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 therns
that had accompanied them.

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

They say that love is blind; but so great a love as that of Dejah Thoris
that knew me even beneath the thern disguise I wore and across the
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
tedious days that Woola and I spent ferreting our way across the
labyrinth of glass, through the dark and devious ways beyond that
led beneath the Valley Dor and Golden Cliffs to emerge at last upon
the flank of the Otz Mountains just above the Valley of Lost Souls--
that pitiful purgatory peopled by the poor unfortunates who dare
not continue their abandoned pilgrimage to Dor, or return to the
various lands 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 appalling precipices,
and sometimes out into the valley, where we found fighting aplenty
with the members of the various tribes that make up the population
of this vale of hopelessness.

But through it all we came at last to where the way led up a
narrow gorge that grew steeper and more impracticable at every step
until before us loomed a mighty fortress buried beneath the side of
an overhanging cliff.

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

Darkness was just falling as we came in sight of the seemingly
impregnable walls of this mountain stronghold, and lest we be
seen I drew back with Woola behind a jutting granite promontory,
into a clump of the hardy, purple scrub that thrives upon the
barren sides of Otz.

Here we lay until the quick transition from daylight to darkness
had passed.  Then I crept out to approach the fortress walls
in search of a way within.

Either through carelessness or over-confidence in the supposed
inaccessibility of their hiding place, the triple-barred gate
stood ajar.  Beyond were a handful of guards, laughing and
talking over one of their incomprehensible Barsoomian games.

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

The men stopped their game and looked up at me, but there was no
sign of suspicion.  Similarly they looked at Woola, growling at
my heel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The nasty laugh that came to my ears through the heavy
planking of the door after the lock clicked was my first intimation
that all was 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,
though tardily, aroused; then, with a shrug of my shoulders,
I opened the door and stepped out into the glare of torches
that lighted the inner court.

Directly opposite me a massive tower rose to a height of three
hundred feet.  It was of the strangely beautiful modern Barsoomian
style of architecture, its entire surface hand carved in bold
relief with intricate and fanciful designs.  Thirty feet above the
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 handful
of thern warriors stood just behind the little party.

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

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

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

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

"Earth man," he cried, "you have earned a more ignoble death
than now lies within our weakened power to inflict upon you;
but that the death you die tonight may be doubly bitter, know
you that when you have passed, your widow becomes the wife of
Matai Shang, Hekkador of 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 and
honored life as high priestess of some hallowed shrine.  Instead,
Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, shall become the plaything of my
lieutenants--perhaps of thy most hated enemy, Thurid, the black dator."

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

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

Of all the holy of holies which the thern venerates and worships none
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 I
wiped my feet upon the yellow tresses; and as a groan of rage arose
from the balcony I spat full upon the holy diadem.

Matai Shang went livid with anger, but upon the lips of Thurid
I could see a grim smile of amusement, for to him these things were
not holy; so, lest he should derive too much amusement from my act,
I cried:  "And thus did I with the holies of Issus, Goddess of Life
Eternal, ere I threw Issus herself to the mob that once had
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
the favor of Issus.

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

Matai Shang rose and, leaning over the edge of the balcony,
gave voice to the weird call that I had heard from the lips of the
priests upon the tiny balcony upon the face of the Golden Cliffs
overlooking the Valley Dor, when, in times past, they called the
fearsome white apes and the hideous plant men to the feast of
victims floating down the broad bosom of the mysterious Iss toward
the silian-infested waters of the Lost Sea of Korus.
"Let loose the death!" he cried, and immediately a dozen
doors in the base of the tower swung open, and a dozen grim
and terrible banths sprang into the arena.

This was not the first time that I had faced the ferocious
Barsoomian lion, but never had I been pitted, single-handed,
against a full dozen of them.  Even with the assistance of
the fierce Woola, there could be but a single outcome to so
unequal a struggle.

For a moment the beasts hesitated beneath the brilliant glare
of the torches; but presently their eyes, becoming accustomed to
the light, fell upon Woola and me, and with bristling manes and
deep-throated roars they advanced, lashing their tawny sides with
their 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 set
in an expression of horror; and as my eyes met hers she extended
both arms toward me as, struggling with the guards who now held her,
she endeavored to cast herself from the balcony into the pit beneath,
that she might share my death with me.  Then, as the banths were about
to close upon me, she turned and buried her dear face in her arms.

Suddenly my attention was drawn toward Thuvia of Ptarth.
The beautiful girl was leaning far over the edge of the balcony,
her eyes bright with excitement.

In another instant the banths would be upon me, but I could
not force my gaze from the features of the red girl, for I knew
that her expression meant anything but the enjoyment of the grim
tragedy that 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 and
agility to escape the banths and reach the balcony, which I could
easily have done, but I could not bring myself to desert the
faithful Woola and leave him to die alone beneath the cruel fangs
of the hungry banths; that is not the way upon Barsoom, nor was it
ever the way of John Carter.

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

At the first note of that soothing sound the banths halted in
their tracks, and every fierce head went high as the beasts sought
the origin of the familiar call.  Presently they discovered the red
girl in the balcony above them, and, turning, roared out their
recognition and their greeting.

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

"You need not fear them now, John Carter!" cried Thuvia,
before they 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
that balcony now, and with a long, running leap I sprang far aloft
until my 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
away through a door leading within the tower.

For an instant Thurid hesitated, and then, as though fearing
that the 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
she ordered to bear away Thuvia of Ptarth; the others she commanded
to remain and prevent me from following.  Then she turned toward me.

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

"You cannot save her now, for by this time they have reached a place
where even you may not follow.  Refuse and naught can save you;
for, though the way to the last stronghold of the Holy Therns
was 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 of
Helium, 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 the
outcome of the battle would be, for she turned and fled from the
balcony the moment she saw that I would have none of her proposition.

The three guardsmen did not wait for my attack.  Instead, they
rushed me--the three of them simultaneously; and it was that which
gave me an advantage, for they fouled one another in the narrow
precincts of the balcony, so that the foremost of them stumbled
full upon my blade at the first onslaught.

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

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

Through several inner chambers he raced until he came to a
spiral runway.  Up this he dashed, I in close pursuit.  At the
upper end we came out into a small chamber, the walls of which were
plank except for a single window overlooking the slopes of Otz and
the Valley of Lost Souls beyond.

Here the fellow tore frantically at what appeared to be but a
piece of the blank wall opposite the single window.  In an instant
I guessed that it was a secret exit from the room, and so I paused
that he might have an opportunity to negotiate it, for I cared
nothing to take the life of this poor servitor--all I craved was a
clear road in pursuit of Dejah Thoris, my long-lost princess.

But, try as he would, the panel would yield neither to cunning
nor force, so that eventually he gave it up and turned to face me.

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

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

The fellow was a clever swordsman--resourceful and extremely tricky.
In fact, he seemed never to have heard that there existed such a thing
as a code of honor, for he repeatedly outraged a dozen Barsoomian
fighting customs that an honorable man would rather die than ignore.

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

When he thrust, however, I was not there, for I had fought with
therns before; and while none had ever resorted to precisely that
same expedient, I knew them to be the least honorable and most
treacherous fighters upon Mars, and so was ever on the alert for some
new and devilish subterfuge when I was engaged with one of their race.

But at length he overdid the thing; for, drawing his
shortsword, he hurled it, javelinwise, at my body, at the same
instant rushing upon me with his long-sword.  A single sweeping
circle of my own blade caught the flying weapon and hurled it
clattering against the far wall, and then, as I sidestepped my
antagonist's impetuous rush, I let him have my point full in the
stomach as he hurtled by.

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

Halting only for the brief instant that was required to wrench
my sword from the carcass of my late antagonist, I sprang across
the chamber to the blank wall beyond, through which the thern had
attempted to pass.  Here I sought for the secret of its lock,
but all to no avail.

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

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

The slopes of Otz and the distant Valley of Lost Souls held
nothing to compel my interest then; but, towering far above me,
the tower's carved wall riveted my keenest attention.

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

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

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

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

Fifty feet above me commenced a series of projecting cylindrical
stones some six inches in diameter.  These apparently circled
the tower at six-foot intervals, in bands six feet apart;
and as each stone cylinder protruded some four or five inches
beyond the surface of the other ornamentation, they presented a
comparatively easy mode of ascent could I but reach them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Matai Shang's reference to the hangar and the fliers indicated
that 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 accomplished
at last, and it was with relief that I felt my fingers close about
the lowest of the stone cylinders.

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

Some ten feet below the roof, the wall inclined slightly inward
possibly a foot in the last ten feet, and here the climbing was
indeed immeasurably easier, so that my fingers soon clutched the eaves.

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

Upon her deck were Matai Shang, Phaidor, Dejah Thoris, Thuvia
of Ptarth, and a few thern warriors, while near her was Thurid in
the act 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 about
just 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
lighted with a malignant smile as he leaped toward me, where I
was hastening to scramble to the secure footing of the roof.

Dejah Thoris must have seen me at the same instant, for she
screamed a 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's side.

ON THE KAOLIAN ROAD

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

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

Ten feet only I fell, and then a loop of my tough, leathern harness
caught upon one of the cylindrical stone projections in the tower's
surface--and held.  Even when I had ceased to fall I could not believe
the miracle that had preserved me from instant death, and for a moment
I hung there, cold sweat exuding from every pore of my body.

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

Presently, however, there came to my ears the whirring of the
propellers of a flier, and as each moment the sound grew fainter
I realized that the party had proceeded toward the south without
assuring themselves as to my fate.

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

To reach the hangar and drag forth the only other flier which
it contained was the work of but an instant; and just as the two
thern warriors whom Matai Shang had left to prevent this very
contingency emerged upon the roof from the tower's interior,
I rose above them with 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,
eyeing him and growling ominously, but they had not disobeyed
Thuvia's injunction; and I thanked the fate that had made her
their keeper within the Golden Cliffs, and endowed her with the
kind and sympathetic nature that had won the loyalty and affection
of these fierce beasts for her.

Woola leaped in frantic joy when he discovered me; and as the
flier touched the pavement of the court for a brief instant he
bounded to the deck beside me, and in the bearlike manifestation
of his exuberant happiness all but caused me to wreck the vessel
against the courtyard's rocky wall.

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

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

I had gained considerably on the craft by night; and then,
knowing that they must have sighted me and would show no lights
after dark, I set my destination compass upon her--that wonderful
little Martian 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 over
low hills and dead sea bottoms; above long-deserted cities and
populous centers of red Martian habitation upon the ribbon-like
lines 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 of me.
It was a larger craft than mine, and not so swift; but even so,
it had covered an immense distance since the flight began.

The change in vegetation below showed me that we were rapidly
nearing the equator.  I was now near enough to my quarry to have
used my bow gun; but, though I could see that Dejah Thoris was not
on deck, I feared to fire upon the craft which bore her.

Thurid was deterred by no such scruples; and though it must have been
difficult for him to believe that it was really I who followed them,
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, and an instant later
an explosive radium projectile whizzed perilously close above my deck.

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

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

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

Shot after shot tore past or into us, but by a miracle neither
Woola nor I was hit, nor were the after tanks punctured.  This good
fortune could not last indefinitely, and, assured that Thurid would
not again leave me alive, I awaited the bursting of the next shell
that hit; and then, throwing my hands above my head, I let go my hold
and crumpled, limp and inert, dangling in my harness like a corpse.

The ruse worked, and Thurid fired no more at us.  Presently I
heard the diminishing sound of whirring propellers and realized
that again I was safe.

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

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

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

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

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

For great distances in all directions rugged hills and arid
stretches of dead sea bottom discourage intercourse with them,
and since there is practically no such thing as foreign commerce
upon warlike Barsoom, where each nation is sufficient to itself,
really little has been known relative to the court of the Jeddak of Kaol
and the numerous strange, but interesting, people over whom he rules.

Occasional hunting parties have traveled to this out-of-the-way
corner of the globe, but the hostility of the natives has usually
brought disaster upon them, so that even the sport of hunting the
strange and savage creatures which haunt the jungle fastnesses
of Kaol has of later years proved insufficient lure even to the
most intrepid warriors.

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

But not so Woola.

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

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

Immense trees reared their mighty heads far above us, their broad
fronds 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 entirely
invisible from above, nor could a landing be made by any but the
smallest fliers, and then only with the greatest risk of accident.

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

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

Slender purple grasses topped with red and yellow fern-like fronds
grew rankly all about us to the height of several feet above my head.

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 the
insects which form their diet.

The repulsive calot tree was, too, much in evidence.  It is a
carnivorous plant of about the bigness of a large sage-brush such
as dots our western plains.  Each branch ends in a set of strong jaws,
which have been known to drag down and devour large and formidable
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
the arduous labor of traversing this gorgeous, twilight swamp, and
it was upon one of these that I finally decided to make camp for
the night which my chronometer warned me would soon be upon us.

Many varieties of fruit grew in abundance about us; and as Martian
calots are omnivorous, Woola had no difficulty in making a square
meal after I had brought down the viands for him.  Then, having eaten,
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
growl from Woola awakened me.  All about us I could hear the
stealthy movement of great, padded feet, and now and then the
wicked gleam of green eyes upon us.  Arising, I drew my
long-sword and waited.

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

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

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

When morning broke they were still there, walking about as in
a circle, but always just beyond the edge of the sward.  A more
terrifying aggregation of fierce and blood-thirsty monsters it
would be difficult to imagine.

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

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

Toward noon we stumbled upon a well-constructed road running
in the general direction we had been pursuing.  Everything about
this highway marked it as the work of skilled engineers, and I was
confident, from the indications of antiquity which it bore, as well
as 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 from the
jungle upon the other, and at sight of us charged madly in our direction.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His mount was walking sedately when I first perceived them, but the
instant that the red man's eyes fell upon us a word to the thoat
brought the animal at full charge down upon us.  The long lance of
the warrior dipped toward us, and as thoat and rider hurtled beneath,
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
ridden back to us.  Woola, finding his enemy inert and lifeless,
released his hold at my command and wriggled from beneath the body
that had covered him, and together we faced the warrior looking
down upon us.

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

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

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

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

"I am not a thern," I replied, and then, flinging caution to
the winds, I said:  "I am John Carter, Prince of Helium, whose
name may 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.
I grasped my long-sword more firmly as I spoke the words which I
was sure would precipitate an attack, but to my surprise they
precipitated nothing of the kind.

"John Carter, Prince of Helium," he repeated slowly, as though
he could 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
after the manner of most friendly greeting upon Mars.

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

"It would mean my instant death were my heresy to be suspected
in the court of Kulan Tith, but if I may serve you, Prince,
you have but 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 should have been.
His title of Captain of the Kaolian Road explained his timely presence
in the heart of the savage forest, for every highway upon Barsoom is
patrolled by doughty warriors of the noble class, nor is there any
service more honorable than this lonely and dangerous duty in the
less frequented sections of the domains of the red men of Barsoom.

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

The red man smiled.

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

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

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

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

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

"And now as to yourself, John Carter," he said, "I shall not
ask your business here, nor do I wish to hear it.  I have eyes and
ears and ordinary intelligence, and yesterday morning I saw the
party that came to the city of Kaol from the north in a small flier.
But one thing I ask of you, and that is: the word of John Carter
that he contemplates no overt act against either the nation
of Kaol or its 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.
Nor have 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 wish you fortune," and vaulting to the back of his thoat
he trotted away without even a backward glance.

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

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

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

My only hope seemed to lie in entering the city surreptitiously
under cover of the darkness, and once in, trust to my own wits
to hide myself in some crowded quarter where detection would
be less liable to occur.

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

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

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

Discouraged, I withdrew into the forest beside a broad highway
which entered the city from the east, and with Woola beside me
lay down to sleep.

A HERO IN KAOL

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

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

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

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

As far as I could see, the silent line of destruction and
death stretched away from the city of Kaol.  There could be
but one explanation.  The green men were expecting an exodus
of a body of red troops from the nearest city gate, and they
were lying there in ambush to leap upon them.

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

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

A hundred yards to my right was the gate from which the troops
were evidently expected to issue, but to reach it I must pass the
flank of the green warriors within easy sight of them, and, fearing
that my plan to warn the Kaolians might thus be thwarted, I decided
upon hastening toward the left, where another gate a mile away
would give me ingress to the city.

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

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

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

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

Turning back toward the fateful gate, I ran rapidly along the edge of
the clearing, taking the ground in the mighty leaps that had first
made me famous upon Barsoom.  Thirty, fifty, a hundred feet at a bound
are nothing for the muscles of an athletic Earth man upon Mars.

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

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

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

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

From the city the red warriors were rushing toward us, and from
the 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 a
battle as I had ever passed through.

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

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

If I sometimes seem to take too great pride in my fighting
ability, it must be remembered that fighting is my vocation.
If your vocation be shoeing horses, or painting pictures, and you
can do one or the other better than your fellows, then you are a
fool if you are not proud of your ability.  And so I am very proud
that upon two planets no greater fighter has ever lived than John
Carter, Prince of Helium.

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

All day we fought, until the road was red with blood and clogged
with corpses.  Back and forth along the slippery highway the tide of
battle surged, but never once was the gateway to Kaol really in danger.

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

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

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

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 vigor
and a joyous soul that I laid about me with my long-sword until
the last of the green men had had enough and had withdrawn toward
their distant sea bottom.

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

But now the march of the welcoming host was delayed until the
following morning, when the troops again set out from Kaol.
I had not been bidden to the presence of Kulan Tith after the battle,
but he had sent an officer to find me and escort me to comfortable
quarters in that part of the palace set aside for the officers of
the royal guard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

During my audience with the jeddak another party entered the chamber
from behind me, so that I did not see their faces until Kulan Tith
stepped past me to greet them, commanding me to follow and be presented.

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

"Holy Hekkador of the Holy Therns," the jeddak was saying,
"shower thy blessings upon Dotar Sojat, the valorous stranger from
distant Hastor, whose wondrous heroism and marvelous ferocity saved
the day for Kaol yesterday."

Matai Shang stepped forward and laid his hand upon my shoulder.
No slightest indication that he recognized me showed upon his
countenance--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 regaled them,
much to my amusement, with details of my achievements upon the
field of battle.

The thing that seemed to have impressed him most was my
remarkable agility, and time and again he described the wondrous
way in which I had leaped completely over an antagonist, cleaving
his skull wide open 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 face through narrowed lids.  Was he commencing to suspect?
And then Kulan Tith told of the savage calot that fought beside
me, and after that I saw suspicion in the eyes of Matai Shang--
or did I but imagine it?

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

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

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

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

These low, commodious wagons moved two abreast, and on either
side of them marched solid ranks of mounted warriors, for in
the chariots were the women and children of the royal court.
Upon the back of each monster zitidar rode a Martian youth,
and the whole scene carried me back to my first days upon Barsoom,
now twenty-two years in the past, when I had first beheld the
gorgeous spectacle of a caravan 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 immense
height even beside the giant green men and their giant thoats;
but when compared to the relatively small red man and his breed of
thoats they assume Brobdingnagian proportions that are truly appalling.

The beasts were hung with jeweled trappings and saddlepads of
gay silk, 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
upon a pure white thoat--another unusual sight upon Barsoom--and
after them came interminable ranks of mounted spearmen, riflemen,
and swordsmen.  It was indeed a most imposing sight.

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

Now and then the gay laughter of a woman or the chatter of
children could be heard, for the red Martians are a social,
pleasure-loving people--in direct antithesis to the cold and
morbid race of green men.

The forms and ceremonials connected with the meeting of the
two jeddaks consumed an hour, and then we turned and retraced our
way toward the city of Kaol, which the head of the column reached
just before dark, though it must have been nearly morning before
the rear guard passed through the gateway.

Fortunately, I was well up toward the head of the column, and
after the great banquet, which I attended with the officers of the
royal guard, I was free to seek repose.  There was so much activity
and bustle about the palace all during the night with the constant
arrival of the noble officers of the visiting jeddak's retinue that
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 my quarters.

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

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

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

But never did vague conjecture or fruitless fears for the future
lie with sufficient weight upon my mind to keep me from my rest,
and so tonight I threw myself upon my sleeping silks and furs
and passed 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 stables
where the royal thoats are kept.  He had comfortable, even luxurious
apartments, but I would have given much to have had him with me;
and if he had been, the thing which happened that night would not
have come to pass.

I could not have slept over a quarter of an