 Prelude of The Chessmen of Mars. This is LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Dustin, aka Tobias, recorded in Dallas, Texas. The Chessmen of Mars. Prelude. John Carter comes to Earth. Shade just beaten me at chess, as usual, and also as usual. I gleaned what questionable satisfaction I might by tweeting him with this indication of failing mentality by calling his attention to the nth time to that theory, surrounded by a certain scientist, which is based upon the assertion that phenomenal chess players are always found to be from the ranks of children under 12, adults over 72, or the mentally defective, a theory that is lightly ignored upon those rare occasions that I win. Shade had gone to bed, and I should have followed suit, for we are always in the saddle here before sunrise. But instead I sat there before the chess table in the library, idly blowing smoke at the dishonored head of my defeated king. While thus profitably employed, I heard the east door of the living room open and someone enter. I thought it was Shade returning to speak with me on some matter of tomorrow's work, but when I raised my eyes to the doorway that connects the two rooms, I saw a frame there, the figure of a bronze giant. His otherwise naked body trapped with the jewel-encrusted harness from which there hung at one side an ornate's short sword, and at one other, a pistol of strange pattern. The black hair and steel-gray eyes brave in smiling, the noble features, I recognized them at once, and leaping to my feet I advanced without stretched hands. John Carter, I cried, you? None other, my son, he replied, thinking my hand and one of his and placing the other upon my shoulder. And what are you doing here? I asked. It's been long years since you've revisited earth and never before in the trappings of Mars. Lord, but it is good to see you, and not a day older in appearance than when you trotted me on your knee in my babyhood. How do you explain it, John Carter, or Lord of Mars, or do you try to explain it? Why attempt to explain the inexplicable, he replied? As I have told you before, I am a very old man. I do not know how old I am. I recall no childhood, but recollect only having been always as you see me now, and as you saw me first when you were five years old, you, yourself, have aged, though not as much as most men in a corresponding number of years, which may be accounted for by the fact that the same blood runs in our veins. But I have not aged at all. I have discussed the question with a noted Martian scientist, a friend of mine, but his theories are still only theories. However, I am content with the fact I never age, and I love life and the vigor of youth. I now ask your natural question as to what brings me to Earth again, and in this, to earthly eyes, strange heavenment. We may thank Carr Comac, the moment of Lothar. It was he who gave me the idea upon which I have been experimenting until at last I have achieved success. As you know, I have long possessed the power to cross the void in spirit, but never before have I been able to impart to inanimate things of similar power. Now, however, you see me for the first time precisely as my Martian fellows see me. You see the very short sword that has tasted the blood of many a savage foeman, the harness with the devices of helium and insignia of my rank, the pistol that was presented to me by Tars Tarkas, Jedek of Thark. Aside from seeing you, which is my principal reason for being here, and satisfying myself that I can transform inanimate things from Mars to Earth, and therefore inanimate things if I so desire, I have no purpose. Earth is not for me. My every interest is upon Barsoom, my wife, my children, my work, all are there. I will spend a quiet evening with you, and then back to the world I love even better than I love life. As he spoke, he dropped into the chair upon the opposite side of the chess table. You spoke with children, I said. Have you more than Carthoris? A daughter, he replied, only a little younger than Carthoris, and bearing one, the fairest thing ever breathed the thin air of dying Mars. Only Dejah Thoris, her mother, could be more beautiful than Tara of Helium. For a moment, he fingered the chessman idly. We have a game on Mars similar to chess, he said. Very similar. And there is a race there that plays it grimly with men and naked swords. We call the game Jitan. It is played on a board like yours, except that there are a hundred squares, and we use twenty pieces on each side. I never see it played without thinking of Tara of Helium and what befell her among the chessmen of Barsoom. Would you like to hear her story? I said that I would, and so he told it to me, and now I shall try to retell it for you, as nearly in the words of the warlord of Mars as I can recall them, but in the third person. If there be inconsistencies and errors, let the blame fall not upon John Carter, but rather upon my faulty memory where it belongs. It is a strange tale and utterly Barsoomian. Recording by Tom Weiss The Chessman of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs Fred Luth John Carter comes to Earth Shay had just beaten me at chess. As usual, and also as usual, I had gleaned what questionable satisfaction I might by tweeting him with this indication of failing mentality by calling his attention to the nth time to the theory, propounded by certain scientists, which is based upon the assertion that phenomenal chess players are always found to be from the ranks of children under twelve. Adults over seventy-two, or the mentally defective, a theory that is lightly ignored upon those rare occasions that I win. Shay had gone to bed, and I should have followed suit, for we are always in the saddle here before sunrise. But instead I sat there before the chess table in the library, idly blowing smoke at the dishonored head of my defeated king. While thus profitably employed, I heard the east door of the living room open, and someone entered. I thought it was Shay, returning to speak with me on some matter of tomorrow's work. But when I raised my eyes to the doorway that connects the two rooms, I saw framed there the figure of a bronzed giant, his otherwise naked body trapped with a jewel-encrusted harness, from which they're hung at one side, an ornate, short sword, and at the other a pistol of strange pattern. The black hair, the steel gray eyes, brave and smiling, the noble features, I recognized them at once, and leaping to my feet, I advanced with outstretched hand. John Carter, I cried, you? None other, my son, he replied, taking my hand in one of his and placing the other upon my shoulder. And what are you doing here? I asked. It has been long years since you revisited earth, and never before in the trappings of Mars. Lord, but it is good to see you, and not a day older in appearance than when you trotted me on your knee in my babyhood. How do you explain it, John Carter, warlord of Mars, or do you try to explain it? Why attempt to explain the inexplicable, he replied? As I have told you before, I am a very old man. I do not know how old I am. I recall no childhood, but recollect only having been always as you see me now and as you saw me first when you were five years old. You yourself have aged, though not as much as most men in a corresponding number of years, which may be accounted for by the fact that the same blood runs in our veins, but I have not aged at all. I have discussed a question with a noted Martian scientist, a friend of mine, but his theories are still only theories. However, I am content with the fact I never age, and I love life and the vigor of youth. And now as to your natural question as to what brings me to Earth again, and in this, to earthly eyes, strange habiliment. We may thank Carr Comac, the bowman of Lotar. It was he who gave me the idea upon which I have been experimenting until at last I have achieved success. As you know, I have long possessed the power to cross the void in spirit, but never before have I been able to impart to inanimate things a similar power. Now, however, you see me for the first time precisely as my Martian fellows see me. You see the very short sword that has tasted the blood of many a savage foeman, the harness with the devices of Helium and the insignia of my rank, the pistol that was presented to me by Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark. Aside from seeing you, which is my principal reason for being here, and satisfying myself that I can transport inanimate things from Mars to Earth, and therefore animate things if I so desire, I have no purpose. Earth is not for me. My every interest is upon Barsoom. My wife, my children, my work all are there. I will spend a quiet evening with you, and then back to the world I love even better than I love life. As he spoke, he dropped into the chair upon the opposite side of the chess table. You spoke of children, I said. Have you more than Cthoros? A daughter, he replied, only a little younger than Cthoros, and, barring one, the fairest thing that ever breathed the thin air of dying Mars. Only Deja Thoris, her mother, could be more beautiful than Tara of Helium. For a moment he fingered the chessmen idly. We have a game on Mars similar to chess, he said, very similar. And there is a race there that plays it grimly with men and naked swords. We call the game G-tan. It is played on a board like yours, except that there are a hundred squares and we use twenty pieces on each side. I never see it played without thinking of Tara of Helium and what befell her among the chessmen of Barsoom. Would you like to hear her story? I said that I would, and so he told it to me, and now I shall try to retell it for you as nearly in the words of the warlord of Mars as I can recall them, but in the third person. If there be inconsistencies and errors, let the blame fall not upon John Carter, but rather upon my faulty memory where it belongs. It is a strange tale, an utterly Barsoomian. This is the end of the Prelude of the Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Recording by Tom Weiss. Tara of Helium rose from the pile of silks and soft furs upon which she had been reclining, stretched her lithe body lingually and crossed toward the center of the room where above a large table a bronze disc depended from the low ceiling. Her carriage was that of health and physical perfection, the effortless harmony of faultless coordination. A scarf of silken gossamer crossing over one shoulder was wrapped around her body. Her black hair was piled high upon her head. With a wooden stick she tapped upon the bronze disc lightly, and presently the summons was answered by a slave girl who entered smiling to be greeted similarly by her mistress. Are my father's guests arriving, asked the princess? Yes, Tara of Helium. They come, replied the slave. I have seen Kantos Khan, overlord of the navy, in Prince Saran of Pitharth, and Jor Kantos, son of Kantos Khan. She shot a roguish glance at her mistress as she mentioned Jor Kantos' name. And oh, there were others, many have come. The bath then, Uthea, said the mistress. And why, Uthea, she added, do you look thus and smile when you mention the name of Jor Kantos? The slave girl laughed gaily. It is so plain to all that he worships you, she replied. It is not plain to me, said Tara of Helium. He is the friend of my brother, Carthoris, and so he is here much, but not to see me. It is his relationship for Carthoris that brings him thus often to the palace of my father. Carthoris is hunting in the north with Talu, Shedek of Okar, Uthea reminded her. My bath, Uthea, cried Tara of Helium, that tongue of yours will bring you to some misadventure yet. The bath is ready, Tara of Helium, the girl responded. Her eyes still twinkling with merriment, for she well knew that in the heart of her mistress was no anger that could displace the love of the princess for her slave. Proceeding the daughter of the warlord, she opened the door of an adjoining room where lay the bath, a gleaming pool of scented water in a marble basin. Golden stention supported a chain of gold encircling it and leading down into the water on either side of marble steps. A glass dome led in the sunlight, which flooded the interior, glancing from the polished white of the marble walls in the procession of bathers and fishes, which, in conventional design, were inlaid with gold in a broad band that encircled the room. Tara of Helium removed the scarf from around her and handed it to the slave. Slowly she descended the steps to the water, the temperature of which she tested with a symmetrical foot, undeformed by tight shoes and high heels. A lovely foot, as God intended that feet should be in seldom are. Finding the water to her liking, the girl swam leisurely to and fro about the pool, with the silken ease of the seal she swam, now at the surface, now below. Her smooth muscles rolling softly beneath her clear skin, a wordless song of health and happiness and grace. Presently she emerged and gave herself into the hands of the slave girl, who rubbed the body of her mistress with a sweet-smelling semi-liquid substance contained in a golden urn, until the glowing skin was covered with a foamy lather. Then a quick plunge into the pool, a drying with soft towels, and the bath was over. Typical of the life of the princess was the simple elegance of her bath. No red new of useless slaves, no pomp, no idle waste of precious moments. In another half hour her hair was dried and built into the strange but becoming cofure of her station. Her leather strapings encrusted with golden jewels had been adjusted to her figure, and she was ready to mingle with the guest that had been bitten to the midday function at the Palace of the Warlord. As she left her apartments to make her way to the gardens where the guests were congregating, two warriors, the insignia of the House of Prince of Helium upon their harness, followed a few paces behind her, grim reminders that the Assassin's Blade may never be ignored upon Barsoom, where in measure it counterbalances the great natural span of human life, which is estimated at not less than a thousand years. As they neared the entrance to the garden, another woman similarly guarded approached them from another quarter of the great palace. As she neared them, Tara of Helium turned toward her with a smile and a happy greeting, while her guards knelt with bowed heads in willing and voluntary adoration of their beloved Helium. Thus always, solely at the command of their own hearts, did the warriors of Helium great Dejah Thoris, whose deathless beauty had more than once brought them to bloody warfare with other nations of Barsoom. So great was the love of the people of Helium for their maid of John Carter, it amounted practically to worship, as though she were indeed the goddess that she looked. The mother and daughter exchanged the gentle Barsoomian car of greeting and kiss, then together they entered the gardens where the guests were. A huge warrior drew his short sword and struck his metal shield with the flat of it. The brazen sound ringing out above the laughter in the speech. The princess comes, he cried, Dejah Thoris, the princess comes, Tara of Helium. Thus always, as royalty announced, the guests arose. The two women inclined their heads, the guards fell back upon either side of the entrance way. A number of nobles advanced to pay their respects. The laughing and the talking were resumed. Dejah Thoris and her daughter moved simply and naturally among their guests, no suggestion of differing rank apparent in the bearing of any who were there. Though there was more than a shingled jeddak and many common warriors whose only title lay in brave deeds or noble patriotism, thus it is only Mars where men are judged upon their own merits rather than upon those of their grandsires, even though pride of lineage be great. Tara of Helium let her slogays wander among the throng of guests until presently it halted upon when she'd sought. Was the faint shadow of a frown that crossed her brow an indication of displeasure at the sight that met her eyes or did brilliant rays of Noonday's son distress her? Who may say? She had been reared to believe that one day she should wed Jor Kantos, son of her father's best friend. It had been the dearest wish of Kantos Khan and the warlord that this should be, and Tara of Helium had accepted it as a matter of all but accomplished fact. Jor Kantos had seemed to accept the matter in the same way. They had spoken of it casually as something that would, as a matter of course, take place in the indefinite future, as for instance his promotion in the navy in which he was now a padwar. Or the set functions of the court of her grandfather, Tardos Morse, Sheddock of Helium, or death. They had never spoken of love, and that had puzzled Tara of Helium upon the rare occasions she gave it thought. For she knew that people who were to wed were usually much occupied with the matter of love, and she had all the woman's curiosity. She wondered what love was like. She was very fond of Jor Kantos, and she knew that he was very fond of her. They liked to be together, for they liked the same things and the same people and the same books, and their dancing was a joy, not only to themselves but to those who watched them. She could not imagine wanting to marry anyone other than Jor Kantos. So perhaps it was only the son that made her brows contract just the tiniest bit at the same instant that she discovered Jor Kantos sitting in earnest conversation with Ulvia Marthas, daughter of Jed of Hastor. It was Jor Kantos duty to immediately pay his respects to Dejah Thoris and Tara of Helium. But he did not do so, and presently the daughter of the warlord frowned indeed. She looked long at Ulvia Marthas, and though she had seen her many times before and knew her well, she looked at her today through new eyes that saw apparently for the first time that the girl from Hastor was noticeably beautiful, even among those other beautiful women of Helium. Tara of Helium was disturbed. She attempted to analyze her emotions, but found it difficult. Ulvia Marthas was her friend. She was very fond of her, and she felt no anger towards her. Was she angry at Jor Kantos? No, she finally decided that she was not. It was merely surprise then that she felt. Surprise that Jor Kantos could be more interested in another than in herself. She was about to cross the garden and join them when she heard her father's voice directly behind her. Tara of Helium, he called, and those turned to see him approaching with a strange warrior whose harness and metal bore devices with which she was unfamiliar. Even among gorgeous trappings of the men of Helium and the visitors from distant empires, those of the stranger were remarkable for their barbaric splendor. The leather of his harness was completely hidden beneath ornaments of platinum, thickly set with brilliant diamonds, as were the scabbards of his sword and the ornate holster that held his long Martian pistol. Moving through the sunlit garden at the side of the great warlord, the sculliant rays of his countless gems enveloping him as in an aerial of light imparted to his noble figure a suggestion of godliness. Tara of Helium, I bring you Gahan. Jed of Gothel, said John Carter after a simple Barsoomian custom of presentation. Core! Gahan! Jed of Gothel! Returned Tara of Helium, my sword is at your feet, Tara of Helium, said the young chieftain. The warlord left them and the two seated themselves upon an ear-seat bench beneath the spreading, sore up a tree. Far Gothel, used the girl, ever in my mind has it been connected with mystery and romance and the half-forgotten lore of the ancients. I cannot think of Gothel as existing today, possibly because I have never before seen a Gothelian. And perhaps, too, because of the great distance that separates Helium and Gothel, as well as the comparative insignificance of my little free city which might easily be lost in one corner of mighty Helium, added Gahan. But what we lack in power we make up in pride, he added, laughing. We believe ours is the oldest inhabited city upon Barsoom. It is one of the few that has retained its freedom and this despite the fact that its ancient diamond mines which is known and unlike practically all the other fields are today apparently as inexhaustible as ever. Tommy of Gothel urged the girl, the very thought fills me with interest, nor was it likely that the handsome face of the young jed detracted anything from the glamour of far Gothel. Nor did Gahan seem displeased with the excuse for further monopolizing the society of his fair companion. His eyes seemed shamed to her exquisite features, from which they moved no farther than to a rounded breast, part hid beneath its strolled covering, a neck and shoulder, or the symmetry of a perfect arm, resplendent in bracelets of barbaric magnificence. Your ancient history has doubtless told you that Gothel was built upon an island and Druxus, mightiest of the five oceans of old Barsoom. As the ocean receded, Gothel crept down the sides of the mountain, the summit of which was the island upon which she had built, until today she covers the slopes from summit to base, while the bowels of the great hill are honey-coned with the galleries of her mines. Entirely surrounding us is the great salt marsh, which protects us from invasion by land, while the rugged and off-times vertical topography of our mountain renders the landing of hostile airships a precarious undertaking. That, and your brave warriors, suggested the girl. Gahan smiled, we do not speak of that except to enemies, he said, and then with tongues of steel rather than of flesh. But what practice in the art of war has the people which nature has thus protected from attack? asked Hera of Helium, who would like the young Jett's answer to her previous question, but yet in whose mind persisted a vague conviction of the possible effemency of her companion, induced doubtless by the magnificence of his trappings and weapons which carried a suggestion of splendid show rather than grim utility. Our natural barriers, countless saved as from defeat on countless occasions, have not by any means rendered us immune from attack, he explained, for so great is the wealth of Gathol's diamond treaty that there yet may be found those who will risk almost certain defeat in an effort to loot our unconquered city. So thus we will find occasional practice in the exercise of arms, but there is more to Gathol than the mountain city. My country extends from Polanana, Equator, to north ten Karads, and from the tenth Karad west of Horus to the twentieth west, including thus a million square hods, and greater proportion of which is fine grazing land, where run our great herds of throats and zidatars. Surrounded as we are by predatory enemies, our herdsmen must indeed be warriors, or we should have no herds, and you may be assured they get plenty of fighting. Then there is our constant need of workers in the mines, to consider themselves a race of warriors, and as such prefer not to labor in the mines. The law is, however, that each male Gatholian shall give an hour a day in labor to the government. That is practically the only tax that is levied upon them. They prefer, however, to furnish a substitute to perform this labor, and as our own people will not hire out for labor in the mines, it has been necessary to obtain slaves. And I do not need to tell you that slaves are not one without fighting. We sell these slaves in the public market. The proceeds going half and half to the government and the warriors who bring them in. The purchasers are credited with the amount of labor performed by the particular slaves. At the end of the year, a good slave will have performed the labor tax of his master for six years. And if slaves are plentiful, he is freed and permitted to return to his own people. You fight in platinum and diamonds, as Tara indicating his gorgeous trappings with a quizzical smile. Gahan laughed. We are vain people, he admitted, and it is possible that we place too much value on personal appearances. We veer with one another in the splendor of our accoutrements when shapped for the observance of the lighter duties of life. Though when we take the field of our leather in the plainest I have ever seen worn by fighting men of Barsoom, we pride ourselves too upon our physical beauty and especially upon the beauty of our women. I dare to say, Tara of Helium, that I am hoping for the day when you will visit Gathol that my people may see one who is really beautiful. The women of Helium are taught to frown with his pleasure upon the tongue of the flatterer rejoined the girl. But Gahan, Jed of Gathol, observed that she smiled as she said it. A bugle sounded, clear and sweet, above the laughter in the talk. The dance of Barsoom exclaimed the young warrior, I claim it for you, Tara of Helium. The girl danced in the direction of the bench where she had last seen Jor Contos. He was not in sight. She inclined her head in a scent to the claim of the Gatholian. Saves were passing among the guests, distributing small musical instruments of a single string. Upon each instrument were characters which indicated the pitch and length of its tone. The instruments were of skill, the string of gut, and were shaped to fit the left forearm of the dancer to which it was strapped. There was also a ring wound with gut, which was worn between the first and second joints of the index finger of the ring hand in which, when passed over the string of an instrument, elicited the single note required of the dancer. The guests had ridden and were slowly making their way toward the expanse of scarlet sword at the south end of the gardens where the dance was to be held when Jor Contos came hurriedly toward Tara of Helium. I claim he exclaimed as he neared her, but she interrupted him with a gesture. There too late Jor Contos she cried in mock anger. No laggard may claim Tara of Helium, but haste now lest thou lose also Elvia Martha's whom I have never seen wait long to be claimed for this or any other dance. I have already lost her admitted Jor Contos ruefully, and you mean to say that you've come for Tara of Helium only after having lost Elvia Martha's? Demanded the girl still simulating displeasure. Oh, Tara of Helium, you know better than that, insisted the young man. Was it not natural that I should assume that you would expect me, who alone has claimed you for the dance of Barsoom, for the least twelve times passed? And sit and play with my thumbs until you saw fit to come for me? She questioned. Ah, no, Jor Contos. Tara of Helium is for no laggard, and she threw him a sweet smile and passed on toward the assembling dancers with Gahan, Jed of Farghathol. The dance of Barsoom bears a relation similar to the more formal dancing functions of Mars and that the grand march does to ours. Though it is infinitely more intricate and more beautiful, before a Martian youth of either sex may attend an important social function where there is dancing, he must have become proficient in at least three dances. The dance of Barsoom, his national dance, and the dance of his city. In these three dances, the dancers furnish their own music, which never varies, nor to the steps or figures vary, having been handed down from time immemorial. All Barsoomian dances are stately and beautiful, but the dance of Barsoom is a wondrous epic of motion and harmony. There is no grotesque, posturing, no vulgar or suggestive movements. It has been described as the interpretation of highest ideals of world that aspired to grace and beauty and chastity in woman and strength and dignity and loyalty in man. Today, John Carter, warlord of Mars, and Dejah Thoris, his mate, led in the dancing, and if there was another couple that veered with them in possession of the silent admiration of the guests, it was the resplendent Jed of Gathol and his beautiful partner. In the ever-changing figures of the dance, the man found himself now with the girl's hand in his hand again with an arm about the lie of the body and the jeweled harness but inadequately covered. And the girl, though she had danced a thousand dances in the past, realized for the first time the personal contact of a man's arm against her neck and flesh. It troubled her that she should notice it, and she looked up questioningly and almost with displeasure at the man as though it was his fault. Their eyes met and she saw in his that which she had never seen in the eyes of Jor Contos. Suddenly at the very end of the dance, and they both stopped suddenly with the music and stood there looking straight into each other's eyes, it was Gahan of Gathol who spoke first. Tara of Helium, I love you, he said. The girl drew herself to her full height. The Jed of Gathol forgets himself, she exclaimed hotly. The Jed of Gathol would forget everything but you, Tara of Helium, he replied. Fiercely he pressed the soft hand that he still retained from the last position of the dance. I love you, Tara of Helium, he repeated. Why should your ears refuse to hear what your eyes but just now did not refuse to see an answer? What meanest thou, she cried? Are the men of Gathol such boors then? They are neither boors nor fools, he replied quietly. They know when they love a woman and when she loves them. Tara of Helium stamped her little foot in anger. Go, she said, before it is necessary to acquaint my father with the dishonor of his guest. She turned and walked away. Wait, cried the man, just another word. Of apology, she asked, of prophecy, he said. I do not care to hear it, replied Tara of Helium and left him standing there. She was strangely unstrung and shortly thereafter returned to her own quarter of the palace where she stood for a long time by a window looking out beyond the scarlet tower of great Helium toward the northwest. Presently she turned angrily away. I hate him, she exclaimed aloud. Whom inquired the privileged Uthia? Tara of Helium stomped her foot. That ill-mannered boar, the jet of Gathol, she replied. Uthia raised her slim brows. At the stamping of the little foot, a great beast rose from the corner of the room and crossed to Tara of Helium where it stood, looking up into her face. She placed her hand upon the ugly head. Dear old Woola, she said, no love could be deeper than yours. Yet it never offends what men might pattern themselves after you. By Tom Weiss The Chestmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs Chapter 1 Tara in a Tandrum Tara of Helium rose from the pile of silks and soft furs upon which she had been reclining, stretched her lithe body languidly and crossed toward the center of the room where, above a large table, a bronze disc depended from the low ceiling. Her carriage was that of health and physical perfection, the effortless harmony of faultless coordination. A scarf of silken gossamer crossing over one shoulder was wrapped about her body. Her black hair was piled high upon her head. With a wooden stick, she tapped upon the bronze disc lightly and presently the summons was answered by a slave girl who entered smiling to be greeted similarly by her mistress. Are my father's guests arriving? asked the princess. Yes, Tara of Helium, they come, replied the slave. I have seen Kantos Khan, overlord of the navy, and Prince Soran of Tharf and Dior Kantos, son of Kantos Khan. She shot her rubbish glance at her mistress as she mentioned Dior Kantos' name and, oh, there were others, many have come. The bath then, Luthia, said her mistress, and why, Luthia, she added, do you look thus and smile when you mention the name of Dior Kantos? The slave girl laughed gaily. It is so plain to all that he worships you, she replied. It is not plain to me, said Tara of Helium. He is the friend of my brother, Carthoris, and so he is here much, but not to see me. It is his friendship for Carthoris that brings him thus often to the palace of my father. For Carthoris is hunting in the north with Kalu, Jeddak of Gokar, Luthia reminded her. My bath, Luthia, cried Tara of Helium, that tongue of yours will bring you to some misadventure yet. The bath is ready, Tara of Helium, the girl responded, her eyes still twinkling with merriment. For she well knew that in the heart of her mistress was no anger that could displace the love of the princess for her slave. Preceding the daughter of the warlord, she opened the door of an adjoining room where lay the bath, a gleaming pool of scented water in a marble basin. Golden stanchions supported a chain of gold encircling it and leading down into the water on either side of marble steps. A glass dome led in the sunlight, which flooded the interior, glancing from the polished white of the marble walls and the procession of bathers and fishes, which, in conventional design, were inlaid with gold in a broad van that circled the room. Tara of Helium removed the scarf from about her and handed it to the slave. Slowly she descended the steps to the water, the temperature of which she tested with a symmetrical foot, undeformed by tight shoes and high heels, a lovely foot, as God intended that feet should be and sell them are. Finding the water to her liking, the girl swam leisurely to and fro about the pool. With the silken ease of the seal she swam, now at the surface, now below. Her smooth muscles rolling softly beneath her clear skin, a wordless song of health and happiness and grace. Presently she emerged and gave herself into the hands of the slave girl, who rubbed the body of her mistress with a sweet-smelling semi-liquid substance contained in a golden urn, until the glowing skin was covered with a foamy lather, then a quick plunge into the pool, a drying with soft towels, and the bath was over. Typical of the life of the princess was the simple elegance of her bath. No retinue of useless slaves, no pomp, no idle waste of precious moments. In another half-hour her hair was dried and built into the strange, but becoming, while pure of her station, her leather trappings encrusted with gold and jewels had been adjusted to her figure and she was ready to mingle with the guests that had been bidden to the midday function at the palace of the warlord. As she left her apartments to make her way to the gardens where the guests were congregating, two warriors, the insignia of the House of the Prince of Helium upon their harness, followed a few paces behind her, grim reminders that the assassin's blade may never be ignored upon Barsoom, where, in a measure, it counterbalances the great natural span of human life, which is estimated at not less than a thousand years. As they neared the entrance to the garden, another woman, similarly guarded, approached them from another quarter of the great palace. As she neared them, Tara of Helium turned toward her with a smile and a happy greeting, while her guards knelt with bowed heads in willing and voluntary adoration of the beloved of Helium. Thus always, solely at the command of their own hearts, did the warriors of Helium greet Dejah Thoris, whose deathless beauty had more than once brought them to bloody warfare with other nations of Barsoom. So great was the love of the people of Helium for the mate of John Carter, it amounted practically to worship, as though she were indeed the goddess that she looked. The mother and daughter expressed the gentle, Barsoomian, Kayor of greeting and kiss. Then together they entered the gardens where the guests were. A huge warrior drew his short sword and struck his metal shield with the flat of it, the brazen sound ringing out above the laughter in the speech. The princess comes, he cried, Dejah Thoris, the princess comes, Tara of Helium. Thus always is royalty announced. The guests arose. The two women inclined their heads. The guards fell back upon either side of the entrance way. A number of nobles advanced to pay their respects. The laughing and the talking were resumed and Dejah Thoris and her daughter moved simply and naturally among their guests. No suggestion of differing rank apparent in the bearing of any who were there. Though there was more than a single jeddak and many common warriors whose only title lay in brave deeds or noble patriotism. Thus it is upon Mars where men are judged upon their own merits rather than upon those of their grandsires, even though pride of lineage be great. Tara of Helium let her slow gaze wander among the throng of guests until presently it halted upon one she sought. Was the faint shadow of a frown that crossed her brow an indication of displeasure at the sight that met her eyes or did the brilliant rays of the noonday sun distress her? Who may say? She had been reared to believe that one day she would wed Dior Cantos, son of her father's best friend. It had been the dearest wish of Cantos Khan and the warlord that this should be and Tara of Helium had accepted it as a matter of all but accomplished fact. Dior Cantos had seemed to accept the matter in the same way. They had spoken of it casually as something that would, as a matter of course, take place in the indefinite future as, for instance, his promotion in the navy in which he was now a padwar or the set functions of the court of her grandfather, Tardos Mors, jeddak of Helium for death. They had never spoken of love and that had puzzled Tara of Helium upon the rare occasions she gave it thought for she knew that people who were to wed were usually much occupied with the matter of love and she had all of a woman's curiosity. She wondered what love was like. She was very fond of Dior Cantos and she knew that he was very fond of her. They liked to be together for they liked the same things and the same people and the same books and their dancing was a joy not only to themselves but to those who watched them. She could not imagine wanting to marry anyone other than Dior Cantos. So perhaps it was only the son that made her brows contract just the tiniest bit at the same instant that she discovered Dior Cantos sitting in earnest conversation with Olvia Marthas, daughter of the jedd of Hastor. It was Dior Cantos' duty immediately to pay his respects to Dejah Thoris and Tara of Helium but he did not do so and presently the daughter of the warlord frowned indeed. She looked long at Olvia Marthas and though she had seen her many times before and knew her well she looked at her today through new eyes that saw apparently for the first time that the girl from Hastor was noticeably beautiful even among those beautiful women of Helium. Tara of Helium was disturbed. She attempted to analyze her emotions but found it difficult. Olvia Marthas was her friend. She was very fond of her and she felt no anger toward her. Was she angry with Dior Cantos? No, she finally decided that she was not. It was merely surprised then that she felt surprised that Dior Cantos could be more interested in another than in herself. She was about to cross the garden and join them when she heard her father's voice directly behind her. Tara of Helium he called and she turned to see him approaching with a strange warrior whose harness and metal bore devices with which she was unfamiliar. Even among the gorgeous trappings of the men of Helium and the visitors from distant empires those of the stranger were remarkable for their barbaric splendor. The leather of his harness was completely hidden beneath ornaments of platinum quickly set with brilliant diamonds as were the scabbards of his swords and the ornate holster that held his long Martian pistol. Moving through the sunlit garden at the side of the great warlord the scintillant rays of his countless gems enveloping him as in an aureole of light imparted to his noble figure a suggestion of godliness. Tara of Helium? I bring you Gahan, Jed of Gathol, said John Carter after the simple Barsoomian custom of presentation. Kaur. Gahan, Jed of Gathol, returned Tara of Helium. My sword is at your feet. Tara of Helium? said the young chieftain. The warlord left them and the two seated themselves upon an earth-site bench beneath a spreading syrups tree far Gathol used the girl. Ever in my mind has it been connected with mystery and romance and the half-forgotten lore of the ancients? I cannot think of Gathol as existing today possibly because I have never before seen Gatholian. And perhaps too because the great distance that separates Helium and Gathol as well as the comparative insignificance of my little free city which might easily be lost in one quarter of mighty Helium at a Gahan. But what we lack in power we make up in pride, he continued laughing. We believe ours the oldest inhabited city upon Barsoom. It is one of the few that has retained its freedom and this despite the fact that its ancient diamond mines are the richest known and unlike practically all the other fields are today apparently as inexhaustible as ever. Tell me of Gathol, urged the girl. The very thought fills me with interest nor was it likely that the handsome face of the young jed detracted anything from the glamour of Bar Gathol. Nor did Gahan seem displeased with the excuse for further monopolizing the society of his fair companion. His eyes seemed chained to her exquisite features from which they moved no further than to a rounded breast part head beneath its jeweled covering, a naked shoulder or the symmetry of a perfect arm resplendent in bracelets of barbaric magnificence. Your ancient history has doubtless told you that Gathol was built upon an island in Throxias, mightiest of the five oceans of old Barsoom. As the ocean receded, Gathol crept down the sides of the mountain, the summit of which was the island upon which she had been built until today she covers the slopes from summit to base while the bowels of the Great Hill are honeycombed with the galleries of her mines. Entirely surrounding us is a great salt marsh which protects us from invasion by land while the rugged and off-times vertical topography of our mountain renders the land of hostile warships are precarious undertaking. That, and your brave warriors, suggested the girl. Gahan smiled. We do not speak of that except enemies, he said, and then with tongues of steel rather than of flesh. But what practice in the art of war has a people which nature has thus protected from attack? asked Tara of Helium who had liked the young Jedd's answer to her previous question but yet in whose mind persisted a vague conviction of the possible effeminacy of her companion induced doubtless by the magnificence of his trappings and weapons which carried a suggestion of splendid show rather than grim utility. Our natural barriers while they have doubtless saved us from defeat on countless occasions have not by any means rendered us immune from attack, he explained. For so great is the wealth of Gathol's diamond treasury that there yet may be found those who will risk almost certain defeat in an effort to loot our unconquered city. So thus we find occasional practice in the exercise of arms. But there is more to Gathol than the mountain city. My country extends from Poladona, north 10 Karads, and from the 10th Karad west of Horses to the 20th West including thus a million square hods the greater proportion of which is fine grazing lands where run our great herds of thoats and zitidars. Surrounded as we are by predatory enemies our herdsmen must indeed be warriors for we should have no herds and you may be assured they get plenty of fighting. Then there is our constant need of workers in the mines. The Gatholians consider themselves a race of warriors and as such prefer not to labor in the mines. The law is however that each male Gatholian shall give an hour a day in labor to the government. That is practically the only tax that is levied upon them. They prefer however to furnish a substitute to perform this labor and as our own people will not hire out for labor in the mines it has been necessary to obtain slaves and I do not need to tell you that slaves are not one without fighting. We sell these slaves in the public market the proceeds going half and half to the government and the warriors who bring them in. The purchasers are credited with the amount of labor performed by their particular slaves. At the end of a year a good slave will have performed the labor tax of his master for six years and as slaves are plentiful he is freed and permitted to return to his own people. You fight in platinum and diamonds? Ask Tara indicating his gorgeous trappings with a quizzical smile? He had laughed. We are a vain people he admitted good-naturedly and it is possible that we place too much value on personal appearances. We buy with one another in the splendor of our accoutrements when trapped for the observance of the lighter duties of life though when we take the field our leather is the plainest I have ever seen worn by fighting men of Barsoom. We pride ourselves too upon our physical beauty and especially upon the beauty of our women. May I dare to say Tara of Helium that I am hoping for the day that you will visit Gaythol that my people may see one who is really beautiful? The women of Helium are taught to frown with displeasure upon the tongue of the platterer rejoined the girl but Gayhan, Jed of Gaythol, observed that she smiled as she said it. A bugle sounded clear and sweet above the laughter and the talk. The dance of Barsoom exclaimed the young warrior I claim you for it Tara of Helium. The girl glanced in the direction of the bench where she had last seen Dior Contos. He was not in sight. She inclined her head in a scent to the claim of the Gaytholium. Slaves were passing among the guests distributing small musical instruments of a single string. Upon each instrument were characters which indicated the pitch and length of its tone. The instruments were of skill, the string of gut and were shaped to fit the left forearm of the dancer to which it was strapped. There was also a ring wound with gut which was worn between the first and second joints of the index finger of the right hand and which, when passed over the string of the instrument, elicited the single note required of the dancer. The guests had risen and were slowly making their way toward the expanse of Scarlet Sward at the south end of the gardens where the dance was to be held when Dior Contos came currently toward Tara of Helium. I claim he exclaimed as he neared her but she interrupted him with a gesture. You are too late, Dior Contos. She cried in mock anger. No laggard may claim Tara of Helium but haste now lest thou lose also Olbia Marthas whom I have never seen wait long to be claimed for this or any other dance. I have already lost her. Admitted Dior Contos, ruefully. And you mean to say that you came for Tara of Helium only after having lost Olbia Marthas demanded the girl still simulating displeasure. Oh, Tara of Helium, you know better than that, insisted the young man. Was it not natural that I should assume that you would expect me who alone has claimed you for the dance on bar soon for at least twelve times past? And sit and play with my thumbs until you saw fit to come for me, she questioned. Ah, no, Dior Contos. Tara of Helium is for no laggard and she threw him a sweet smile and passed on toward the assembling dancers with gayhan, jet of far gaythal. The dance of bar soon bears a relation similar to the more formal dancing functions of Mars that the grand march does to ours though it is infinitely more intricate and more beautiful. Before a Martian youth of either sex may attend an important social function where there is dancing, he must have become proficient in at least three dances, the dance of bar soon, his national dance, and the dance of his city. In these three dances the dancers furnish their own music which never varies, nor do the steps or figures vary having been handed down from time immemorial. All Barsoomian dances are stately and beautiful and the dance of bar soon is a wondrous epic of motion and harmony. There is no grotesque posturing, no vulgar or suggestive movements. It has been described as the interpretation of the highest ideals of a world that aspire to grace and beauty and chastity in women with strength and dignity and loyalty in man. Today, John Carter, warlord of Mars with Dejah Thoris, his mate, led in the dancing and if there was another couple that bide with them in possession of the silent admiration of the guests it was the resplendent jet of Gathald and his beautiful partner. In the ever-changing figures of the dance the man found himself now with the girl's hand in his and again with an arm about the live body that the jeweled harness but inadequately covered and the girl, though she had danced a thousand dances in the past, realized for the first time the personal contact of a man's arm against her naked flesh. It troubled her that she should notice it and she looked up questioningly and almost with displeasure at the man as though it was his fault. Their eyes met and she saw in his that which she had never seen in the eyes of Dior Cantos. It was at the very end of the dance and they both stopped suddenly with the music and stood there looking straight into each other's eyes. It was gay hand of Gathald who spoke first. Tara of Helium? I love you, he said. The girl drew herself up to her full height. The Jed of Gathald forgets himself, she explained heartily. The Jed of Gathald would forget everything but you, Tara of Helium, he replied. Fiercely he pressed a soft hand that he still retained from the last position of the dance. I love you, Tara of Helium who repeated, Why should your ears refuse to hear what your eyes but just now did not refuse to see and answer? What means thou, she cried? Are the men of Gathald such boors then? They are neither boors nor fools who replied gently. They know when they love a woman and when she loves them. Tara of Helium stamped her little foot in anger. Go, she said. Before it is necessary to acquaint my father with the dishonor of his guests. She turned and walked away. Wait, cried the man. Just another word. Of apology, she asked. Of prophecy, he said. I do not care to hear it, replied Tara of Helium and left him standing there. She was strangely unstrung and shortly thereafter returned to her own quarter of the palace where she stood for a long time by a window looking out beyond the scarlet tower of Rhaer Helium toward the northwest. Presently she turned angrily away. I hate him, she exclaimed aloud. Whom inquired the crippled Luthia? Tara of Helium stamped her foot. That ill-mannered boar, the jet of Gathald, she replied. Luthia raised her slim brows. At the stamping of the little foot, a great beast rose from the corner of the room and crossed the tower of Helium where it stood, looking up into her face. She placed her hand upon the ugly head. Dear old Woola, she said. No love could be deeper than yours, yet it never offends. Would that men might patter themselves after you? This is the end of the Chestnut of Mars, Chapter 1 by Edgar Rice Burroughs Recording by Tom Weiss The Chestnut of Mars Chapter 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Tom Weiss The Chestnut of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs Chapter 2 At the Gales Mercy Tara of Helium did not return to her father's guests, but awaited in her own apartments the word from Dior Contos, which she knew must come, begging her to return to the gardens. She would then refuse, hodling. But no appeal came from Dior Contos. At first Tara of Helium was angry, then she was hurt, and always she was puzzled. She could not understand. Occasionally she thought of the jet of Gathol, and then she would stamp her foot, for she was very angry indeed with Gahan. The presumption of the man, he had insinuated that he read love for him in her eyes. Never had she been so insulted and humiliated. Never had she so thoroughly hated a man. Suddenly she turned toward Uthea. My flying leather, she commanded. But the guests exclaimed the slave girl. Your father, the warlord, will expect you to return. He will be disappointed, snapped Tara of Helium. The slave hesitated. He does not approve of your flying alone. She reminded her mistress. The young princess sprang to her feet and seized the unhappy slave by the shoulders, shaking her. You are becoming unbearable, Uthea, she cried. Soon there will be no alternative than to send you to the public slave market. Then possibly you will find a master to your liking. Tears came to the soft eyes of the slave girl. It is because I love you, my princess, she said softly. Tara of Helium melted. She took the slave in her arms and kissed her. I have the disposition of a throat, Uthea, she said. Forgive me. I love you, and there is nothing that I would not do for you and nothing would I do to harm you. Again, as I have so often in the past, I offer you your freedom. I do not wish my freedom if it will separate me from you, Tara of Helium, replied Uthea. I am happy here with you. I think that I should die without you. Again, the girls kissed. And you will not fly alone, then? questioned the slave. Tara of Helium laughed and pinched her companion. You persistent little pest, she cried. Of course I shall fly. Does not Tara of Helium always do that which pleases her? Uthea shook her head sorrowfully. Alas, she does, she admitted. Iron is the warlord of Barsoom to the influences of all but two. In the hands of Dejah Thoris and Tara of Helium he is as Potter's clay. Then run and fetch my flying leather like the sweet slave you are, directed the mistress. Far out across the ochre sea bottoms, beyond the twin cities of Helium, raced the swift flier of Tara of Helium, thrilling to the speed and the buoyancy and the obedience of the little craft, the girl drove toward the northwest. Why she should choose that direction she did not pause to consider. Perhaps because in that direction lay the least known areas of Barsoom, an ergo, romance, mystery and adventure. In that direction also lay far gaythal. But to that fact she gave no conscious thought. She did, however, think occasionally of the Jed of that distant kingdom, but the reaction to these thoughts was scarcely pleasurable. They still brought a flush of shame to her cheeks and a surge of angry blood to her heart. She was very angry with the Jed of Gaythal, and though she would never see him again, she was quite sure that hate of him would remain fresh in her memory forever. Mostly her thoughts revolved about another, Dior Kantos. And when she thought of him, she thought also of Olvia Marthas of Hastor. Tara of Helium thought that she was jealous of the fair Olvia, and it made her very angry to think that. She was angry with Dior Kantos and herself, but she was not angry at all with Olvia Marthas, whom she loved, and so, of course, she was not jealous, really. The trouble was that Tara of Helium had failed for once to have her own way. Dior Kantos had not come running like a willing slave when she had expected him, and ah, here was the nub of the whole thing. Gahan, Jed of Gaythal, a stranger, had been a witness to her humiliation. He had seen her unclaimed at the beginning of a great function, and he had had to come to her rescue to save her, as he doubtless thought, from the inglorious fate of a wallflower. At the recurring thought, Tara of Helium could feel her whole body burning with scarlet shame, and then she went suddenly white and cold with rage. Whereupon she turned her flyer about so abruptly that she was all but torn from her lashings upon the flat, narrow deck. She reached home just before dark. The guests had departed. Quiet had descended upon the palace. An hour later she joined her father and mother at the evening meal. You deserted us, Tara of Helium, said John Carter. It is not what the guests of John Carter should expect. They did not come to see me, replied Tara of Helium. I did not ask them. They were no less your guests, replied her father. The girl rose and came and stood beside him and put her arms about his neck. My proper old Virginian, she cried, rumpling his shock of black hair. In Virginia you would be turned over your father's knee and spanked, said the man smiling. She crept into his lap and kissed him. You do not love me anymore, she announced. No one loves me. But she could not compose her features into a pout because bubbling laughter insisted upon breaking through. The trouble is there are too many who love you, he said. And now there is another. Indeed she cried. What do you mean? Gahan of Gathol has asked permission to woo you. The girl sat up very straight and tilted her chin in the air. I would not wed with a walking diamond mind, she said. I will not have him. I told him as much, replied her father. That you were as good as betrothed to another. He was very courteous about it. But at the same time he gave me to understand that he was accustomed to getting what he wanted and that he wanted you very much. I suppose it will mean another war. Your mother's beauty kept Helium at war for many years. And well, Tara of Helium, if I were a young man I should doubtless be willing to set all Barsoom on fire to win you, as I still would to keep your divine mother. And he smiled across the sauropus table and its golden service at the undimmed beauty of Mars' most beautiful woman. Our little girl should not be troubled with such matters, said Dejah Thoris. Remember, John Carter, that you are not dealing with an earth child whose span of life would be more than half completed before a daughter of Barsoom reached actual maturity. But do not the daughters of Barsoom sometimes marry as early as twenty? He insisted. Yes, but they will still be desirable in the eyes of men after forty generations of earth folk have returned to dust. There is no hurry, at least upon Barsoom. We do not fade and decay here as you tell me those of your planet do, though you yourself belie your own words. When the time seems proper, Tara of Helium shall wed with Dior Contos. And until then, let us give the matter no further thought. No, said the girl, the subject irks me, and I shall not marry Dior Contos or another. I do not intend to wed. Her father and mother looked at her and smiled. When Gahan of Gathol returns, he may carry you off, said the former. He has gone, asked the girl. His flyer departs for Gathol in the morning, John Carter replied. I have seen the last of him, then, remarked Tara of Helium with a sigh of relief. He says not, returned John Carter. The girl dismissed the subject with a shrug, and the conversation passed to other topics. A letter had arrived from Thuvia of Tharf, who was visiting at her father's court while Chthorus, her mate, hunted in Ocar. Word had been received that the Tharks and Warhoons were again at war, or rather that there had been an engagement. For war was their habitual state. In the memory of man there had been no peace between these two savage green hordes, only a single temporary truce. Two new battleships had been launched at Hastor. A little man of holy therns was attempting to revive the ancient and discredited religion of Isis, who they claimed still lived in spirit and had communicated with them. There were rumors of war from Dusar. A scientist claimed to have discovered human life on the further moon. A madman had attempted to destroy the atmosphere plant. Seven people had been assassinated in greater Helium during the last ten zodes, the equivalent of an Earth Day. Following the meal, Dejah Thoris and the warlord played at G-10, the Barsoomian game of chess, which is played upon a board of a hundred alternate black and orange squares. One player has twenty black pieces, the other twenty orange pieces. A brief description of the game may interest those Earth readers who care for chess, and will not be lost upon those who pursue this narrative to its conclusion. Since before they are done, they will find that a knowledge of G-10 will add to the interests and the thrills that are in store for them. The men are placed upon the board, as in chess, upon the first two rows next to players. In order, from left to right, on the line of squares, nearest to players, the G-10 pieces are Warrior, Padwar, Dwar, Flyer, Chief, Princess, Flyer, Dwar, Padwar, Warrior. In the next line, all are panthons, except the end pieces, which are called thoats, and represent mounted warriors. The panthons, which are represented as warriors with one feather, may move one space in any direction except backward. The thoats, mounted warriors with three feathers, may move one straight and one diagonal, and may jump intervening pieces. Warriors, foot soldiers with two feathers, straight in any direction or diagonally, two spaces. Padwars, lieutenants wearing two feathers, two diagonal in any direction or combination. Dwarves, captains wearing three feathers, three spaces straight in any direction or combination. Flyers, represented by a propeller with three blades, three spaces in any direction or combination, diagonally, and may jump intervening pieces. The Chief, indicated by a diadem with ten jewels, three spaces in any direction, straight or diagonal. Princess, diadem with a single jewel, same as Chief and can jump intervening pieces. The game is won when a player places any of his pieces on the same square with his opponent's princess, or when a Chief takes a Chief. It is drawn when a Chief is taken by any opposing piece other than the opposing Chief, or when both sides have been reduced to three pieces or less of equal value, and the game is not terminated in the following ten moves, five apiece. This is but a general outline of the game. Briefly stated, it was this game that Dejah Thoris and John Carter were playing when Tara of Helium bid them good night, retiring to her own quarters and her sleeping silks and furs. Until morning, my beloved, she called back to them as she passed from the apartment. Nor little did she guess, nor her parents, that this might indeed be the last time that they would ever set eyes upon her. The morning broke dull and gray. Ominous clouds billowed restlessly and low. Beneath them, torn fragments scutted toward the northwest. From her window, Tara of Helium looked out upon this unusual scene. Dense clouds seldom overcast the Barsoomian sky. At this hour of the day, she asked them to ride one of those small thoats that are the saddle animals of the red Martians, but the sight of the billowing clouds lured her to a new adventure. Uthia still slept, and the girl did not disturb her. Instead, she dressed quietly and went to the hangar upon the roof of the palace directly above her quarters where her own swift flyer was housed. She had never driven through the clouds. It was an adventure that always she had long to experience. The wind was strong, and it was with difficulty that she maneuvered the craft from the hangar without accident, but once away it raced swiftly out above the twin cities. The buffeting winds caught and tossed it, and the girl laughed aloud in sheer joy of the resultant thrills. She handled the little ship like a veteran, though few veterans would have faced the menace of the storm in so light a craft. Swiftly, she rose toward the clouds, racing with the scutting streamers of the storm-swept fragments, and a moment later she was swallowed by the dense masses billowing above. Here was a new world, a world of chaos, unpeopled except for herself, but it was a cold, damp, lonely world, and she found it depressing after the novelty of it had been dissipated by an overpowering sense of the magnitude of the forces surging about her. Suddenly she felt very lonely, and very cold, and very little. Currently, therefore, she rose until presently her craft broke through into the glorious sunlight that transformed the upper surface of the somber element into rolling masses of burnished silver. Here it was still cold, but without the dampness of the clouds, and in the eye of the brilliant sun her spirits rose with the mounting needle of her altimeter. Gazing at the clouds now far beneath, the girl experienced the sensation of hanging stationary in mid-heaven, but the whirring of her propeller, the wind beating upon her, the high figures that rose and fell beneath the glass of her speedometer, these told her that her speed was terrific. It was then that she determined to turn back. The first attempt she made above the clouds, but it was unsuccessful. To her surprise, she discovered that she could not even turn against the high wind which rocked and buffeted the frail craft. Then she dropped swiftly to the dark and windswept zone between the hurtling clouds and the gloomy surface of the shadowed ground. Here she tried again to force the nose of the flyer back toward Helium, but the tempest seized the frail thing and hurled it remorsely about, rolling it over and over and tossing it as if it were a cork and a cataract. At last the girl succeeded in writing the flyer perilously close to the ground. Never before had she been so close to death, yet she was not terrified. Her coolness had saved her, that, and the strength of the deck-lashings that held her. Travelling with the storm she was safe, but where was it bearing her? She pictured the apprehension of her father and mother when she failed to appear at the morning meal. They would find her flyer missing, and they would guess that somewhere in the path of the storm it lay a wrecked and tangled mass upon her dead body, and then brave men would go out in search of her. In search of her, risking their lives, and that lives would be lost in the search she knew, for she realized now that never in her lifetime had such a tempest raged upon Barsoom. She must turn back. She must reach Helium before her mad lust for thrills had cost the sacrifice of a single courageous life. She determined that greater safety and likelihood of success lay above the clouds, and once again she rose through the chilling wind-tossed vapor. Her speed again was terrific, for the winds seemed to have increased rather than have lessened. She sought gradually to check swift flight of her craft, but though she finally succeeded in reversing her motor, the wind but carried her on as it would. Then it was that Tara of Helium lost her temper. Had her world not always bowed in acquiescence to her every wish? What were these elements that they dared to thwart her? She would demonstrate to them that the daughter of the warlord was not to be denied. They would learn that Tara of Helium might not be ruled even by the forces of nature, and so she drove her motor forward again, and then with her firm white teeth set in grim determination she drove the steering lever far down to port with the intention of forcing the nose of her craft straight into the teeth of the wind, and the wind seized the frail thing and toppled it over upon its back and twisted it and turned it and hurled it over and over. The propeller raced for an instant in an air pocket and then the tempest seized it again and twisted it from its shaft, leaving the girl helpless upon an unmanageable atom that rose and fell and rolled and tumbled the sport of the elements she had defied. Tara of Helium's first sensation was one of surprise that she had failed to have her own way. Then she commenced to feel concern, not for her own safety, but for the anxiety of her parents and the dangers that the inevitable searchers must face. She reproached herself for the thoughtless selfishness that had jeopardized the peace and safety of others. She realized her own grave danger, too, but she was still unterrified, as befit the daughter of Dejah Thoris and John Carter. She knew that her buoyancy tanks might keep her afloat indefinitely, but she had neither food nor water, and she was being born toward the least known area of Barsoom. Perhaps it would be better to land immediately and await the coming of the searchers rather than to allow herself to be carried still farther from Helium, thus greatly reducing the chances of early discovery. But when she dropped toward the ground, she discovered that the violence of the wind rendered an attempt to land tantamount to destruction, and she rose again rapidly. Carried it along a few hundred feet above the ground, she was better able to appreciate the titanic proportions of the storm than when she had flown in the comparative serenity of the zone above the clouds. For now, she could distinctly see the effect of the wind upon the surface of Barsoom. The air was filled with dust and flying bits of vegetation, and when the storm carried her across an irrigated area of farmland, she saw great trees and stone walls and buildings lifted high in air and scattered broadcast over the devastated country. And then she was carried swiftly on to other sites that forced in upon her conscious a rapidly growing conviction that after all, Tara of Helium was a very small and insignificant and helpless person. It was quite a shock to herself pride while it lasted, and toward evening she was ready to believe that it was going to last forever. There had been no abatement in the ferocity of the tempest, nor was there any indication of any. She could only guess at the distance she had been carried, for she could not believe in the correctness of the high figures that had been piled upon the record of her odometer. They seemed unbelievable, and yet had she known it they were quite true. In twelve hours she had flown and been carried by the storm full seven thousand hods. Just before dark she was carried over one of the deserted cities of ancient Mars. It was Torga's, but she did not know it. Had she, she might readily have been forgiven for abandoning the last vestige of hope. For to the people of Helium, Torga's seems as remote as do the South Sea islands to us. And still the tempest, its fury unabated, bore her on. All that night she hurled through the dark beneath the clouds, or rose to race through the moonlit void beneath the glory of Barsoom's two satellites. She was cold and hungry, and altogether miserable. But her brave little spirit refused to admit that her plight was hopeless even though reason proclaimed the truth. Her reply to reason, sometimes spoken aloud in sudden defiance, recalled the spartan stubbornness of her sire in the face of certain annihilation. I still live. That morning there had been an early visitor at the palace of the warlord. It was Gahan, Jed of Gaethal. He had arrived shortly after the absence of Tara of Helium had been noted, and in the excitement he had remained unannounced until John Carter had happened upon him in the great reception corridor of the palace as the warlord was hurrying out to arrange for the dispatch of ships in search of his daughter. Gahan read the concern on the face of the warlord. Forgive me if I intrude, John Carter, he said. I but came to ask the indulgence of another day since it would be foolhardy to attempt to navigate a ship in such a storm. Remain, Gahan, a welcome guest until you choose to leave us, replied the warlord, but you must forgive any seeming inattention upon the part of Helium until my daughter is restored to us. Your daughter? Restored? What do you mean? exclaimed the Gatholian. I do not understand. She is gone, together with her light flyer. That is all we know. We can only assume that she decided to fly before the morning meal and was caught in the clutches of the tempest. You will pardon me, Gahan, if I leave you abruptly. I am arranging to send ships in search of her. But Gahan, Jed of Gaethal, was already speeding in the direction of the palace gate. There he leaped upon a waiting throat and followed by two warriors in the middle of Gaethal. He dashed through the avenues of Helium toward the palace that had been set aside for his entertainment. This is the end of the Chessmen of Mars, Chapter 2, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Recording by Tom Weiss. The Chessmen of Mars, Chapter 3 by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chapter 3, The Headless Humans. Above the roof of the palace that housed the Jed of Gaethal and his entourage, the cruiser Vanity. The Chessmen of Mars, Chapter 3, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chapter 3, The Headless Humans. Above the roof of the palace that housed the Jed of Gaethal and his entourage, the cruiser Vanity. The Chessmen of the Chessmen of Mars, the Anterreich, the Cruiser Vanatorl, tore at her stout moorings. The groaning tackle bespoke the mad fury of the gale, while the worried faces of those members of the crew whose duties demanded their presence on the straining craft gave corroborative evidence of the gravity of the situation. Only stout lashings prevented these men from being swept from deck, while those upon the roof below constantly compelled to cling to rails and stanchions to save themselves from being carried away by each new burst of meteoric fury. Upon the prowl of the Vanator was painted the device of Gaethal, but no penance were displayed in the upper works, since the storm had carried away several in rapid succession, just as it seemed to the watching men that it must carry away the ship itself. They could not believe that any tackle could withstand for long this titanic force. To each of the twelve lashings flung a brawny warrior with drawn short sword. Had but a single mooring given to the power of the tempest, eleven short swords would have cut the others. Since partially moored, the ship was doomed, while free in the tempest it stood at least some slight chance of life. Despite the blood of Isis, I believe they will hold, screamed one warrior to another. And if they do not hold, made the spirits of our ancestors reward the brave warriors upon the Vanator, replied another of those upon the roof of the palace. For it will not be long from the moment her cables parked before her crew dons the leather of the dead. But yet, Tannis, I believe they will hold, give thanks at least that we did not sail before the tempest fell, since now each of us has a chance to live. Yes, replied Tannis, I should hate to be abroad today upon the stoutest ship that sails the Barsoomian sky. It was then that Gahan the jet appeared upon the roof. With him were the balance of his own party and a dozen warriors of Helium, the young chief turned to his followers. I sail at once upon the Vanator, he said, in search of Tara of Helium, who is thought to have been carried away upon a one-man flier by the storm. I do not need to explain to you the slender chances the Vanator has to withstand the fury of the tempest, nor will I order you to your deaths. Let those who wish remain behind without dishonor. The others will follow me. And he leaped for the rope ladder that lashed wildly in the gale. The first man to follow him was Tannis, and when the last reached the deck of the cruiser, there remained upon the palace roof only the twelve warriors of Helium, who, with naked swords, had taken the posts of the Gatholians at the Moorings. Not a single warrior who had remained aboard the Vanator would leave her now. I expect it, no less, said Gahan, as with the help of those already on the deck, he and the others found secure lashings. The commander of the Vanator shook his head. He loved his trim-crap, the pride of her class in the little navy of Gathol. It was of her, he thought, not of himself. He saw her lying torn and twisted upon the ochre vegetation of some distant sea-bottom to be presently overrun and looted by some savage green horde. He looked at Gahan. Are you ready, San Tothis, asked the Jed? All is ready. Then cut away. Word was passed across the deck, and over the side to the Heliumetic warriors below that at the third gun they were to cut away. Twelve keen swords must strike simultaneously and with equal power, and each must sever completely and instantly three strands of heavy cable that no loose end hauling a block bring immediate disaster upon the Vanator. Boom! The voice of the signal gun rolled down through the screaming wind to the twelve warriors upon the roof. Boom! Twelve swords were raised above the twelve brawny shoulders. Boom! Twelve keen edges severed, twelve complaining moorings, clean, and has won. The Vanator, her propellers whirling, shot forward with the storm. The tempest struck her in the stern as with a mailed fist and stood the great ship upon her nose, and then it caught her and spun her as a child's topspins. And upon the palace roof, the twelve men looked on in silent helplessness and prayed for the souls of the brave warriors who were going to their death. And others saw from Helium's lofty landing stages and from a thousand hangers upon a thousand roofs, but only for an instant did the preparation stop that would send other brave men into the frightful maelstrom of that apparently hopeless search. For such is the courage of the warriors of Barsoom. But the Vanator did not fall to the ground, within sight of the city at least, though as long as the watchers could see her, never for an instant did she rest upon an even keel. Sometimes she lay upon one side or the other, and again she hurtled along, keeled up, or rolled over and over, or stood upon her nose or her tail at the caprice of the great force that carried her along. And the watchers saw that this great ship was merely being blown away with the other bits of debris, great and small, that filled the sky. Never in the memory of man or the annals of recorded history had such a storm raged across the face of Barsoom. And in another instant was the Vanator forgotten as the lofty scarlet tower that had marked lesser Helium for ages crashed to the ground, carrying death and demolition upon the city beneath. Panic rain, a fire broke out in the ruins. The city's every force seemed crippled. And it was then that the warlord ordered the men that were about to set forth in search of Tara of Helium to devote their energies to the salvation of the city, for he too had witnessed the start of the Vanator and realized the futility of wasting men who were needed sorely if lesser Helium was to be saved from utter destruction. Shortly after noon of the second day, the storm commenced to abate, and before the sun went down, the little craft upon which Tara of Helium had hovered between life and death. These many hours drifted slowly before a gentle breeze above a landscape of rolling hills that once had been lofty mountains upon a Martian continent. The girl was exhausted for loss of sleep, lack of food and drink, and from the nervous reaction consequent to the terrifying experiences through which she had passed. In the near distance, just hopping an intervening hill, she caught a momentary glimpse of what appeared to be a dome-capped tower. Quickly she dropped the flyer until the hill shut it off from the view of the possible occupants of the structure she had seen. The tower meant to her the habitation of man, suggesting the presence of water and perhaps of food. If the tower was the deserted relic of a bygone age, she would scarcely find food there, but there was still a chance that there might be water. If it was inhabited, then must her approach be cautious, for only enemies might be expected to abide in so far distant a land. Tara of Helium knew that she must be far from the twin cities of her grandfather's empire, but had she guessed within a thousand heads of the reality, she had been stunned by realization of the utter hopelessness of her state. Keeping the craft low, for the buoyancy tanks were still intact, the girl skimmed the ground until the gently moving wind had carried her to the side of a last hill that intervened between her and the structure she had thought a man-built tower. Here she brought the flyer to the ground among some stunted trees, and dragging it beneath one where it might be somewhat hidden from craft passing above, she made it fast and set forth to reconnoiter. Like most women of her class, she was armed only with a single slender blade, so that in such an emergency as now confronted her, she must depend almost solely upon her cleverness in remaining undiscovered by enemies. With utmost caution, she crept warily toward the crest of the hill, taking advantage of every natural screen that the landscape afforded to conceal her approach from possible observers ahead, while momentarily she cast quick glances rearward, lest she be taken by surprise from that quarter. She came at last in the summit where, from the concealment of a low bush, she could see what lay beyond. Beneath her spread a beautiful valley, surrounded by low hills. Dotting it were numerous circular towers, dome cap, and surrounding each tower was a stone wall enclosing several acres of ground. The valley appeared to be in a high state of cultivation. Upon the opposite side of the hill and just beneath her was a tower and enclosure. It was the roof of the former that had first attracted her attention. In all respects, it seemed identical in construction with those further out in the valley, a high plastered wall of massive construction surrounding a similarly constructed tower. Upon whose gray surface was painted in vivid colors a strange device. The towers were about 40 sofads in diameter, approximately 40 earth feet and 60 in height to the base of the dome. To an earth man, they would have immediately suggested the silos in which dairy farmers store and silage for their herds. The closer scrutiny, revealing an occasional embrasure opening together with the strange construction of the domes would have altered such conclusion. Tara of Helium saw that the domes seemed to be faced with innumerable prisms of glass. Those that were exposed to the declining sun scintillating so gorgeously as to remind her suddenly of the magnificent trappings of Gahan of Gathal. As she thought of the man, she shook her head angrily and moved cautiously forward a foot or two that she might get a less obstructed view of the nearer tower and its enclosure. As Tara of Helium looked down into the enclosure surrounding the nearest tower, her brows contracted momentarily in frowning surprise and then her eyes went wide in an expression of incredulity tinged with horror for what she saw with the score or two of human bodies naked and headless. For a long moment she watched breathless unable to believe the evidence of her own eyes that these gruesome things moved and had life. She saw them crawling about on hands and knees over and across one another searching about with their fingers and she saw some of them at troughs for which the others seemed to be searching and those at the troughs were taking something from these receptacles and apparently going to get in a hole where their necks should have been. They were not far beneath her. She could see them distinctly and she saw that there were the bodies of both men and women and that they were beautifully proportioned and that their skin was similar to hers but of a slightly lighter red. At first she had thought that she was looking upon a shambles and that the bodies but recently decapitated were moving under the impulse of muscular reaction but presently she realized that this was their normal condition. The horror of them fascinated her so that she could scarce take her eyes from them. It was evident from their groping hands that they were eyeless and their sluggish movement suggested a rudimentary nervous system and a correspondingly minute frame. The girl wondered how they subsisted for she could not even by the wildest stretch of imagination picture these imperfect creatures as intelligent tillers of the soil. Yet that the soil of the valley was tilled was evident and that these things had food was equally so. But who tilled the soil? Who kept and fed these unhappy things and for what purpose? It was an enigma beyond her powers of deduction. The sight of food aroused again the consciousness of her own gnawing hunger and the thirst that touched her throat. She could see both food and water within the enclosure but would she dare enter even should she find means of ingress? She doubted it since the very thought of possible contact with these gruesome creatures sent a shutter through her frame. Then her eyes wandered again out across the valley until presently they picked out what appeared to be a tiny stream winding its way through the center of the farmlands a strange sight upon Barsoom. Ah if it were but water then might she hope with a real hope for the fields would give her sustenance which she could gain by night while by day she hid among the surrounding hills and sometime yes sometime she knew the searchers would come for John Carter warlord of Barsoom would never cease to search for his daughter until every square hod of the planet had been combed again and again. She knew him and she knew the warriors of Helium and so she knew that could she but manage to escape harm until they came they would indeed come at last. She would have to wait until dark before she dare venture into the valley and in the meantime she thought it well to search out a place of safety nearby where she might be reasonably safe from savage beasts. It was possible that the district was free from carnivora but one might never be sure in a strange land she was about to withdraw behind the brow of the hill her attention was again attracted to the enclosure below two figures had emerged from the tower their beautiful bodies seemed identical with those of the headless creatures among which they moved but the newcomers were not headless upon their shoulders were heads that seemed human yet which the girl intuitive really sensed were not human they were just a trifle too far away for her to see them distinctly in the waning light of the dying day but she knew that they were too large they were out of proportion to the perfectly proportioned bodies and they were oblate in form she could see that the men wore some manner of harness to which were slung the customary long sword and short sword of the bar Sumian warrior and that about their short necks were massive leather collars cut to fit closely over the shoulders and snugly to the lower part of the head their features were scarce discernible but there was a suggestion of grotesqueness about them that carried to her feeling a revulsion the two carried a long rope to which were fastened at intervals of about two so fads what she later guessed to be light manacles where she saw the warriors passing among the poor creatures in the enclosure and about the right wrist of each they fastened one of the manacles when all had been thus fastened to the rope one of the warriors commenced a pull and tug at the loose end as though attempting to drag the headless company toward the tower while the other went among them with a long light whip with which he clicked them upon the naked skin slowly dully the creatures rose to their feet and between the tugging of the warrior in the front and the lashing of him behind the hopeless band was finally hurt within the tower Tara of Helium shuttered as she turned away what manner of creatures were these suddenly it was night the bar Sumian day had ended and then the brief period of twilight that renders the transition from daylight to darkness almost as abrupt as a switching off of an electric light and Tara of Helium had found no sanctuary but perhaps there were no beasts to fear or rather to avoid Tara of Helium liked not the word fear she would have been glad however had there been a cabin even a very tiny cabin upon her small plier but there was no cabin the interior of the hull was completely taken up by the buoyancy tanks ah she had it how stupid of her not to have thought of it before she could more the craft to a tree beneath which it rested and let it rise the length of the rope lash to the deck rings she would then be saved from any roaming beast to pray the chance to long in the morning she could drop to the ground again before the craft was discovered as Tara of Helium crept over the brow of the hill down toward the valley her presence was hidden by the darkness of night from the sight of any chance observer who might be loitering by a window in the nearby tower chloros the farther moon was just rising above the horizon to commence his leisurely journey through the heavens eight zones later he would set a trifle over nineteen and a half earth hours and during that time Thuria his vivacious mate would have circled the planet twice and be more than halfway around on her third trip she had but just set it would be more than three and a half hours before she shot above the opposite horizon to hurdle swift and low across the face of the dying planet during this temporary absence of the mad moon Tara of Helium hope to find both food and water and gain again the safety of her fliers deck she groped her way through the darkness giving the tower and its enclosure as wide a berth as possible sometime she stumbled or in long shadows cast by the rising chloros objects were grotesquely distorted though the light from the moon was still not sufficient to be a much assistance to her nor as a matter of fact did she want light she could find the stream in the dark by the simple expedient of going downhill until she walked into it and she had seen that bearing trees and many crops grew throughout the valley so that she would pass food in plenty air she reached the stream if the moon showed her the way more clearly and thus saved her from an occasional fall he would too show her more clearly to the strange denizens of the towers and that of course must not be could she have waited until the following night conditions would have been better since chloros would not appear in the heavens at all and so during Thuria's absence utter darkness would rain but the pangs of thirst and the knowing of hunger could be endured no longer with food and drink both in sight and so she had decided to risk discovery rather than suffer longer safely past the nearest tower she moved as rapidly as she felt consistent with safety choosing her way wherever possible so that she might take advantage of the shadows of the trees that grew at intervals and at the same time discover those which bore fruit in this ladder she met with almost immediate success for the very third tree beneath which she hauled it was heavy with ripe fruit never thought Tara of Helium had bought so delicious impinged upon her palate and yet it was not else than the almost tasteless Usa which is considered to be palatable only after having been cooked and highly spiced it grows easily with little irrigation and the trees bear abundantly the fruit which ranks high in food value is one of the staple foods of the less well to do and because of its cheapness and nutritive value forms one of the principal rations of both armies and navies upon bar soon a use which has won for a Martian sobriquet which freely translated into English would be the fighting potato the girl was wise enough to eat but sparingly but she filled her pocket pouch with the fruit before she continued upon her way two towers she passed before she came at last to the stream and here again was she temperate drinking but little and that very slowly contending herself with rinsing her mouth frequently and bathing her face her hands and her feet and even though the night was cold as Martian nights are the sensation of refreshment more than compensated for the physical discomfort of the low temperature replacing her sandals she sought among the growing track near the stream for whatever edible berries or tubers might be planted there and found a couple of varieties that could be eaten raw with these she replaced some of the oussa in her pocket pouch not only to ensure a variety but because she found them more palatable occasionally she returned to the stream to drink but each time moderately always were her eyes and ears alert for the first signs of danger but she had neither seen nor heard ought to disturb her and presently the time approached when she felt she must return to her flier lest she be caught in the revealing light of low-swinging thuria she dreaded leaving the water or she knew that she must become very thirsty before she could hope to come again to the stream if she only had some little receptacle in which to carry water even a small amount would tide her over until the following night but she had nothing and so she must content herself as best she could with the juices of the fruit and the tubers she had gathered after a last drink at the stream the longest and deepest she had allowed herself she rose to retrace her steps toward the hills but even as she did so she became suddenly tense with apprehension what was that she could have sworn that she saw something move in the shadows beneath the tree not far away for a long minute the girl did not move she scarce breathed her eyes remained fixed upon the dense shadows below the tree her ears strained through the silence of the night a low moaning came down from the hills where her flier was hidden she knew it well the weird note of the hunting bond and the great carnivore laid directly in her path but he was not so close as this other thing hiding there in the shadows just a little way off what was it it was the strain of uncertainty that weighed heaviest upon her had she known the nature of the creature lurking there half its menace would have been vanished she cast quickly about her in search of some haven of refuge should the thing prove dangerous again arose the moaning from the hills but this time closer almost immediately it was answered from the opposite side of the valley behind her and then from the distance to the right of her and twice upon her left her eyes had found a tree quite near slowly and without taking her eyes from the shadows of that other tree she moved toward the overhanging branches that might afford her sanctuary in the event of need and at her first move a low growl rose from the spot she had been watching and she heard the sudden moving of a big body simultaneously the creature shot into the moonlight in full charge upon her its tail erect its tiny ears laid flat its great mouth with its multiple rows of sharp and powerful fangs already yawning for its prey its ten legs carrying it forward in great leaps and now from the beast's throat issued the frightful roar upon which it seeks to paralyze its prey it was a bath the great mained lion of barsoom tarot of helium saw it coming and leaped for the tree toward which she had been moving and the bath realized her intention and redoubled its speed as his hideous roar awakened the echoes in the hills so too it awakened echoes in the valley but these echoes came from the living throats of others of his kind until it seemed to the girl that fate had thrown her into the midst of a countless multitude of these savage beasts almost incredibly swift is the speed of a charging banth and fortunate it was that the girl had not been caught farther in the open as it was her margin of safety was next to negligible for as she swung nimbly to the lower branches the creature in pursuit of her crashed among the foliage almost upon her as it sprang upward to seize her it was only a combination of good fortune and agility that saved her a stout branch deflected the raking talons of the carnivore but so close was the call that a giant forearm brushed her flesh in the instant before she scrambled to the higher branches baffled the bath gave vent to his rage and disappointment in a series of frightful roars that caused the very ground to tremble and to these were added the roaring and the growling and the moaning of his fellows as they approached from every direction in hope of resting from him whatever of his kill they could take by craft or proudness and now he turned snarling upon them as they circled the tree while the girl huddled in a crotch above them looked down upon the gaunt yellow monsters patting on noiseless feet in a restless circle about her she wondered now at the strange freak of fate that had permitted her to come down this far into the valley by night unharmed but even more she wondered how she was to return to the hills she knew that she would not dare venture it by night and she guessed too that by day she might be confronted by even graver perils to depend upon this valley for sustenance she now saw to be beyond the pale of possibility because of the bounce that would keep her from food and water by night while the dwellers in the towers would doubtless make it equally impossible for her to forage by day there was but one solution of her difficulty and that was to return to her flyer and pray that the wind would whacked her to some less terrible land but when might she return to the flyer the bounce gave little evidence of relinquishing hope of her and even if they wandered out of sight would she dare risk the attempt she doubted it hopeless indeed seemed her situation hopeless it was this is the end of the chestman of mars chapter three by edgar rice burrows recording by tom was