 Chapter 1 of Thuvia, Made of Mars. Upon a massive bench of polished earth site, Beneath the gorgeous blooms of a giant Himalaya, a woman sat. Her shapely sandaled foot tapped impatiently upon the jewel-struan walk that wound beneath the stately sauropus trees across the scarlet sward of the royal gardens of Thuvandin, Jeddak of Tarth. As a dark-haired, red-skinned warrior bent low toward her, whispering heated words close to her ear. Ah, Thuvia of Tarth, he pried. You are cold, even before the fiery blasts of my consuming love. No harder than your heart nor colder is the hard, cold earth site of this thrice-happy bench which supports your divine and fadeless form. Tell me, will Thuvia of Tarth, that I may still hope, that though you do not love me now, yet some day, some day, my princess, I— The girl sprang to her feet with an exclamation of surprise and displeasure. Her queenly head was poised hotly upon her smooth red shoulders. Her dark eyes looked angrily into those of the man. You forget yourself, and the customs of Barsoom, Astak, she said. I have given you no right thus to address the daughter of Thuvandin, nor have you won such a right. The man reached suddenly forth and grasped her by the arm. You shall be my princess, he cried. By the breast of Isis thou shalt. Nor shall any other come between Astak, Prince of Dusar, and his heart's desire. Tell me that there is another, and I shall cut out his foul heart and fling it to the wild callots of the dead sea-bottoms. At touch of the man's hand upon her flesh, the girl went pallid beneath her coppery skin. For the persons of the royal women of the courts of Mars are held but little less than sacred. The act of Astak, Prince of Dusar, was profanation. There was no terror in the eyes of Thuvandin, only horror for the thing the man had done, and for its possible consequences. Release me. Her voice was level, frigid. The man muttered incoherently and drew her roughly toward him. Release me. She repeated sharply, or I shall call God, and the Prince of Dusar knows what that will mean. Quickly he threw his right arm about her shoulders and strove to draw her face to his lips. With a little cry she struck him full in the mouth with the massive bracelets that circled her free arm. Callot! she exclaimed, and then the guard, the guard, hastened in protection of the Princess of Tarth. In answer to her call a dozen guardsmen came racing across the scarlet sword, their gleaming longswords naked in the sun, the metal of their accoutrements clanking against that of their leathern harness, and in their throats horse shouts of rage at the sight which met their eyes. But before they had passed half across the royal garden to where Astak of Dusar still held the struggling girl in his grasp, another figure sprang from a cluster of dense foliage that half hid a golden fountain close at hand, a tall straight youth he was, with black hair and keen gray eyes, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, a clean-limbed fighting man. His skin was but faintly tinged with the copper color that marks the red men of Mars from the other races of the dying planet. He was like them, and yet there was a subtle difference, greater even than that which lay in his lighter skin and his gray eyes. There was a difference, too, in his movements. He came on in great leaps that carried him so swiftly over the ground that the speed of the guardsmen was as nothing by comparison. Astak still clutched Duvia's wrist as the young warrior confronted him. The newcomer wasted no time, and he spoke but a single word. Kellot! he snapped. And then his clenched fist landed beneath the other's chin, lifting him high into the air and depositing him in a crumpled heap within the center of the Pamelia bush beside the earth-side bench. Her champion turned toward the girl. Kaoh of Thuvia of Ptarth he cried. It seems that fate timed my visit well. Kaoh, Cthoris of Helium, the princess, returned the young man's greeting. And what less could one expect to the son of such a sire? He bowed, his acknowledgment of the compliment to his father John Carter, warlord of Mars. And then the guardsmen, panting from their charge, came up just as the Prince of Dusar, bleeding at the mouth and withdrawn sword, crawled from the entanglement of the Pamelia. Astak would have leaped to mortal combat with the son of Dijethoris, but the guardsmen pressed about him, preventing, though it was clearly evident that Naught would have better pleased Cthoris of Helium. But say the word, Thuvia of Ptarth, he begged, and Naught will give me greater pleasure than meeting to this fellow the punishment he has earned. It cannot be, Cthoris, she replied, even though he has forfeited all claim on my consideration, yet is he the guest of the Jeddak, my father. And to him alone may he account for the unpardonable act he has committed. As you say, Thuvia, replied the Heliumite. But afterward he shall account to Cthoris, Prince of Helium, for his affront to the daughter of my father's friend. As he spoke, though, there burned in his eyes a fire that proclaimed a nearer, dearer cause for his championship of this glorious daughter of Barsoom. The maids cheek darkened beneath the satin of her transparent skin, and the eyes of Astak, Prince of Dusar, darkened, too, as he read that which passed unspoken between the two in the royal gardens of the Jeddak. And thou to me, he snapped at Cthoris, answering the young man's challenge. The guard still surrounded Astak. It was a difficult position for the young officer who commanded it. His prisoner was the son of a mighty Jeddak. He was the guest of Thuvan Dyn, until but now an honoured guest upon whom every royal dignity had been showered. To arrest him forcibly could mean not else than war, and yet he had done that which in the eyes of the Tarth warrior merited death. The young man hesitated. He looked toward his princess. She, too, guessed all that hung upon the action at the coming moment. For many years Dusar and Tarth had been at peace with each other. Their great merchant ships plied back and forth between the larger cities of the two nations. Even now, far above the gold-shot dome of the Jeddak's palace, she could see the huge bulk of a giant freighter taking its majestic way through the thin Barsoomian air toward the west and Dusar. By a word, she might plunge these two mighty nations into a bloody conflict that would drain them of their bravest blood and their incalculable riches, leaving them all helpless against the inroads of their envious and less powerful neighbours, and at last a prey to the savage green hordes of the Dead Sea Bottoms. No sense of fear influenced her decision, for fear is seldom known to the children of Mars. It was rather a sense of the responsibility that she, the daughter of their Jeddak, felt for the welfare of her father's people. I called you, Padwan, she said to the lieutenant of the guard, to protect the person of your princess, and to keep the peace that must not be violated within the royal gardens of the Jeddak. That is all. You will escort me to the palace, and the Prince of Helium will accompany me. Without another glance in the direction of Astok, she turned, and, taking Carthoris' prophet hand, moved slowly toward the massive marble pile that housed the ruler of Tarth at his glittering court. On either side marched a file of guardsmen. Thus Thuvia of Tarth found a way out of a dilemma, escaping the necessity of placing her father's royal guest under forcible restraint, and, at the same time separating the two princes, who otherwise would have been at each other's throat the moment she hit the guard had departed. Beside the Pamelia stood Astok, his dark eyes narrowed to mere slits of hate, beneath his lowering brows, as he watched the retreating forms of the woman who had aroused the fiercest passions of his nature, and the man whom he now believed to be the one who stood between his love and its consummation. As they disappeared within the structure, Astok shrugged his shoulders, and with the murmured oath crossed the gardens toward another wing of the building where he and his retinue were housed. That night he took formal leave of Thuvan Din, and, though no mention was made of the happening within the garden, it was plain to see, through the cold mask of the jeddak's courtesy, that only the customs of royal hospitality restrained him from voicing the contempt he felt for the Prince of Dusar. Tarthoris was not present at the leave-taking, nor was Thuvia. The ceremony was as stiff and formal as court etiquette could make it, and when the last of the Dusarians clamoured over the rail of the battleship, they brought them upon this fateful visit to the court of Tarth, and the mighty engine of destruction had risen slowly from the ways of the landing stage. A note of relief was apparent in the voice of Thuvan Din as he turned to one of his officers with a word of comment upon a subject foreign to that which had been uppermost in the minds of all for hours. But, after all, was it so far on? In form Prince Sovan, he directed, that it is our wish that the fleet which departed for Kale this morning be recalled to cruise to the west of Tarth. As the warship, burying Aztok back to the court of his father, turned, brought the west, Thuvia of Parth, sitting upon the same bench where the Prince of Dusar had affronted her, watched the twinkling lights of the craft growing smaller in the distance. Beside her, in the brilliant light of the nearer moon sat Carthoris. His eyes were not upon the dim bulk of the battleship, but on the profile of the girl's upturned face. Thuvia, they whispered. The girl turned her eyes toward his. His hands stole out to find hers, but she drew her own gently away. Thuvia of Tarth, I love you, cried the young warrior. Tell me that it does not offend. She shook her head, sadly. The love of Carthoris of Helium, she said simply, could be not but an honour to any woman. But you must not speak, my friend, of bestowing upon me that which I may not recitricate. The young man got slowly to his feet. His eyes were wide in astonishment. It never had occurred to the Prince of Helium that Thuvia of Tarth might love another. But at Kadabra, he exclaimed, and later here at your father's court, what did you do, Thuvia of Tarth, that might have warned me that you could not return my love? And what did I do, Carthoris of Helium, she returned, that might lead you to believe that I did return it? He paused in thought and then shook his head. Nothing, Thuvia, that is true. Yet I could have sworn you loved me. Indeed, you knew well how near to worship has been my love for you. And how might I know it, Carthoris? She asked innocently, did you ever tell me as much? Ever before have words of love for me fallen from your lips. But you must have known it, he exclaimed. I am like my father, witless in matters of the heart, and of a poor way with women. Yet the jewels that strew these garden paths, the trees, the flowers, the sword, all must have read the love that has filled my heart, since first my eyes were made new by imaging your perfect face and form. So how could you alone have been blind to it? Do the maids of Helium pay court to their men? Ask Thuvia. You are playing with me, exclaimed Carthoris. Say that you are but playing, and that after all you love me, Thuvia. I cannot tell you that, Carthoris, for I am promised to another. Her tone was level, but was there not within it the hint of an infinite depth of sadness? Who may say? Almost to another. Carthoris scarcely breathed the words. His face went almost white, and then his head came up as befitted him in whose veins flowed the blood of the overlord of a world. Carthoris of Helium wishes you every happiness with the man of your choice, he said, with—and then he hesitated, waiting for her to fill in the name. Coulon Tith, Jeddak of Chaos, he replied, my father's friend and Carth's most recent ally. The young man looked at her intently for a moment before he spoke again. You love him, Thuvia of Tarth, he asked. I am promised to him, she replied simply. He did not press her. He is of Barsoom's noblest blood and mightiest fighters, used Carthoris, my father's friend and mine, with that it might have been another he muttered almost savagely. What the girl thought was hidden by the mask of her expression, which was tinged only by a little shadow of sadness that might have been for Carthoris herself or for them both. Carthoris of Helium did not ask, though he noted it, for his loyalty to Coulon Tith was the loyalty of the blood of John Carter of Virginia for a friend, greater than which could be no loyalty. He raised a jewel-encrusted bit of the girl's magnificent trappings to his lips, to the honor and happiness of Coulon Tith, and the priceless jewel that has been bestowed upon it, he said. And though his voice was husky, there was the true ring of sincerity in it. I told you that I loved you, Thuvia, before I knew that you were promised to another. I may not tell you it again, but I am glad that you know it, for there is no dishonor in it, either to you or to Coulon Tith or to myself. My love is such that it may embrace as well Coulon Tith, if you love him. There was almost a question in the statement. I am promised to him, she replied. Carthoris backed slowly away. He laid one hand upon his heart the other upon the pommel of his longsword. These are yours, always, it said. A moment later he had entered the palace and was gone from the girl's sight. Had he returned at once he would have found her prone upon the earth-side bench, or faced buried in her arms. Was she weeping? There was none to see. Carthoris of Helium had come all unannounced to the court of his father's friend that day, he had come alone in a small flier, sure of the same welcome that always awaited him at Tarth. As there had been no formality in his coming there was no need of formality in his going. Duthuvan Dinh he explained that he had been but testing an invention of his own with which his flier was equipped. A clever improvement of the ordinary Martian air compass, which when set for a certain destination will remain constantly fixed thereon, making it only necessary to keep a vessel's prow always in the direction of the compass needle to reach any given point upon Barsoom by the shortest route. Carthoris' improvement upon this consisted of an auxiliary device which steered the craft mechanically in the direction of the compass, and upon arrival directly over the point for which the compass was set, brought the craft to a standstill and lowered it, also automatically, to the ground. He readily discerned the advantages of this invention, he was saying to Duthuvan Dinh, who had accompanied him to the landing stage upon the palace roof to inspect the compass and bid his young friend farewell. A dozen officers of the court with several body servants were grouped behind the jeddak and his guest, eager listeners to the conversation, so eager upon the part of one of the servants, that he was twice rebuked by a noble, for his forwardness in pushing himself ahead of his batters to view the intricate mechanism of the wonderful controlling destination compass, as the thing was called. For example, continued Carthoris, I have an all night trip for me as tonight. I set the pointer here upon the right hand dial, which represents the eastern hemisphere of Barsoom, so that the point rests upon the exact latitude and longitude of Helium. Then I start the engine, roll up in my sleeping silks and furs, and with lights burning, race through the air toward Helium, confident that at the appointed hour I shall drop gently toward the landing stage upon my own palace, whether I am still asleep or no. Provided, suggested Duthuvan Dinh, you do not chance to collide with some of their night wanderer in the meanwhile. Carthoris smiled. No danger of that, he replied. See here, and he indicated a device at the right of the destination compass. This is my obstruction evader, as I call it. This visible device is the switch which throws the mechanism on or off. The instrument itself is below deck, geared both to the steering apparatus and the control levers. It is quite simple, being nothing more than a radium generator diffusing radioactivity in all directions to a distance of a hundred yards or so from the flyer. Should this enveloping force be interrupted in any direction, a delicate instrument immediately apprehends the irregularity, at the same time imparting an impulse to a magnetic device which in turn actuates the steering mechanism, diverting the bow of the flyer away from the obstacle until the craft's radioactivity sphere is no longer in contact with the obstruction, then she falls once more into her normal course. Should the disturbance approach from the rear, as in the case of a faster moving craft overhauling me, the mechanism actuates the speed control as well as the steering gear, and the flyer shoots head and either up or down as the oncoming vessel is upon a lower or higher plane than herself. In aggravated cases, that is, when the obstructions are many or such a nature is to deflect the bow more than 45 degrees in any direction, or when the craft has reached its destination and dropped to within a hundred yards of the ground, the mechanism brings her to a full stop, at the same time sounding a loud alarm which will instantly awaken the pilot. You see, I have anticipated almost every contingency. Tuvan Dinh smiled his an appreciation of the marvelous device. The forward servant pushed almost to the flyer's side, his eyes were narrowed to slits. All but one, he said. The nobles looked at him in astonishment, and one of them grasped the fellow none too gently by the shoulder to push him back to his proper place. Carthoris raised his hand. Wait, he urged. Let us hear what the man has to say. No creation of mortal mind is perfect. A chance he has detected a weakness that it will be well to know at once. Come, my good fellow, and what may be the one contingency I have overlooked? As he spoke, Carthoris observed the servant closely for the first time. He saw a man of giant stature and handsome, as are all those of the race of Martian red men. But the fellow's lips were thin and cruel, and across one cheek was the faint white line of a sword cut, from the right temple to the corner of the mouth. Come, urged the Prince of Hedium, speak. The man hesitated. It was evident that he regretted the temerity that had made him the center of interested observation, but at last seeing no alternative, he spoke. It might be tampered with, he said, by an enemy. Carthoris drew a small key from his leather and pocket pouch. Look at this, he said, handing it to the man. If you know ought of locks, you will know that the mechanism which this unlooses is beyond the cunning of a picker of locks. It guards the vitals of the instrument from crafty tampering. Without it an enemy must half wreck the device to reach its heart, leaving his handiwork apparent for the most casual observer. The servant took the key, glanced at it shrewdly, and then, as he made to return it to Carthoris, dropped it upon the marble flagging. Turning to look for it, he planted the sole of his sandal full upon the glittering object. For an instant he bore all his weight upon the foot that covered the key. Then he stepped back, and with an exclamation as a pleasure, but he had found it, stooped, recovered it, and returned it to the heliomy. Then he dropped back to his station behind the nobles, and was forgotten. A moment later Carthoris had made his adieu to Thuvan Dyn and his nobles, and with lights twinkling had risen into the star-shot void of the Martian night. End of chapter 1 Recording by Thomas Copeland Slavery As the ruler of Tarth, followed by his courtiers, descended from the landing-stage above the palace, the servants dropped into their places in the rear of their royal and noble masters, and behind the others one lingered to the last. Then quickly stooping, he snatched the sandal from his right foot, slipping it into his pocket-pouch. When the party had come to the lower levels, and the jeddak had dispersed them by a sign, none noticed that the forward fellow who had drawn so much attention to himself before the Prince of Helium departed was no longer among the other servants. To whose revenue he had been attached, none had thought to inquire, for the followers of a Martian noble are many, coming and going at the whim of their master, so that a new face is scarcely ever questioned, as the fact that a man has passed within the palace walls is considered proved positive that his loyalty to the jeddak is beyond question. So rigid is the examination of each who seeks service with the nobles of the court. A good rule that, and only relaxed by courtesy in favour of the revenue of visiting royalty from a friendly foreign power. It was late in the morning of the next day that a giant serving man in the harness of the house of a great Tarth noble passed out into the city from the palace gates. Along one broad avenue and then another he strode briskly until he had passed beyond the district of the nobles and had come to the place of shops. Here he sought a pretentious building that rose spire-like toward the heavens, its outer walls elaborately wrought with delicate carvings and intricate mosaics. It was the palace of peace in which were housed the representatives of the foreign powers, or rather in which were located their embassies. For the ministers themselves dwelt in gorgeous palaces within the district occupied by the nobles. Here the man sought the embassy of Dusar. A clerk arose questioningly as he entered and at his request to have a word with the minister asked his credentials. The visitor slipped a plain metal armlet from above his elbow and pointing to an inscription upon its inner surface whispered a word or two to the clerk. The latter's eyes went wide and his attitude turned at once to one of deference. He bowed the stranger to a seat and hastened to an inner room with the armlet in his hand. A moment later he reappeared and conducted the collar into the presence of the minister. For a long time the two were closeted together and when at last the giant serving man emerged from the inner office his expression was cast in a smile of sinister satisfaction. From the palace of peace he hurried directly to the palace of the Dusarian minister. That night two swift flyers left the same palace top. One sped its rapid course toward Helium, the other. The uvea of Tarth strolled in the gardens of her father's palace, as was her nightly custom before retiring. Her silks and furs were drawn about her, the air of Mars is chill after the sun has taken his quick plunge beneath the planet's western verge. The girl's thoughts wandered from her impending noxials that would make her empress of Kale to the person of the trim young Heliumite who had laid his heart at her feet the preceding day. Whether it was pity or regret that saddened her expression as she gazed toward the southern heavens where she had watched the lights of his flyer disappear the previous night, it would be difficult to say. So too is it impossible to conjecture just what her emotions may have been as she discerned the lights of a flyer speeding rapidly out of the distance from that very direction as though impelled toward her garden by the very intensity of the princess thoughts. She saw it circle lower above the palace until she was positive that it but hovered in preparation for a landing. Presently the powerful rays of its searchlight shot downward from the bow. They fell upon the landing stage for a brief instant, revealing the figures of the Tarthian Guard picking into brilliant points of fire the gems upon their gorgeous harnesses. Then the blazing eye swept onward toward the burnished domes and graceful minarets down into court and park and garden to pause at last upon the airside bench and the girls standing there beside it her face upturned full toward the flyer. For but an instant the searchlight halted upon Thuvia of Tarth, then it was extinguished as suddenly as it had come to life. The flyer passed on above her head to disappear beyond a grove of lofty skel trees that grew within the palace grounds. The girls stood for some time as it had left her, except that her head was bent and her eyes downcast in thought. Who but Carthoris could it have been? She tried to feel anger that he should have returned thus spying upon her, but she found it difficult to be angry with the young Prince of Helium. What mad caprice could have induced him so to transgress the etiquette of nations? For lesser things great powers had gone to war. The princess in her was shocked and angry. But what of the girl? And the guard, what of them? Evidently they too had been so much surprised by the unprecedented action of the stranger that they had not even challenged. But that they had no thought to let the thing go unnoticed was quickly evidenced by the scurrying of motors upon the landing stage and the quick shooting airward of a long-line patrol boat. Thuvia watched it dart swiftly eastward, so too did other ice watch. Within the dense shadows of the skel grove, in a wide avenue beneath or spreading foliage, a flyer hung a dozen feet above the ground. From its deck, keen eyes watched the far-fanning searchlight of the patrol boat. No light shone from the enchanted craft upon its deck was the silence of the tomb. Its crew of a half-dozen red warriors watched the lights of the patrol boat diminishing in the distance. The intellects of our ancestors are with us tonight, said one in a low tone. No plan ever carried better, returned another. They did precisely as the Prince foretold. He who had first spoken turned toward the man who squatted before the control board. Now, he whispered, there was no other order given. Every man upon the craft had evidently been well schooled in each detail of that night's work. Silently, the dark hull crept beneath the cathedral arches of the dark and silent grove. Thuvia optar, gazing toward the east, saw the blacker blot against the blackness of the trees as the craft popped the buttressed garden wall. She saw the dim bulk inclined gently downward toward the scarlet sward of the garden. She knew that men came not thus with honorable intent, yet she did not cry aloud to alarm the nearby guardsmen, nor did she flee to the safety of the palace. Why? I can see her shrug her shapeless shoulders in reply, as she voices the age-old universal answer of the woman, because. Scare said the flyer touched the ground. When four men leaped from its deck, they ran forward toward the girl. Still she made no sign of alarm, standing as though hypnotized. Or could it have been as one who awaited a welcome visitor? Not until they were quite close to her did she move. Then, the nearer moon, rising above the surrounding foliage, touched their faces, lighting all with the brilliancy of her silver rays. Thuvia optar saw only strangers, warriors in the harness of Dusar. Now she took fright, but too late. Before she could voice but a single cry, rough hand seized her. Heavy silken scarf was round about her head. She was lifted in strong arms and borne to the deck of the flyer. There was the sudden whirl of propellers, the rushing of air against her body, and, from far beneath, the shouting and the challenge from the guard. Racing toward the south, another flyer sped forth helium. In its cabin, a tall red man bent over the soft sole of an upturned sandal. With delicate instruments, he measured the faint imprint of a small object which appeared there. On a pad beside him was the outline of the key, and here he noted the results of his measurements. A smile played upon his lips as he completed his task and turned to one who waited at the opposite side of the table. The man is a genius, he remarked. Only a genius could have evolved such a lock as this is designed to spring. Here, take the sketch, Larac, and give all thine own genius full and unfettered freedom in reproducing it in metal. The warrior-artificer bowed. Man builds not, he said, that man may not destroy. Then he left the cabin with the sketch. As dawn broke upon the lofty towers which marked the twin cities of helium, the scarlet tower of one of the yellow tower of its sister, a flyer floated lazily out of the north. Upon its bow was emblazoned the signia of a lesser noble of the far city of the empire of helium. Its leisurely approach and the evident confidence with which it moved across the city aroused no suspicion in the minds of the sleepy guard. Their round of duty nearly done, they had little thought beyond the coming of those who were to relieve them. Peace reigned throughout helium, stagnant, emasculating peace. Helium had no enemies. There was not to fear. Without haste, the nearest air patrol swung sluggishly about and approached the stranger. At easy speaking distance the officer upon her deck hailed the incoming craft. The cheery kaur and the plausible explanation that the owner had come from distant parts for a few days of pleasure and gay helium sufficed. The air patrol boat sheared off, passing again upon its way. The stranger continued toward a public landing stage where she dropped into the ways and came to rest. At about the same time a warrior entered a cabin. It is done, Vas Kor, he said, handing a small metal key to the tall noble who had just risen from his sleeping silks and furs. Good, exclaimed the latter, you must have worked upon it all during the nightlarock. The warrior nodded. Now fetch me the heliometric metal you've wrought some day since, commanded Vas Kor. This done the warrior assisted his master to replace the handsome jeweled metal of his harness with the plainer ornaments of an ordinary fighting man of helium and with the insignia of the same house that appeared upon the bow of the flyer. Vas Kor breakfasted on board. Then he emerged upon the aerial dock, entered an elevator, and was born quickly to the street below where he was soon engulfed by the early morning throng of workers hastening to their daily duties. Among them his warrior trappings were no more remarkable than his a pair of trousers upon Broadway. All Martian men are warriors, save those physically unable to bear arms. The tradesmen at his clerk clank with their martial trappings as they pursue their vocations. The schoolboy, coming into the world as he does almost adult from the snowy shell that has encompassed his development for five long years, knows so little of life without a sword at his hip that he would feel the same discomforture at going abroad unarmed that an earth boy would experience in walking the streets knickerbockerless. Vas Kor's destination lay in greater helium, which lies some 75 miles across the level plain from lesser helium. He had landed at the latter city because the air patrol is less suspicious and alert than that above the larger metropolis where lies the palace of the Jeddak. As he moved with the throng in the park-like canyon of the thoroughfare, the life of an awakening Martian city was in evidence about it. Houses raised high upon their slender metal columns for the night were dropping gently toward the ground. Among the flowers upon the scarlet sword, which lies about the buildings, children were already playing, and comely women laughing and chatting with their neighbors as they culled gorgeous blossoms for the vases within doors. The pleasant kaur of the Barsoomian greeting fell continually upon the ears of the stranger as friends and neighbors took up the duties of the new day. The district in which he had landed was residential, a district of merchants of the more prosperous sword. Everywhere were evidences of luxury and wealth. Slaves appeared upon every house top with gorgeous silks and costly furs laying them in the sun for airing. Jewel-encrusted women lulled even thus early upon the carbon balconies before their sleeping apartments. Later in the day they would repair to the roofs when the slaves had arranged couches and pitched silken canopies to shade them from the sun. Strains of inspiring music broke pleasantly from open windows, for the Martians have solved the problem of attuning the nerves pleasantly to the sudden transition from sleep to waking that proved so difficult a thing for most earth folk. Above him raced the long light passenger flyers, plying each in its proper plane between the numerous landing stages for internal passenger traffic. Landing stages that power high into the heavens are for the great international passenger liners. Freighters have other landing stages at various lower levels to within a couple of hundred feet of the ground, nor dare any flyer rise or drop from one plane to another except in certain restricted districts where horizontal traffic is forbidden. Along the close crop sword which paves the avenue, ground flyers are moving in continuous lines in opposite directions. For the greater part they skimmed along the surface of the sword, soaring gracefully into the air at times to pass over a slower going driver ahead, or at intersections where the north and south traffic has the right of way and the east and west must rise above it. From private hangers upon many rooftop flyers were darting into the line of traffic. Gay farewells and parting admonitions mingled with the whirring of motors and the subdued noises of the city. Yet with all the swift movement and the countless thousands rushing hither and thither the predominant suggestion was that of luxurious ease and soft noiselessness. Martians dislike harsh discordant clamour. The only loud noises they can abide are the martial sounds of war, the clash of arms, the collision of two mighty dreadnoughts of the air. To them there is no sweeter music than this. At the intersection of two broad avenues Vasco descended from the street level to one of the great pneumatic stations of the city. Here he paid before a little wicket the fare to his destination with a couple of the dull oval coins of helium. Beyond the gatekeeper he came to a slowly moving line of what to earthly eyes would have appeared to be conical-nosed eight-foot projectiles for some giant gun. In slow procession the things moved in single file along a grooved track. A half-dozen attendance assisted passengers to enter or directed these carriers to their proper destination. Vasco approached one that was empty. Upon its nose was a dial and a pointer. He set the pointer for a certain station in greater helium, raised the arched lid of the thing, stepped in, and laid down upon the upholstered bottom. An attendant closed the lid which locked with a little click and the carrier continued its slow way. Presently it switched itself automatically to another track to enter a moment later one of the series of dark-mouth tubes. The instant that its entire length was within the black aperture it sprang forward with the speed of a rifle ball. There was an instant of whizzing, a soft, though sudden, stop, and slowly the carrier emerged upon another platform. Another attendant raised the lid and Vasco stepped out at the station beneath the center of greater helium, 75 miles from the point at which he had embarked. Here he sought the street level, stepping immediately into a waking ground-flyer. He spoke no word to the slave sitting in the driver's seat. It was evident that he had been expected and that the fellow had received his instructions before his coming. Scarcely had Vasco taken his seat when the flyer went quickly into the fast-moving procession, turning presently from the broad and crowded avenue into a less congested street. Presently it left the thronged district behind to enter a section of small shops where it stopped before the entrance to one which bore the sign of a dealer in foreign silks. Vasco entered the low-ceiling room. A man at the far end motioned him toward an inner apartment, giving no further sign of recognition until he had passed in after the caller and closed the door. Then he faced his visitor, saluting deferentially. Most noble, he commenced, but Vasco silenced him with a gesture. No formalities, he said, we must forget that I am ought other than your slave. If all has been as carefully carried out as it has been planned, we have no time to waste. Instead we should be upon our way to the slave marker. Are you ready? The merchant nodded and, turning to a great chest, produced the unemblazen trappings of a slave. These Vasco immediately dawned. Then the two passed from the shop through a rear door, traversed a winding alley to an avenue beyond where they entered a flyer which awaited them. Five minutes later the merchant was leading his slave to the public market, where a great concourse of people filled the great open space in the center of which stood the slave block. Crowds were enormous today. For Carthoris, Prince of Helium was to be the principal bidder. One by one the masters mounted the rostrum beside the slave block upon which stood their chattels. Briefly and clearly each recounted the virtues of his particular offering. When all were done, the major domo of the Prince of Helium called to the block such as had favorably impressed him. For such it made a fair offer. There was little haggling as to price and none at all when Vasco was placed upon the block. His merchant master accepted the first offer that was made for him and thus a Desaurian noble entered the household of Carthoris. End of chapter 2, recording by Thomas Copeland. Chapter 3 of Thuvia made of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Thomas Copeland. Chapter 3 Treachery. The day following the coming of Vasco to the palace of the Prince of Helium, great excitement reigned throughout the Twin Cities reaching its climax in the palace of Carthoris. Word had come of the abduction of Thuvia of Tarth from her father's court and with it failed hint that the Prince of Helium might be suspected of considerable knowledge of the act and the whereabouts of the princess. In the council chamber of John Carter, Warlord of Mars was Tartos Moors, Jeddak of Helium. Moors Kajak is son, Jedd of Lesser Helium. Carthoris and a score of the great nobles of the Empire. There must be no war between Tarth and Helium, my son, said John Carter, that you are innocent of the charge that has been placed against you by insinuation, we well know. But Duvandin must know it well too. There is but one who may convince him and that one be you. You must hasten it once to the court of Tar, and by your presence there, as well as by your words, assure him that his suspicions are groundless. Bear with you the authority of the Warlord of Barsoom and of the Jeddak of Helium to offer every resource of the allied powers to assist Duvandin to recover his daughter and punish her abductors, whomesoever they may be. Go, I know that I do not need to urge upon you the necessity for haste. Carthoris left the council chamber and hastened to his palace. Here slaves were busy in a moment setting things to rights for the departure of their master. Several worked about the swift flier that would bear the Prince of Helium recklessly for Tarth. At last all was done, but two armed slaves remained on guard. The setting sun hung low above the horizon. In a moment darkness would envelop all. One of the guardsmen, a giant of a fellow across whose right cheek there ran a thin scar, from temple to mouth, approached his companion. His gaze was directed beyond and above his comrade. When he had come quite close he spoke. What strange craft is that, he asked. The other turned about quickly to gaze heavenward. Scarce was his back turned toward the giant, and the short sword of the latter was plunged beneath his left shoulder blade straight through his heart. Voiceless, the soldier sank in his tracks, stone dead. Quickly the murderer dragged the corpse into the black shadows within the hangar. Then he returned to the flier. Drawing a cunningly wrought key from his pocket pouch, he removed the cover of the right hand dial of the controlling destination compass. For a moment he studied the construction of the mechanism beneath. Then he returned the dial to its place, set the pointer, and removed it again to note the resultant change in the position of the parts affected by the act. A smile crossed his lips. With a pair of cutters, he snipped off the projection which extended through the dial from the external pointer. Now the latter might be moved to any point upon the dial without affecting the mechanism below. In other words, the eastern hemisphere dial was useless. Now he turned his attention to the western dial. This he set upon a certain point. Afterward he removed the cover of this dial also, and with keen tool cut the steel finger from the underside of the pointer. As quickly as possible he replaced the second dial cover, and resumed his place on guard. To all intents and purposes the compass was as efficient as before, but as a matter of fact, the moving of the pointers upon the dials resulted now in no corresponding shift to the mechanism beneath, and the device was set immovably upon a destination of the slave's own choosing. Presently came Carthoris, accompanied by but a handful of his gentlemen. He cast at a casual glance upon the single slave who stood guard. The fellow's thin cruel lips and the sword cut that ran from temple to mouth aroused the suggestion of an unpleasant memory within him. He wondered where Sarantal had found the man. Then the matter faded from his thoughts, and in another moment the Prince of Helium was laughing and chatting with his companions, though below the surface his heart was cold with dread. For what contingencies confronted Thiovi of Tar he could not even guess. First to his mind naturally had sprung the thought that Astok of Dusar had stolen the fair Tar at the end, but almost simultaneously with the report of the abduction had come news of the great fets of Dusar in honour of the return of the Jeddak's son to the court of his father. It could not have been he, thought Carthoris, for on the very night that Thiovia was taken Astok had been in Dusar, and yet he entered the flyer, exchanging casual remarks with his companions as he unlocked the mechanism of the compass, and set the pointer upon the capital city of Tar. The word of farewell he touched the button which controlled the repulsive rays, and as the flyer rose lightly into the air the engine purred in answer to the touch of his finger upon a second button. The propeller's word, as his hand drew back the speed lever, and Carthoris, Prince of Helium, was off into the gorgeous Martian night beneath the hurtling moons and the million stars. Scarce of the flyer found its speed ere the man wrapping his sleeping silks and furs about him stretched full length upon the narrow deck to sleep. But sleep did not come at once at his bidding. Instead his thoughts ran right in his brain, driving sleep away. He recalled the words of Thiovia of Tar, words that had half assured him that she loved him, for when he had asked her if she loved Coulon Tith she had answered only that she was promised to him. Now he saw that her reply was open to more than a single construction. It might, of course, mean that she did not love Coulon Tith, and so by inference be taken to mean that she loved another. But what assurance was there that the other was Carthoris of Helium? The more he thought upon it the more positive he became that not only was there no assurance in her words that she loved him, but none either in any act of hers. No, the fact was she did not love him. She loved another. She had not been abducted. She had fled willingly with her lover. With such pleasant thoughts filling him alternately with despair and rage, Carthoris at last dropped into the sleep of utter mental exhaustion. The breaking of the sudden dawn found him still asleep. His flyer was rushing swiftly above a barren, ochre plane, the world-old bottom of a long dead Martian sea. In the distance rose low hills. For these the craft was headed. As it approached them a great commentary might have been seen from its deck, stretching out into what had once been a mighty ocean and circling back once more to enclose the forgotten harbor of a forgotten city, which still stretched back from its deserted keys, an imposing pile of wondrous architecture of a long dead past. The countless dismal windows, vacant and forlorn, stared sightless from their marble walls. The whole sad city taking on the semblance of scattered mounds of dead men sun-bleached skulls, the casements having the appearance of islet sockets, the portals grinning jaws. Closer came the flyer, but now its speed was diminishing, yet this was not Tarth. Above the central plaza it stopped, slowly settling Marsward. Within a hundred yards of the ground it came to rest, floating gently in the light air, and at the same instant an alarm sounded at the sleeper's ear. Carthoris sprang to his feet. Below him he looked to see the teeming metropolis of Tarth. Beside him already there should have been an air patrol. He gazed about and bewildered astonishment. There indeed was a great city, but it was not Tarth. No multitude surged through its broad avenues. No signs of life broke the dead monotony of its deserted rooftops. No gorgeous silps, no priceless furs, meant life and color to the cold marble and the gleaming earthside. No patrol boat lay ready with its familiar challenge. Silent and empty lay the great city. Empty and silent the surrounding air. It happened. Carthoris examined the dial of his compass. Pointer was set upon Tarth. Could the creature of his genius have thus betrayed him? He would not believe it. Quickly he unlocked the cover, turning it back upon its hinge. A single glance showed him the truth, or at least a part of it. The steel projection that communicated the movement of the pointer upon the dial to the heart of the mechanism beneath had been severed. Who could have done the thing? And why? Carthoris could not hazard even a faint guess. But the thing now was to learn in what portion of the world he was and then take up his interrupted journey once more. If it had been the purpose of some enemy to delay him, he had succeeded well, thought Carthoris, as he unlocked the cover of the second dial, first having shown that his pointer had not been set at all. Beneath the second dial he found the steel pin severed as in the other, but the controlling mechanism had first been set for a point upon the western hemisphere. He had just time to judge his location roughly at some place southwest of Helium, and at a considerable distance from the Twin Cities, when he was startled by a woman's scream beneath him. Leaning over the side of the flyer, he saw what appeared to be a red woman being dragged across the plaza by a huge green warrior, one of those fierce cruel denizens of the dead sea bottoms and deserted cities of dying Mars. Carthoris waited to see no more. Reaching for the control board, he sent his craft racing plummet-like toward the ground. The green man was hurrying his captive toward a huge boat that browsed upon the ochre vegetation of the once scarred gorgeous plaza. At the same instant a dozen red warriors leaped from the entrance of the nearby Ursite Palace, pursuing the abductor with naked swords and shouts of rage for warning. Once the woman turned her face upward toward the falling flyer, and in a single swift glance Carthoris saw that it was Thulvia of Tarth. Chapter 4 A Green Man's Captive When the light of day broke upon the little craft to whose deck the Princess of Tarth had been snatched from her father's garden, Thulvia saw that the night had wrought a change in her abductors. No longer did their trappings gleam with the metal of Dusar, but instead there was emblazoned there the insignia of the Prince of Helium. The girl felt renewed hope, for she could not believe that in the heart of Carthoris could lie in tent to harm her. She spoke to the warrior squatting before the control board. Last night you wore the trappings of a Dusarion, she said. Now your metal is that of Helium. What means it? The man looked at her with a grin. Prince of Helium is no fool, he said. Just then an officer emerged from the tiny cabin. He reprimanded the warrior for conversing with the prisoner, nor would he himself reply to any of her inquiries. No harm was offered her during the journey, and so they came at last to their destination with the girl no wiser as to her abductors or their purpose than at first. Here the flyer settled slowly into the plaza of one of those mute monuments of Mars dead and forgotten past, the deserted cities that fringe the sad ochre sea bottoms, where once rolled the mighty floods upon whose bosoms moved the maritime commerce of the peoples that are gone forever. Thulvia of Tarth was no stranger to such places. During her wanderings in search of the river Ice, that time she had set out upon what for countless ages had been the last long pilgrimage of Martians toward the valley door where lies the lost sea of Chorus, she had encountered several of these sad reminders of the greatness and the glory of ancient Barsoom. And again during her flight from the temples of the Holy Therns with Tarst Harkus, Jeddak of Thar, she had seen them, with their weird and ghostly inmates, the great white apes of Barsoom. She knew too that many of them were used now by the nomadic tribes of green men, but that among them all was no city that the red men did not shun, for without exception they stood amidst vast waterless tracts unsuited for the continued sustenance of the dominant race of Martians. Why then should they be bringing her to such a place? There was but a single answer. Such was the nature of their work that they must need seek the seclusion that a dead city afforded. The girl trembled at thought of her plight. For two days her captors kept her within a huge palace that even in decay reflected the splendor of the age which its youth had known. Just before dawn on the third day she had been aroused by the voices of two of her abductors. They should be here by dawn, one was saying, have her in readiness upon the plaza, else he will never land. The moment he finds that he is in a strange country he will turn about, he thinks the prince's plan is weak in this one spot. There was no other way, replied the other, it is wondrous work to get them both here at all, and even if we do not succeed in luring them to the ground we shall have accomplished much. Just then the speaker caught the eyes of Thuvia upon him, revealed by the quick moving patch of light cast by Thuria in her mad race through the heavens. With a quick sign to the other he ceased speaking, and advancing toward the girl motioned her to rise. Then he led her out into the night for the center of the great plaza. Stand here, he commanded, until we come for you. We shall be watching, and should you attempt to escape it will go ill with you, much worse than death. Such are the prince's orders. Then he turned and retraced his steps toward the palace, leaving her alone in the midst of the unseen terrors of the haunted city, for in truth these places are haunted in the belief of many Martians who still cling to an ancient superstition which teaches that the spirits of holy therns who died before their allotted one thousand years pass on occasions into the bodies of the great white apes. Thuvia however the real danger of attack by one of these ferocious man-like beasts was quite sufficient. She no longer believed in the weird soul transmigration that the therns had taught her before she was rescued from their clutches by John Carter, but she well knew the horrid fate that awaited her should one of the terrible beasts chance to spy her during its nocturnal prowlings. It was that. Surely she could not be mistaken. Something had moved stealthily in the shadow of one of the great monoliths that line the avenue where it entered the plaza opposite her. Tharban, jed among the hordes of Torquas, rode swiftly across the ochre vegetation of the Dead Sea Bottom toward the ruins of ancient Aon Thor. He had ridden far that night and fast, for he had but come from the dispoiling of the incubator of a neighboring green horde with which the hordes of Torquas were perpetually warring. His giant folk was far from jaded, yet it would be well thought Tharban to permit him to graze upon the ochre moss which grows to greater height within the protected courtyards of deserted cities, where the soil is richer than on the sea bottoms, and the plants partly shaded from the sun during the cloudless Martian day. Within the tiny stems of this dry, seeming plant is sufficient moisture for the needs of the huge bodies of the mighty thoats, which can exist for months without water, and for days without even the slight moisture which the ochre moss contains. As Tharban rode noiselessly up the broad avenue, which leads from the keys of Aon Thor to the great central plaza, he and his mount might have been mistaken for spectres from a world of dreams, so grotesque the man and beast, so soundless the great thoats padded nailless feet upon the moss-grown flagging of the ancient pavement. The man was a splendid specimen of his race, for a fifteen feet towered his great height from sole to peat. The moonlight glistened against his glossy green hide, sparkling the jewels of his heavy harness, and the ornaments that weighted his four muscular arms, while the up curving tusks that protruded from his lower jaw gleamed white and terrible. At the side of his thoat were slung his long radium rifle, and his great forty foot metal shard spear, while from his own harness depended his longsword and his shortsword, as well as his lesser weapons. His protruding eyes and antenna-like ears were turning constantly hither and thither, for Tharban was yet in the country of the enemy, and too there was always the menace of the great white apes, which John Carter was one to say are the only creatures that can arouse in the breasts of these fierce denizens of the dead sea bottoms even the remotest semblance of fear. As the rider neared the plaza, he reigned suddenly in. His slender tubular ears pointed rigidly forward, and wanted sound had reached them. Voices. And where there were voices outside of Torquas, there too were enemies. All the world of white Barsoom contained not but enemies for the fierce Torquasians. Tharban dismounted. Keeping in the shadows of the great monoliths that line the avenue of keys of sleeping on Thor, he approached the plaza. Directly behind him, as a hounded heel came the slate-gray thoat, his white belly shattered by his barrel, his vivid yellow feet merging into the yellow of the moss beneath them. In the center of the plaza Tharban saw the figure of a red woman. A red warrior was conversing with her. Now the man turned and retraced his steps toward the palace at the opposite side of the plaza. Tharban watched until he had disappeared within the yawning portal. Here was a captive worth having. Seldom did a female of the hereditary enemies fall to the lot of a green man. Tharban licked his thin lips. The uvia of Tarth watched the shadow behind the monolith at the opening to the avenue opposite her. She hoped that it might be but the figment of an overwrought imagination. But no. Now, clearly indistinctly, she saw it move. It came from behind the screening shelter of the earth side shaft. The sudden light of the rising sun fell upon it. The girl trembled. The thing was a huge green warrior. Swiftly it sprang toward her. She screamed and tried to flee, but she had scarce turn toward the palace when a giant hand fell upon her arm. She was whirled about and half-dragged, half-carried, toward a huge foat that was slowly grazing out of the avenue's mouth onto the ochre moss of the plaza. At the same instant she turned her face upward toward the whirring sound of something above her, and there she saw a swift flyer dropping toward her, the head and shoulders of a man leaning far over the side, but the man's features were deeply shadowed so that she did not recognize them. Now from behind her came the shouts of her red abductors. They were racing madly after him who dared to steal what they already had stolen. As Tharban reached the side of his mount he snatched his long radium rifle from its boot, and, wheeling, poured three shots into the oncoming red man. Such is the uncanny marksmanship of these Martian savages that three red warriors dropped in their tracks as three projectiles exploded in their vitals. The others halted, nor did they dare return the fire for fear of wounding the girl. Then Tharban vaulted to the back of his thoat, Thuvia of Tarth still at his arms, and with a savage cry of triumph disappeared down the black canyon of the avenue of keys between the sullen palaces of forgotten Anthor. Arthoris flyer had not touched the ground before he had sprung from its deck to race after the swift thoat, whose eight long legs were sending it down the avenue at the rate of an express train. But the men of Dusar, who still remained alive, had no mind to permit so valuable a capture to escape them. They had lost the girl. That would be a difficult thing to explain to Asta, but some leniency might be expected could they carry the Prince of Helium to their master instead. So the three who remained set upon Carthoris with their longswords, trying to him to surrender. But they might as successfully have cried aloud to Thuria to cease her mad hurtling through the Varsumian sky, for Carthoris of Helium was a true son of the warlord of Mars and his incomparable Dejah Thoris. Carthoris longsword had been already in his hand as he leaped from the deck of the flyer. So the instant that he realized the menace of the three great warriors, he wheeled to face them, meeting their onslaught as only John Carter himself might have done. So swift his sword so mighty and agile his half earthly muscles, that one of his opponents was down, crimsoning the ochre mass with his life blood, when he had scarce made a single pass at Carthoris. Now the two remaining Dejahrians rushed simultaneously upon the Heliumite. Three longswords clashed and sparkled in the moonlight, until the great white apes, roused from their slumbers, crept to the lowering windows of the dead city, to view the bloody scene beneath them. Thrice was Carthoris touched, so that the red blood ran down his face, blinding him and dying his broad chest. With his free hand he wiped the gore from his eyes, and with a fighting smile of his father touching his lips, leaped upon his antagonists with renewed fury. A single cut of his heavy sword severed the head of one of them, and then the other, backing away clear of that point of death, turned and fled toward the palace at his back. Carthoris made no step to pursue. He had other concern than the beating of even well-deserved punishment to strange men who masqueraded in the metal of his own house, for he had seen that these men were tricked out in the insignia that marks his personal followers. Turning quickly toward his flier, he was soon rising from the plaza in pursuit of Thar ban. The red warrior, whom he had put to flight, turned in the entrance to the palace, and, seeing Carthoris's intent, snatched a rifle from those that he and his fellows had left leaning against the wall as they had rushed out with drawn swords to prevent the theft of their prisoner. Few red men are good shots, for the sword is their chosen weapon. So now, as the Desaurian drew bead upon the rising flier and touched the button upon his rifle stock, it was more to chance than proficiency that he owed the partial success of his aim. Projectile grazed the flier's side, the opaque coating, raking sufficiently to permit daylight to strike in upon the powder vial within the bullet's nose. There was a sharp explosion. Carthoris felt his craft reel drunkenly beneath him, and the engine stopped. The momentum the airboat had gained carried her on over the city toward the sea bottom beyond. The red warrior in the plaza fired several more shots, none of which scored. Then a lofty minaret shut the drifting quarry from his view. In the distance before him, Carthoris could see the green warrior bearing the vial tarred away upon his mighty throat. The direction of his flight was toward the northwest of Andhore, where lay the mountainous country little known to red men. The heliomite now gave his attention to his injured craft. A close examination revealed the fact that one of the buoyancy tanks had been punctured, but the engine itself was uninjured. A splinter from the projectile had damaged one of the control levers beyond the possibility of repair outside a machine shop. But after considerable tinkering, Carthoris was able to propel his wounded flier at low speed, a rate which could not approach the rapid gait of the throat, whose eight long, powerful legs carried it over the ochre vegetation of the dead sea bottom at terrific speed. The Prince of Helium chafed and fretted at the slowness of his pursuit, yet he was thankful that the damage was no worse. For now he could at least move more rapidly than on foot. But even this meager satisfaction was soon to be denied him, for presently the flier commenced to sag toward the port and by the bow. The damage to the buoyancy tanks had evidently been more grievous than he had at first believed. All the balance of that long day Carthoris crawled erratically through the still air, bow the flier sinking lower and lower, and the list to port becoming more and more alarming, until at last near dark he was floating almost bow down. His harness buckled to a heavy deck ring to keep him from being precipitated to the ground below. His forward movement was now confined to a slow drifting with the gentle breeze that blew out of the southeast, and when this died down with the setting of the sun, he let the flier sink gently to the mossy carpet beneath. Far before him loomed to the mountains toward which the green man had been fleeing when last he had seen him, and with dogged resolution the son of John Carter, endowed with the indomitable will of his mighty sire, took up the pursuit on foot. All that night he forged ahead, until with the dawning of a new day he entered the low foothills that guard the approach to the fastness of the mountains of Torquas. Rugged, granitic walls towered before him, nowhere could he discern an opening through the formidable barrier. Yet somewhere into this inhospitable world of stone, the green warrior had borne the woman of the red man's heart's desire. Across the yielding moss of the sea bottom there had been no spool to follow for the soft pads of the thoat, but pressed down in his swift passage the resilient vegetation which sprang up again behind his fleeting feet, leaving no sign. But here in the hills where loose rock occasionally strewed the way, where black loam and wildflowers partially replaced the somber monotony of the waste places of the lowlands, Arthurus hoped to find some sign that would lead him in the right direction. Yet search as he would, the baffling mystery of the trail seemed likely to remain forever unsolved. It was drawing toward the days close once more when the keen eyes of the Heliumite discerned the tawny yellow of a sleek hide moving among the boulders several hundred yards to his left. Crouching quickly behind a large rock, Arthurus watched the thing before him. It was a huge banth, one of those savage Barsoomian lions that roamed the desolate hills of the dying planet. The creature's nose was close to the ground. It was evident that he was following the spore of meat by scent. As Arthurus watched him, a great hope leaped into the man's heart. Here possibly might lie the solution to the mystery he had been endeavoring to solve. This hungry carnivore, keen always for the flesh of man, might even now be trailing the two whom Arthurus sought. Poshesly the youth crept out upon the trail of the man-eater. Along the foot of the perpendicular cliff, the creature moved, sniffing at the invisible spore and now and then emitting the low moan of the hunting banth. Carthoris had followed the creature for but a few minutes when it disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as though dissolved into thin air. The man leaped to his feet. Not again was he to be cheated as the man had cheated him. He sprang forward at a reckless pace to the spot at which he had last seen the great sculpting brute. Before him loomed the sheer cliff, its face unbroken by any aperture into which the huge banth might have wormed its great carcass. Beside him was a small, flat boulder, not larger than the deck of a ten-man flyer, nor standing to a greater height than twice his own stature. Perhaps the banth was in hiding behind this. The brute might have discovered the man upon his trail and even now be lying in wait for his easy prey. Cautiously, with drawn longsword, Carthoris crept around the corner of the rock. There was no banth there, but something which surprised him infinitely more than would the presence of twenty banths. Before him yawned the mouth of a dark cave, leading downward into the ground. Through this the banth must have disappeared. Was it his lair? Within its dark and forbidding interior might there not lurk not one but many of the fearsome creatures? Carthoris did not know, nor with the thought that had been spurring him onward upon the trail of the creature, uppermost in his mind, did he much care. For into this gloomy cavern he was sure the banth had trailed the green man as his captive, and into it he too would follow, content to give his life in the service of the woman he loved. Not an instant did he hesitate, nor yet did he advance rashly, but with ready sword and cautious steps for the way was dark he stole on. As he advanced the obscurity became impenetrable blackness. Chapter 5 of Thuvia, made of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by Thomas Copeland. Chapter 5. The Fair Race Downward along a smooth broad floor led the strange tunnel, for such Carthoris was now convinced was the nature of the shaft he at first had thought but a cave. Before him he could hear the occasional low moans of the banth, and presently from behind came a similar uncanny note, another banth that entered the passageway on his trail. His position was anything but pleasant. His eyes could not penetrate the darkness, even to the distinguishing of his hand before his face, while the banth he knew could see quite well, though absence of light were utter. No other sounds came to his ears than the dismal bloodthirsty moanings of the beast ahead and the beast behind. The tunnel had led straight from where he had entered it beneath the side of the rock furthest from the unscalable cliffs, toward the mighty barrier that had baffled him so long. Now it was running almost level, and presently he noted a gradual ascent. The beast behind him was gaining upon him, crowding him perilously close upon the heels of the beast in front. Presently he should have to do battle with one, or both. More firmly he gripped his weapon. Now he could hear the breathing of the banth at his heels. Not for much longer could he delay the encounter. Long since he had become assured that the tunnel led beneath the cliffs to the opposite side of the barrier, and he had hoped that he might reach the moonlit open before being compelled to grapple with either of the monsters. The sun had been setting as he entered the tunnel, and the way had been sufficiently long to assure him that darkness now reigned upon the world without. He glanced behind him. Blazing out of the darkness, seemingly not ten paces behind, glared two flaming points of fire. As the savage eyes met his, the beast emitted a frightful roar, and then he charged. To face that savage mountain of onrushing ferocity, to stand unshaken before the hideous fangs that he knew were bared in slavering bloodthirstiness, though he could not see them, required nerves of steel. But, of such, were the nerves of Carthoris of Helium. He had the brute's eyes to guide his point, and, as true as the sword-hand of his mighty sire, his guided the keen points to one of those blazing orbs, even as he leaped lightly to one side. With a hideous scream of pain and rage, the wounded banth hurtled, clawing past him. Then it turned to charge once more, but this time Carthoris saw but a single gleaming point of fiery hate directed upon him. Again the needle-point met its flashing target. Again the horrid cry of the stricken beast reverberated through the rocky tunnel, shocking in its torture-laden shrillness, deafening in its terrific volume. But now, as it turned to charge again, the man had no guide whereby to direct his point. He heard the scraping of the padded feet upon the rocky floor. He knew the thing was charging down upon him once again, but he could see nothing. Yet, if he could not see his antagonist, neither could his antagonist now see him. Leaping, as he thought, to the exact center of the tunnel, he held his sword-point ready on a line with the beast's chest. It was all that he could do, hoping that chance might send the point into the savage heart as he went down beneath the great body. So quickly was the thing over that Carthoris could scarce believe his senses as the mighty body rushed madly past him. Either he had not placed himself in the center of the tunnel, or else the blinded banth had erred in its calculations. However, the huge body missed him by a foot, and the creature continued on down the tunnel as though in pursuit of the prey that had eluded him. Carthoris too followed the same direction, nor was it long before his heart was gladdened by the sight of the moonlit exit from the long, dark passage. Before him lay a deep hollow, entirely surrounded by gigantic cliffs. The surface of the valley was dotted with enormous trees, a strange sight so far from a Martian waterway. The ground itself was clothed in brilliant scarlet sward, picked out with innumerable patches of gorgeous wildflowers. Beneath the glorious effulgence of the two moons, the scene was one of indescribable loveliness, tinged with the weirdness of strange enchant. For only an instant, however, did his gaze rest upon the natural beauty's outspread before him. Almost immediately they were riveted upon the figure of a great banth standing across the carcass of a new-killed thoat. The huge beast, his tawny mane bristling with his hideous head, kept his eyes fixed upon another banth that charged erratically hither and thither with shrill screams of pain and horrid roars of hate and rage. Carthoris quickly guessed that the second root was the one he had blinded during the fight in the tunnel, but it was the dead thoat that centred his interest more than either of the savage carnivores. The harness was still upon the body of the huge Martian mount, and Carthoris could not doubt that this was the very animal upon which the green warrior had borne away Thuvia of Tarth. Where were the rider and his prisoner? The Prince of Helium shuddered as he thought upon the probability of the fate that had overtaken them. Human flesh is the food most craved by the fierce Barsoomian lion, whose great carcass and giant thews require enormous quantities of meat to sustain them. Two human bodies would have but whetted the creature's appetite, and that he had killed and eaten the green man and the red girl seemed only too likely to Carthoris. He had left the carcass of the mighty thoat to be devoured after having consumed the more toothsome portion of his banquet. Now the cyclist man, in its savage aimless charging and counter-charging, had passed beyond the kill of its fellow, and there the light breeze that was blowing wafted the scent of new blood to its nostrils. No longer were its movements erratic. Without stretched tail and foaming jaws it charged straight as an arrow for the body of the thoat and the mighty creature of destruction that stood with forepaws upon the slate-gray side, waiting to defend its meat. When the charging banth was twenty paces from the dead thoat, the killer gave vent to its hideous challenge, and with the mighty spring leaped forward to meet it. The battle that ensued odd even the warlike Barsoomian, the mad rending, the hideous and deafening roaring, the implacable savagery of the bloodstained beasts, held him in the paralysis of fascination, and when it was over, and the two creatures, their heads and shoulders torn to ribbons, lay with their dead jaws still buried in each other's bodies, Carthoris tore himself from the spell, only by an effort of the will. Hurrying to the side of the dead thoat, he searched for traces of the girl he feared had shared the thoat's fate, but nowhere could he discover anything to confirm his fears. With slightly lightened heart he started out to explore the valley, but scarce a dozen steps had he taken when the glistening of a jeweled bobble lying on the sword caught his eye. As he picked it up, his first glance showed him that it was a woman's hair ornament, and emblazoned upon it was the insignia of the royal house of Tarth. But sinister discovery, blood still wet, splotched the magnificent jewels of the setting. Carthoris half choked as the dire possibilities which the thing suggested presented themselves to his imagination, yet he could not, would not believe it. It was impossible that that radiant creature could have met so hideous an end. It was incredible that the glorious Theovir should ever cease to be. Upon his already jewel encrusted harness, to the strap that crossed his great chest, beneath which beat his loyal heart, Carthoris, Prince of Helium, fastened the gleaming thing that Theovir of Tarth had worn, and, wearing, had made holy to the Heliumite. Then he proceeded upon his way into the heart of the unknown valley. For the most part the giant tree shut off his view to any but the most limited distances. Occasionally he caught glimpses of the towering hills that bounded the valley upon every side, and though they stood out clear beneath the light of the two moons, he knew that they were far off, and that the extent of the valley was immense. For half the night he continued his search, until presently he was brought to a sudden halt, by the distant sound of squealing thoats. Guided by the noise of these habitually angry beasts, he stole forward through the trees, until at last he came upon a level treeless plain, in the center of which a mighty city reared its burnished domes and vividly colored towers. About the walled city the red man saw a huge encampment of the green warriors of the dead sea bottoms, and as he let his eyes rove carefully over the city, he realized that here was no deserted metropolis of a dead past. But what city could it be? His studies had taught him that in this little explored portion of Barsoom the fierce tribe of Torquasian green men ruled supreme, and that as yet no red man had succeeded in piercing to the heart of their domain to return again to the world of civilization. The men of Torquas had perfected huge guns, with which their uncanny marksmanship had permitted them to repulse the few determined efforts that nearby red nations had made to explore their country by means of battle fleets of airships. That he was within the boundary of Torquas Carthoris was sure, but that there existed there such a wondrous city he never had dreamed, nor had the chronicles of the past even hinted at such a possibility, for the Torquasians were known to live as did the other green men of Mars within the deserted cities that dotted the dying planet, nor ever had any green horde built so much as a single edifice other than the low walled incubators where their young are hatched by the sun's heat. The encircling camp of green warriors lay about five hundred yards from the city's walls. Between it and the city was no semblance of breastwork or other protection against rifle or cannon fire, yet distinctly now in the light of the rising sun Carthoris could see many figures moving along the summit of the high wall and upon the rooftops beyond. That they were beings like himself he was sure, though they were at too great a distance from him for him to be positive that they were red men. Almost immediately after sunrise the green warriors commenced firing upon the little figures upon the wall. To Carthoris surprised the fire was not returned, but presently the last of the city's inhabitants had sought shelter from the weird marksmanship of the green men and no further sign of life was visible beyond the wall. Then Carthoris, keeping within the shelter of the trees that fringed the plain, began circling the rear of the besieger's line, hoping against hope that somewhere he would obtain sight of Thuvia of Tarth, for even now he could not believe that she was dead. That he was not discovered was a miracle, for mounted warriors were constantly riding back and forth from the camp into the forest, but the long day wore on and still he continued his seemingly fruitless quest until near sunset he came opposite a mighty gate in the city's western wall. Here seemed to be the principal force of the attacking horde. Here a great platform had been erected where on Carthoris could see squatting a huge green warrior surrounded by others of his kind. This, then, must be the notorious Hortangour, jeddak of Torquas, the fierce old ogre of the southwestern hemisphere, as only for a jeddak are platforms raised in temporary camps or upon the march by the green hordes of Barsoom. As the Heliumite watched he saw another green warrior push his way forward toward the rostrum. Beside him he dragged a captive, and as the surrounding warriors parted to let the two pass, Carthoris caught a fleeting glimpse of the prisoner. His heart leaped and rejoicing. Thuvia of Tarth still lived. It was with difficulty that Carthoris restrained the impulse to rush forward to the side of the Tarthian princess, but in the end his better judgment prevailed. For in the face of such odds he knew that he should have been but throwing away, uselessly, any future opportunity he might have to succor her. He saw her dragged to the foot of the rostrum. He saw Hortangour address her. He could not hear the creature's words, nor Thuvia's reply. But it must have angered the green monster, for Carthoris saw him leap toward the prisoner, striking her a cruel blow across the face with his metal-banded arm. Then, son of John Carter, Jeddak of Jeddak's warlord of Barsoom, went mad. The old blood-red haze through which his sire had glared at countless foes floated before his eyes. His half-earthly muscles, responding quickly to his will, sent him in enormous leaps and bounds toward the green monster that had struck the woman he loved. The equations were not looking in the direction of the forest. All eyes had been upon the figures of the girl and their Jeddak, and loud was the hideous laughter that rang out in appreciation of the wit of the green emperors' reply to his prisoner's appeal for liberty. Carthoris had covered about half the distance between the forest and the green warriors when a new factor succeeded in still further directing the attention of the latter from him. Upon a high tower within the beleaguered city a man appeared. From his upturned mouth there issued a series of frightful shrieks, uncanny shrieks that swept, shrill, and terrifying across the city's walls, over the heads of the beseechers, and out across the forest, to the uttermost confines of the valley. Once, twice, thrice, the fearsome sound smote upon the ears of the listening green men, and then far, far off across the broad woods came sharp and clear from the distance an answering shriek. It was but the first. From every point rose similar savage cries until the world seemed to tremble to their reverberations. The green warriors looked nervously this way and that. They knew not fear, as earthmen may know it, but in the face of the unusual their wanted self-assurance deserted them. And then the great gate in the city wall opposite the platform of Port Angour swung suddenly wide. From it issued as strange a sight as Carthoris ever had witnessed. Though at the moment he had time to cast but a single fleeting glance, the tall bowmen emerging through the portal behind their long oval shields to note their flowing auburn hair, and to realize that the growling things at their side were fierce Barsoomian lions. Then he was in the midst of the astonished equations. With drawn longsword he was among them, and to Thuvia of Tarth, whose startled eyes were the first to fall upon him, it seemed that she was looking upon John Carter himself, so strangely similar to the fighting of the father was that of the son. Even to the famous fighting smile of the Virginian was the resemblance true. And the sword arm, ah, the subtleness of it, and the speed. All about was turmoil and confusion. Green warriors were leaping to the backs of their vestive squealing foats. Callots were growling out their savage gutterls whining to be at the throats of the oncoming foemen. Tharban, and another by the side of the Rostrum, had been the first to note the coming of Carthoris, and it was with them he battled for possession of the Red Girl, while the others hastened to meet the host advancing from the beleaguered city. Carthoris sought both to defend Thuvia of Tarth, and to reach the side of the hideous Horton Ghur that he might avenge the blow the creature had struck the girl. He succeeded in reaching the Rostrum over the dead bodies of two warriors who had turned to join Tharban and his companion in repulsing this adventurous red man, just as Horton Ghur was about to leap from it to the back of his throat. The attention of the green warriors turned principally upon the bowmen advancing upon them from the city, and upon the savage banths that paced beside them, cruel beasts of war, infinitely more terrible than their own savage Callots. As Carthoris leaped to the Rostrum, he drew Thuvia up beside him, and then he turned upon the departing Jeddak with an angry challenge and a sword thrust. As the Heliumites point prick to his green hide, Horton Ghur turned upon his adversary with a snarl, but at the same instant two of his chieftains called to him to hasten, for the charge of the fair-skinned inhabitants of the city was developing into a more serious matter than the Torquatians had anticipated. Instead of remaining to battle with the red man, Horton Ghur promised him his attention after he had disposed of the presumptuous citizens of the old city, and, leaping astride his throat, galloped off to meet the rapidly advancing bowmen. The other warriors quickly followed their Jeddak, leaving Thuvia and Carthoris alone upon the platform. Between them and the city raged a terrific battle. The fair-skinned warriors, armed only with their long bows and a kind of shorthandled war axe, were almost helpless beneath the savage-mounted green men at close quarters, but at a distance their sharp arrows did fully as much execution as the radium projectiles of the green men. But if the warriors themselves were outclassed, not so their savage companions, the fierce bands. Scares had the two lines come together when hundreds of these appalling creatures had leaped among the Torquatians, dragging warriors from their thoats, dragging down the huge thoats themselves, and bringing consternation to all before them. The numbers of the citizenry, too, was to their advantage, for it seemed that scarce a warrior fell, but his place was taken by a score more. In such a constant stream did they pour from the city's great gate. And so it came, what with the ferocity of the banths and the numbers of the bowmen, that at last the Torquatians fell back, until presently the platform upon which stood Carthoris and Thuvia lay directly in the center of the fight. That neither was struck by a bullet or an arrow seemed a miracle to both, but at last the tide had rolled completely past them, so that they were alone between the fighters and the city, except for the dying and the dead, and a score or so of growling banths, less well-trained than their fellows who prowled among the corpses seeking meat. To Carthoris the strangest part of the battle had been the terrific toll taken by the bowmen, with their relatively puny weapons. Nowhere that he could see was there a single wounded green man, but the corpses of their dead lay thick upon the field of battle. Death seemed to follow instantly the slightest pin-prick of a bowman's arrow, nor apparently did one ever miss its goal. There could be but one explanation. The missiles were poison-tipped. Presently the sounds of conflict died in the distant forest. Quiet rain, broken only by the growling of the devouring banths. Carthoris turned toward Thuvia Tarth. As yet neither had spoken. Where are we, Thuvia? he asked. The girl looked at him questioningly. His very presence has seemed to proclaim a guilty knowledge of her abduction. How else might he have known the destination of the flyer that brought her? Who should know better than the Prince of Helium? She asked in return. Did he not come hither of his own free will? From Andor I came voluntarily upon the trail of the green man who had stolen you, Thuvia, he replied. But from the time I left Helium until I awoke above Andor I thought myself bound for Tarth. It had been intimated that I had guilty knowledge of your abduction, he explained simply, and I was hastening to the Jeddak, your father, to convince him of the falsity of the charge and to give my service to your recovery. Before I left Helium, someone tampered with my compass so that it bore me to Andor instead of to Tarth. That is all. You believe me? But the warriors who stole me from the garden, she exclaimed, after we arrived at Andor they wore the metal of the Prince of Helium. When they took me they were trapped in Dusseirian harness. There seemed but a single explanation. Whoever dared the outrage wished to put the onus upon another, should he be detected in the act. But once safely away from Tarth he felt safe in having his minions return to their own harness. You believe that I did this thing, Thuvia? He asked. Ah, Carthoris, she replied sadly. I did not wish to believe it, but when everything pointed to you, even then I would not believe it. I did not do it, Thuvia, he said, but let me be entirely honest with you. As much as I love your father, as much as I respect Kulan Tith, to whom you are betrothed, as well as I know the frightful consequences that must have followed such an act of mine, hurling into war as it would three of the greatest nations of Barsoom, yet notwithstanding all this, I should not have hesitated to take you thus, Thuvia of Tarth, had you even hinted that it would not have displeased you. But you did nothing of the kind. And so I am here, not in my own service, but in yours, and in the service of the man to whom you are promised, to save you for him if it lies within the power of man to do so, he concluded almost bitterly. Thuvia of Tarth looked into his face for several moments. Her breast was rising and falling as though to some resistless emotion. She half took a step toward him. Her lips parted as though to speak, swiftly and impetuously. And then she conquered whatever had moved her. The future acts of the Prince of Helium, she said coldly, must constitute the proof of his past honesty of purpose. Carthoris was hurt by the girl's tone, as much as by the doubt as to his integrity, which her words implied. He had half hoped that she might hint that his love would be acceptable. Certainly there was due to him at least a little gratitude for his recent acts in her behalf, but the best he received was cold skepticism. Prince of Helium shrugged his broad shoulders. The girl noted it, and the little smile that touched his lips so that it became her turn to be hurt. Of course she had not meant to hurt him. He might have known that after what he had said she could not do anything to encourage him. But he need not have made his indifference quite so palpable. The men of Helium were noted for their gallantry, not for boorishness. Possibly it was the earth blood that flowed in his veins. How could she know that the shrug was but Carthoris' way of attempting by physical effort to cast a blighting sorrow from his heart? Or that the smile upon his lips was the fighting smile of his father, with which the son gave outward evidence of the determination he had reached to submerge his own great love in his efforts to save Thuvio of Tart for another, because he believed that she loved this other? He reverted to his original question. Where are we? he asked. I do not know. Nor I replied the girl. Those who stole me from Tart spoke among themselves of Antor, so that I thought it possible that the ancient city to which they took me was that famous ruin. But where we may be now I have no idea. When the bowman returned we shall doubtless learn all that there is to know, said Carthoris. Let us hope that they prove friendly. What race may they be? Only in the most ancient of our legends and in the mural paintings of the deserted cities of the Dead Sea Bottoms are depicted such a race of alburn-haired, fair-skinned people. Can it be that we have stumbled upon a surviving city of the past, which all Barsoom believes buried beneath the ages? Thuvio was looking toward the forest into which the green men and the pursuing bowman had disappeared. From a great distance came the hideous cries of banths and an occasional shot. It is strange that they do not return, said the girl. One would expect to see the wounded limping or being carried back to the city, lied Carthoris, with a puzzled frown. But how about the wounded nearer the city? Have they carried them within? Both turned their eyes toward the field between them and the walled city, where the fighting had been most furious. There were the banths still growling about their hideous feast. Carthoris looked at Thuvia in astonishment. Then he pointed toward the field. Where are they? he whispered. What has become of their dead and wounded? Chapter 6 The Jeddak of Lothar. The girl looked her in fragility. Thillian piles, she remembered. There were thousands of them but a minute ago. And now continued Carthoris their remain but the banths and the carcasses of the green men. They must have sent forth and carried the dead bowman away while we were talking, said the girl. It is impossible, replied Carthoris. Thousands of dead lay there upon the field but a moment since. It would have required many hours to have removed them. The thing is uncanny. I had hoped, said Thuvia, that we might find an asylum with these fair-skinned people. Notwithstanding their valor upon the field of battle they did not strike me as a ferocious or warlike people, I had been about to suggest that we seek entrance to the city. But now I scarce know if I care to venture among people whose dead vanished into thin air. Let us chance it, replied Carthoris. We can be no worse off within their walls than without. Here we may fall prey to the banths or their no less fierce torquations. There, at least, we shall find beings moulded after our own images. All that causes me to hesitate, he added, is the danger of taking you past so many banths. A single sword would scarce prevail were even a couple of them to charge simultaneously. Do not fear on that score, replied the girl, smiling. The banths will not harm us. As she spoke, she descended from the platform and, with Carthoris at her side, stepped fearlessly out upon the bloody field in the direction of the walled city of mystery. They had advanced but a short distance when a banth, looking up from its gory feast, described them. With an angry roar the beast walked quickly in their direction, and at the sound of its voice the score of others followed its example. Carthoris drew his longsword. The girl stole a quick glance at his face. She saw the smile upon his lips, and it was as wine to sick nerves. For, even upon warlike barsoom where all men are brave, woman reacts quickly to quiet indifference to danger, to dare deviltry that is without bombast. You may return your sword, she said. I told you that the banths would not harm us. Look. And, as she spoke, she stepped quickly toward the nearest animal. Carthoris would have leaped after her to protect her, but with the gesture she motioned him back. He heard her calling to the banths in a low, sing-song voice that was half her. Instantly the great heads went up, and all the wicked eyes were riveted upon the figure of the girl. Then stealthily they commenced moving toward her. She had stopped now and was standing, waiting them. One closer to her than the others hesitated. She spoke to him imperiously, as a master might speak to a refractory hound. The great carnivore let its head droop, and with tail between its legs came slinking to the girl's feet. And after it came the others, until she was entirely surrounded by the savage man-eaters. Turning, she led them to where Carthoris stood. They growled a little as they neared the man, but a few sharp words of command put them in their places. How do you do it? exclaimed Carthoris. Your father once asked me that same question, in the galleries of the golden cliffs within the Oates Mountains, beneath the temples of the Therns. I could not answer him, nor can I answer you. I do not know whence comes my power over them, but ever since the day that Sothorth rogue threw me among them, in the banth pit of the Holy Therns, and the great creatures fawned upon instead of devouring me, I ever have had the same strange power over them. They come at my call and do my bidding, even as the faithful hula does the bidding of your mighty sire. With the word, the girl dispersed the fierce pack. Roaring, they returned to their interrupted feast, while Carthoris and Thuvia passed among them toward the walled city. As they advanced, the man looked with wonder upon the dead bodies of those of the green men that had not been devoured or mauled by the banths. He called the girl's attention to them. No arrows protruded from the great carcasses. Nowhere upon any of them was the sign of mortal wound, nor even the slightest scratch or abrasion. Before the bowmen's dead had disappeared, the corpses of the equations had drizzled with the deadly arrows of their foes. Where had the slender messengers of death departed? What unseen hand had plucked them from the bodies of the slain. Despite himself, Carthoris could scarce repress a shudder of apprehension as he glanced toward the silent city before them. No longer was sign of life visible upon wall or rooftop. All was quiet. Ruding, ominous, quiet. Yet he was sure that eyes watched them from somewhere behind that blank wall. He glanced at Thuvia. She was advancing with wide eyes fixed upon the city gate. He looked in the direction of her gaze, but saw nothing. His gaze upon her seemed to arouse her as from a lethargy. She glanced up at him, a quick, brave smile touching her lips, and then, as though the act was involuntary, she came close to his side and placed one of her hands in his. He guessed that something within her that was beyond her conscious control was appealing to him for protection. He threw an arm about her, and thus they crossed the field. She did not draw away from him. It is doubtful that she realized that his arm was there, so engrossed was she in the mystery of the strange city before them. They stopped before the gate. It was a mighty thing. From its construction, Carthoris could but dimly speculate upon its unthinkable antiquity. It was circular, closing a circular aperture, and the Heliumite knew from his study of ancient Barsoomian architecture that it rolled to one side like a huge wheel into an aperture in the wall. Even such world-old cities as ancient Anthor were as yet undreamed of when the races lived that built such gates as these. As he stood speculating upon the identity of this forgotten city, a voice spoke to them from above. Both looked up. There, leaning over the edge of the high wall, was a man. His hair was ombrent, his skin fairer, fairer even than that of John Carter, the Virginian. His forehead was high, his eyes large and intelligent. The language that he used was intelligible to the two below, yet there was a marked difference between it and their Barsoomian tongue. Who are you? he asked. And what do you hear before the gate of Lothar? Their friend replied Carthoris. This be the Princess Thuvia of Tarth, who was captured by the Torquasian Horde. I am Carthoris of Helium, Prince of the House of Tardos Moors, Jeddak of Helium, and son of John Carter, Warlord of Mars, and of his wife, Digethorus. Tarth, repeated the man, Helium? He shook his head. I never have heard of these places, nor did I know that thou dwelt upon Barsoom a race of thy strange color. Where may these cities lie of which you speak? From our loftiest tower we have never seen another city than Lothar. Carthoris pointed toward the northeast. In that direction lie Helium and Tarth, he said. Helium is over 8,000 hods from Lothar, while Tarth lies 9,500 hods northeast of Helium. No. On Barsoom the odd is the basis of linear measurement. It is the equivalent of an earthly foot, measuring about 11.694 earth inches. As has been my custom in the past, I have generally translated Barsoomian symbols of time, distance, etc. into their earthly equivalent, as being more easily understood by earth readers. For those of a more studious turn of mind, it may be interesting to know the Martian table of linear measurement, and so I give it here. Ten sofads equal one odd. 200 hods equal one hod. 100 hods equal one carad. 360 carads equal one circumference of Mars at equator. A hod, or Barsoomian mile, contains about 2,339 earth feet. A carad is one degree. A sofad is about 1.7 earth inches. Return to text. Still the man shook his head. I know of nothing beyond the Lotharian hills, he said. Not may live there beside the hideous green hods of Torquas. They have conquered all Barsoom except this single valley, and the city of Lothar. Here we have defied them for countless ages, though periodically they renew their attempts to destroy us. From whence you come, I cannot guess unless you be descended from the slaves that Torquasians captured in early times when they reduced the outer world to their vassalage. But we had heard that they destroyed all other races but their own. Carthoris tried to explain that the Torquasians ruled but a relatively tiny part of the surface of Barsoom, and even this only because their domain held nothing to attract the Red Race. But the Lotharian could not seem to conceive of anything beyond the valley of Lothar other than a trackless waste, peopled by the ferocious green hods of Torquas. After considerable paroling, he consented to emit them to the city, and a moment later the Wheelight Gate rolled back within its niche. Enthuvia and Carthoris entered the city of Lothar. All about them were evidences of fabulous wealth. The facades of the buildings fronting upon the avenue within the wall were richly carbon, and about the windows and doors were oftentimes set foot-wide borders of precious stones, intricate mosaics, or tablets of beaten gold bearing barreliefs depicting what may have been bits of the history of this forgotten people. He with whom they had conversed across the wall was in the avenue to receive them. About him were a hundred or more men of the same race. All were clothed in flowing robes, and all were beardless. Their attitude was more a fearful suspicion than antagonism. They followed the newcomers with their eyes, but spoke no word to them. Carthoris could not but notice the fact that, though the city had been but a short time before surrounded by a horde of bloodthirsty demons, yet none of the citizens appeared to be harmed, nor was there sign of soldiery about. He wondered if all the fighting men had salad forth in one supreme effort to rout the foe, leaving the city all unguarded. He asked a host. The man smiled. No creature other than a score or so of our sacred banths has left Lothar today, he replied. But the soldiers, the bowmen, exclaimed Carthoris. We saw thousands emerge from this very gate, overwhelming the hordes of Torquas, and putting them to rout with their deadly arrows and their fierce banths. Still the man smiled, his knowing smile. Look, he cried, and pointed down a broad avenue before him. Carthoris and Thuvia followed the direction indicated, and there, marching bravely in the sunlight, they saw advancing toward them a great army of bowmen. Ah, exclaimed Thuvia, they have returned through another gate, or perchance these be the troops that remain to defend the city? Again the fellow smiled his uncanny smile. There are no soldiers in Lothar, he said. Look, both Carthoris and Thuvia had turned toward him while he spoke, and now, as they turned back again toward the advancing regiments, their eyes went wide in astonishment for the broad avenue before them was as deserted as the tomb. And those who marched out upon the hordes today, whispered Carthoris, they too were unreal? The man nodded. But their arrows slew the green warriors, insisted Thuvia. Let us go before Tario, replied the Lotharian. He will tell you that which he deems it best you know. I might tell you too much. Who is Tario? asked Carthoris. Jeddak of Lothar, replied the guide, leading them up the broad avenue, down which they had but a moment since seen the phantom army marching. For half an hour they walked along lovely avenues between the most gorgeous buildings that the two had ever seen. Few people were in evidence. Carthoris could not but note the deserted appearance of the mighty city. At last they came to the royal palace. Carthoris saw it from a distance, and guessing the nature of the magnificent pile, wondered that even here there should be so little sign of activity and life. Not even a single guard was visible before the great entrance gate, nor in the gardens beyond, into which you could see, was their sign of the myriad life that pulses within the precincts of the royal estates of the red Jeddaks. Here, said the guide, is the palace of Tario. As he spoke, Carthoris again let his gaze rest upon the wondrous palace. With a startled exclamation he rubbed his eyes and looked again. No, he could not be mistaken. Before the massive gate stood a score of centuries. Within, the avenue leading to the main building was lined on either side by ranks of bowmen. The gardens were dotted with officers and soldiers moving quickly to and fro, as though bent upon the duties at the minute. What manner of people were these who could conjure an army out of thin air? He glanced toward Duvia. She too evidently had witnessed the transformation. With a little shudder she pressed more closely toward him. What do you make of it? she whispered. It is most uncanny. I cannot account for it, replied Carthoris, unless we have gone mad. Carthoris turned quickly toward the Lotharian. The fellow was smiling broadly. I thought that you just said that there were no soldiers in Lothar, said the Heliumite, with a gesture toward the guardsmen. What are these? Ask Tario, replied the other. We shall soon be before him. Nor was it long before they entered a lofty chamber at one end of which a man reclined upon a rich couch that stood upon a high dais. As the trio approached, the man turned dreamy eyes sleepily upon them. Twenty feet from the dais, their conductor halted, and whispering to Duvia and Carthoris to follow his example, threw himself headlong to the floor. Then, rising to hands and knees, he commenced crawling toward the foot of the throne, swinging his head to and fro, and wiggling his body, as you have seen a houndu when approaching its master. Duvia glanced quickly toward Carthoris. He was standing erect, with high-held head and arms folded across his broad chest. A haughty smile curved his lips. The man upon the dais was eyeing him intently, and Carthoris of Helium was looking straight in the other's face. Who be these, Jav? asked the man of him who crawled upon his belly along the floor. Otario, most glorious jeddak, replied Jav. These be strangers who came with the hordes of porkwas to our gates, saying that they were prisoners of the green man. They tell strange tales of cities far beyond Lothar. Arise, Jav, commanded Otario, and ask these two why they show not to Otario the respect that is his due. Jav rose and faced the strangers. At sight of their erect positions his face went livid. He leaped toward them. Creaturous, he screamed. Down, down upon your bellies before the last of the jeddaks of Barsoom. End of Chapter 6. Chapter 7. The Phantom Bowman As Jav leaped toward him, Carthoris laid his hand upon the hilt of his longsword. Lotharian halted. The great apartment was empty save for the four at the dais. Yet, as Jav stepped back from the menace of the Heliumite's threatening attitude, the latter found himself surrounded by a score of bowmen. From whence had they sprung? Both Carthoris and Thuvia looked their astonishment. Now the former sword leaped from its scabbard, and at the same instant the bowmen drew back their slim shafts. Tario had half raised himself upon one elbow. For the first time he saw the full figure of Thuvia, who had been concealed behind the person of Carthoris. Enough, cried the jeddak, raising a protesting hand. But at that very instant the sword of the Heliumite cut viciously at its nearest antagonist. As the keen edge reached its goal, Carthoris let the point fall to the floor, as with wide eyes he stepped backward in consternation, throwing the back of his left hand across his brow. His steel had cut but empty air. His antagonist had vanished. There were no bowmen in the room. It is evident that these are strangers, said Tario to Jav. Let us first determine that they knowingly affronted us before we take measures for punishment. Then he turned to Carthoris. But ever his gaze wandered to the perfect lines of Thuvia's glorious figure, which the harness of a Arsumian princess accentuated rather than concealed. Who are you, he asked? Who knows not the etiquette of the court of the last of jeddaks? I am Carthoris, Prince of Helium, replied the Heliumite, and this is Thuvia, Princess of Tarth. In the courts of our fathers men do not frustrate themselves before royalty. Not since the firstborn pour their immortal goddess Lim from Lim, have men crawled upon their bellies to any throne upon Barsoom. Now think you that the daughter of one mighty jeddak and the son of another would so humiliate themselves? Tario looked to Carthoris for a long time. At last he spoke. There is no other jeddak upon Barsoom than Tario, he said. There is no other race than that of Lothar, unless the hordes of Torquas may be dignified by such an appellation. Lotharians are white. Your skins are red. There are no women left upon Barsoom. Your companion is a woman. He half rose from the couch, leaning far forward and pointing an accusing finger at Carthoris. You are a lie, is shrieked. You are both lies, and you dare to come before Tario, last and mightiest of the jeddaks of Barsoom, and assert your reality. Someone shall pay well for this job, and unless I mistake, it is yourself who has dared thus flippantly to trifle with the good nature of your jeddak. Remove the man, leave the woman. We shall see if both be lies, and later, Jav, you shall suffer for your temerity. There be few of us left, but Komal must be fed. Go! Carthoris could see that Jav trembled as he prostrated himself once more before his ruler, and then, rising, turned toward the Prince of Helium. Kom, he said, and leave the Princess of Tarth here alone, cried Carthoris. Jav brushed closely past him, whispering, Follow me. He cannot harm her except to kill, and that he can do whether you remain or not. We had best go now. Trust me. Carthoris did not understand, but something in the urgency of the other's tone assured him, and so he turned away, but not without a glance toward Thuvia, in which he attempted to make her understand that it was in her own interest that he left her. For answer she turned her back full upon him, but not without first throwing him such a look of contempt that brought the scarlet to his cheek. Then he hesitated, but Jav seized him by the wrist. Kom, he whispered, or he will have the bowman upon you. At this time there will be no escape. Did you not see how futile is your steel against thin air? Carthoris turned unwillingly to follow. As the two left the room, he turned to his companion. If I may not kill thin air, he asked, how then shall I fear that thin air may kill me? You saw the Torquasians fall before the bowman? asked Jav. Carthoris nodded. So would you fall before them, and without one single chance for self-defense or revenge. As they talked, Jav led Carthoris to a small room in one of the numerous towers of the palace. Here were couches, and Jav bid Thuvia might be seated. For several minutes the Lotharian eyed his prisoner, for such Carthoris now realized himself to be. I am half convinced that you are real, he said at last. Carthoris laughed. Of course I am real, he said. What caused you to doubt it? Can you not see me? Feel me? So may I see and feel the bowman, replied Jav, and yet we all know that they at least are not real. Carthoris showed by the expression of his face his puzzlement at each new reference to the mysterious bowman, the vanishing soldier of Lothar. What then may they be? he asked. You really do not know, asked Jav. Carthoris shook his head negatively. I can almost believe that you have told us the truth, and that you are really from another part of Barsoom or from another world. But tell me, in your own country, have you no bowman to strike terror to the hearts of the green hordesmen as they slay, in company with the fierce banths of war? We have soldiers, replied Carthoris. We of the Red Race are all soldiers, but we have no bowman to defend us, such as yours. We defend ourselves. You go out and get killed by your enemies? cried Jav incredulously. Certainly, replied Carthoris. How do the Lotharians? You have seen, replied the other. We send out our deathless archers, deathless because they are lifeless, existing only in the imaginations of our enemies. It is really our giant minds that defend us, sending out legions of imaginary warriors to materialize before the mind's eye of the foe. They see them. They see their bows drawn back. They see their slender arrows speed with unerring precision toward their hearts. And they die, killed by the power of suggestion. But the archers that are slain, exclaimed Carthoris. You call them deathless, and yet I saw their dead bodies piled high upon the battlefield. How may that be? It is but to lend reality to the seen, replied Jav. We picture many of our own defenders killed, though the Torquations may not guess that there are really no flesh and blood creatures opposing them. Once that truth became implanted in their minds, which is the theory of many of us, no longer would they fall prey to the suggestion of their deadly arrows, for greater would be the suggestion of the truth, and the more powerful suggestion would prevail. It is law. And the bands, questioned Carthoris, they, too, were the creatures of suggestion. Some of them were real, replied Jav. Those that accompanied the archers in pursuit of the Torquations were unreal. Like the archers, they never returned, but having served their purpose, vanished with the bowmen when the route of the enemy was assured. Those that remained about the field were real. Those we loosed as scavengers to devour the bodies of the dead at Torquas. This thing is demanded by the realists among us. I am a realist. Tario is an etherealist. The etherealists maintain that there is no such thing as matter, that all is mind. They say that none of us exists, except in the imagination of his fellows, other than as an intangible, invisible mentality. According to Tario, it is but necessary that we all unite in imagining that there are no dead Torquations beneath our walls, and there will be none, nor any need of scavenging bands. You then do not hold Tario's beliefs, asked Carthoris. In part only, replied the Lotharian. I believe. In fact, I know that there are some truly ethereal creatures. Tario is one, I am convinced. He has no existence, except in the imaginations of his people. Of course, it is the contention of all us realists that all etherealists are but figments of the imagination. They contend that no food is necessary, nor do they eat. But any one of the most rudimentary intelligence must realize that food is a necessity to creatures having actual existence. Yes, agreed Carthoris. Not having eaten today, I can readily agree with you. Ah, pardon me, exclaimed Jav. Pray be seated and satisfy your hunger. And with the wave of his hand he indicated a bountifully laden table that had not been there an instant before he spoke. Of that, Carthoris was positive. For he had searched the room diligently with his eyes several times. It is well, continued Jav, that you did not fall into the hands of a etherealist. Then, indeed, would you have gone hungry. But, exclaimed Carthoris, this is not real food. It was not here an instant since. And real food does not materialize out of thin air. Jav looked heard. There is no real food or water in Lothar, he said, nor has there been for countless ages. Upon such, as you now see before you, have we existed since the dawn of history. Upon such, then, may you exist. But I thought you were a realist, exclaimed Carthoris. Indeed, cried Jav, what more realistic than this bounteous feast. It is just here that we differ most from the etherealists. They claim that it is unnecessary to imagine food. But we have found that for the maintenance of life we must, thrice daily, sit down to hearty meals. The food that one eats is supposed to undergo certain chemical changes during the process of digestion and assimilation, the result, of course, being the rebuilding of wasted tissue. Now we all know that mind is all, though we may differ in the interpretation of its various manifestations. Tario maintains that there is no such thing as substance, all being created from the substanceless matter of the brain. We realists, however, know better. We know that mind has the power to maintain substance, even though it may not be able to create substance. The latter is still an open question. And so we know that in order to maintain our physical bodies we must cause all our organs properly to function. This we accomplish by materializing food thoughts and by partaking of the food thus created. With chew, with swallow, with digest. All our organs function precisely as if we had partaken of material food. And what is the result? What must be the result? The chemical changes take place through both direct and indirect suggestion, and we live and thrive. Carthoris eyed the food before him. It seemed real enough. He lifted a morsel to his lips. There was substance indeed, and flavor as well. Yes, even his palate was deceived. Dove watched him, smiling as he ate. Is it not entirely satisfying, he asked? I must admit that it is, replied Carthoris. But tell me, how does Tario live and the other etherealists who maintain that food is unnecessary? Dove scratched his head. That is the question we often discuss, he replied. It is the strongest evidence we have of the non-existence of the etherealists. But who may know other than Komal? Who is Komal? asked Carthoris. I heard your jeddak speak of him. Jav bent low toward the ear of the Heliumite, looking fearfully about before he spoke. Komal is the essence, he whispered. Even the etherealists admit that mind itself must have substance in order to transmit to imagining the appearance of substance. For if there really was no such thing as substance, it could not be suggested. What never has been cannot be imagined. Do you follow me? I am groping, replied Carthoris dryly. So the essence must be substance, continued Jav. Komal is the essence of the all, as it were. He is maintained by substance. He eats. He eats the real. To be explicit, he eats the realists. That is Tario's work. He says that in as much as we maintain that we alone are real, we should, to be consistent, admit that we alone are proper food for Komal. Sometimes, as today, we find other food for him, he is very fond of Torquatians. And Komal is a man, asked Carthoris. He is all, I told you, replied Jav. I know not how to explain him in words that you will understand. He is the beginning and the end. All life emanates from Komal, since the substance which feeds the brain with imaginings radiates from the body of Komal. Should Komal cease to eat, all life upon Barsoom would cease to be. He cannot die, but he might cease to eat and thus to radiate. And he feeds upon the men and women of your belief, cried Carthoris. Women, exclaimed Jav, there are no women in Lothar. The last of the Lotharian females perished ages since upon that cruel and terrible journey across the muddy plains that fringed the half-dried seas, when the green horde scourged us across the world to this, our last hiding place, our impregnable fortress of Lothar. Scares twenty thousand men of all the countless millions of our race lived to reach Lothar. Among us were no women, and no children. All these had perished by the way. As time went on, we too were dying, and the race fast approaching extinction, when the great truth was revealed to us that mind is all. Many more died before we perfected our powers, but at last we were able to defy death when we fully understood that death was merely a state of mind. Then came the creation of mind people, or rather the materialization of imaginings. We first put these to practical use when the Torquasians discovered our retreat, and fortunate for us it was that it required ages of search upon their part before they found the single tiny entrance to the valley of Lothar. That day we threw our first bowmen against them. The intention was purely to frighten them away by the vast numbers of bowmen which we could muster upon our walls. All Lothar bristled with the bows and arrows of our ethereal host, but the Torquasians did not frighten. They are lower than the beasts. They know no fear. They rushed upon our walls, and standing upon the shoulders of others they built human approaches to the wall tops, and were on the very point of surging in upon us and overwhelming us. Not an arrow had been discharged by our bowmen. We did but cause them to run to and fro along the wall top, screaming taunts and threats at the enemy. Presently I thought to attempt the thing, the great thing. I centered all my mighty intellect upon the bowmen of my own creation. Each of us produces and directs as many bowmen as his mentality and imagination is capable of. I caused them to fit arrows to their bows for the first time. I made them take aim at the hearts of the green men. I made the green men see all this, and then I made them see the arrows fly, and I made them think that the points pierced their hearts. It was all that was necessary. By hundreds they toppled from our walls, and when my fellows saw what I had done they were quick to follow my example, so that presently the horrors of Torquas had retreated beyond the range of our arrows. We might have killed them at any distance, but one rule of war we have maintained from the first, the rule of realism. We do nothing or rather cause our bowmen to knew nothing within sight of the enemy that is beyond the understanding of the foe. Otherwise they might guess the truth, and that would be the end of us. But after the Torquasians had retreated beyond Boshot, they turned upon us with their terrible rifles, and by constant popping at us made life miserable within our walls. So then I bethought the scheme to hurl our bowmen through the gates upon them. You have seen this day how well it works. For ages they have come down upon us at intervals, but always with the same results. And all this is due to your intellect, Joth, asked Carthoris. I should think that you would be high in the councils of your people. I am, replied Joth proudly. I am next to Tario. But why then your cringing manner of approaching the throne? Tario demands it. He is jealous of me. He only awaits the slightest excuse to feed me to Komal. He fears that I may someday usurp his power. Carthoris suddenly sprang from the table. Joth, he exclaimed, I am a beast. Here I have been eating my fill while the Princess of Tarth may for a chance be still without food. Let us return and find some means of furnishing her with nourishment. The Lotharian shook his head. Tario would not permit it, he said. He will doubtless make an etherealist of her. But I must go to her, resisted Carthoris. You say that there are no women in Lothar. Then she must be among men, and if this be so, I intend to be near where I may defend her if the need arises. Tario will have his way, insisted Joth. He sent you away, and you may not return until he sends for you. Then I shall go without waiting to be sent for. Do not forget the bowmen, cautioned Joth. I do not forget them, replied Carthoris. But he did not tell Joth that he remembered something else that the Lotharian had let drop, something that was but a conjecture possibly, and yet one well worth pinning a forlorn hope to, should necessity arise. Carthoris started to leave the room. Joth stepped before him, barring his way. I have learned to like you, red man, he said. But do not forget that Tario is still my jeddak, and that Tario is commanded that you remain here. Carthoris was about to reply when there came faintly to the ears of both a woman's cry for help. With a sweep of his arm the Prince of Helium brushed the Lotharian aside, and with drawn swords sprang into the corridor without. DOOM As Thieva of Tarth saw Carthoris depart from the presence of Tario, leaving her alone with the man, a sudden quorum of terror seized her. There was an air of mystery pervading the stately chamber. Its furnishings and appointments bespoke wealth and culture, and carried the suggestion that the room was off in the scene of royal functions which filled it to its capacity. And yet nowhere about her, in antechamper or corridor, was there sign of any other being than herself and the recumbent figure of Tario, the jeddak, who watched her through half-closed eyes from the gorgeous trappings of his regal couch. For a time after the departure of Joth and Carthoris the man eyed her intently. Then he spoke. Come nearer, he said, and as she approached. Whose creature are you? Who has dared materialize his imaginings of woman? It is contrary to the customs and the royal edicts of Lothar. Tell me, woman, from whose brain have you sprung, jobs? No, do not deny it. I know that it could be no other than that envious realist. He seeks to tempt me. He would see me fall beneath the spell of your charms, and then he, your master, would direct my destiny and my end. I see it all. I see it all. The blood of indignation and anger had been rising in Thuvia's face. Her chin was up, a haughty curve upon her perfect lips. I know not, she cried, of what you are preting. I am Thuvia, Princess of Tarth. I am no man's creature. Never before today did I lay eyes upon him you call job, nor upon your ridiculous city, for which even the greatest nations of Barsoom have never dreamed. My charms are not for you, nor such as you. They are not for sale or barter, even though the price were a real throne, and as for using them to win your worse-than-futile power, she ended her sentence with a shrug of her shapely shoulders and a little scornful laugh. When she had finished, Tario was sitting upon the edge of his couch, his feet upon the floor. He was leaning forward with eyes no longer half-closed, but wide, with a startled expression in them. He did not seem to note the lesmesher stay of her words in manner. There was evidently something more startling and compelling about her speech than that. Slowly he came to his feet. By the fangs of Comal, he muttered, but you are real, a real woman, no dream, no vain and foolish figment of the mind. He took a stepped order with hands outstretched. Come, he whispered, come, woman, for countless ages have I dreamed that someday he would come. And now that you are here, I can scarce believe the testimony of my eyes, even now knowing that you are real, I still have dread that you may be a lie. The uvia shrank back. She thought the man mad. Her hand stole to the jeweled hilt of her dagger. The man saw the move, and stopped. A cunning expression entered his eyes. Then they became at once dreamy and penetrating as they fairly bored into the girl's brain. The uvia suddenly felt a change coming over her. What the cause of it she did not guess, but somehow the man before her began to assume a new relationship within her heart. No longer was he a strange and mysterious enemy but an old and trusted friend. Her hand slipped from the dagger's hilt. Cario came closer. He spoke gentle, friendly words, and she answered him in a voice that seemed hers and yet another's. He was beside her now. His hand was up her shoulder. His eyes were down bent toward hers. She looked up into his face. His gaze seemed to bore straight through her to some hidden spring of sentiment within her. Her lips parted in sudden awe and wonder at the strange revealment of her inner self that was being laid bare before her consciousness. She had known Cario forever. He was more than friend to her. She moved a little closer to him. In one swift flood of light she knew the truth. She loved Cario, Jeddak of Lothar. She had always loved him. The man, seeing the success of his strategy, could not restrain a faint smile of satisfaction. Whether there was something in the expression of his face or whether from Carthoris of Helium in a far chamber of the palace came a more powerful suggestion, who can say, but something there was that suddenly dispelled the strange hypnotic influence of the man. As though a mask had been torn from her eyes, Thuvia suddenly saw Cario as she had formerly seen him, and, accustomed as she was to the strange manifestations of highly developed mentality which are common upon Barsoom, she quickly guessed enough of the truth to know that she was in grave danger. Quickly she took a step backward, tearing herself from his grasp. But the momentary contact had aroused within Cario all the long-buried passions of his loveless existence. With a muffled cry he sprang upon her, throwing his arms about her and attempting to drag her lips to his. Woman, he cried, lovely woman, Cario would make you queen of Lothar. Listen to me. Listen to the love of the last of the jeddaks of Barsoom. Thuvia struggled to free herself from his embrace. Stop, creature, she cried. Stop! I do not love you. Stop, or I shall scream for help. Cario laughed in her face. Scream for help, he mimicked, and who within the walls of Lothar is there who might come in answer to your call? Who would dare enter the presence of Cario unsummoned? There is one, she replied, who would come, and coming dare to cut you down upon your throne if he thought that you had offered a front to Thuvia of Darth. Who? Jav, asked Cario. Not Jav, nor any other soft-skinned Lotharian, she replied, but a real man, a real warrior, Carthoris of Helium. Again the man laughed at her. You forget the bowman, he reminded her. What could your red warrior accomplish against my fearless legions? Again he caught her roughly to him, dragging her towards his couch. If you will not be my queen, he said you should be my slave. Neither, cried the girl. As she spoke the single word, there was a quick move of her right hand. Cario, releasing her, staggered back. Both hands pressed to his side. At the same instant the room filled with bowmen, and then the jeddak of Lothar sank senseless to the marble floor. At the instant that he lost consciousness the bowmen were about to release their arrows into Thuvia's heart. Involuntarily she gave a single cry for help, though she knew that not even Carthoris of Helium could save her now. Then she closed her eyes and waited for the end. No slender shafts pierced her tender side. She raised her lids to see what stayed the hand of her executioners. The room was empty, save for herself, and the still form of the jeddak of Lothar lying at her feet, a little pool of crimson staining the white marble of the floor beside him. Cario was unconscious. Thuvia was amazed. Where were the bowmen? Why had they not loosed their shafts? What could it all mean? An instant before the room had been mysteriously filled with armed men, evidently called to protect their jeddak. Yet now, with the evidence of her deed plain before them, they had vanished as mysteriously as they had come, leaving her alone with the body of their ruler, into whose side she had slipped her long keen blade. The girl glanced apprehensively about, first for signs of the return of the bowmen, and then for some means of escape. The wall behind the dais was pierced by two small doorways, hidden by heavy hangings. Thuvia was running quickly towards one of these when she heard the clank of a warrior's metal at the end of the apartment behind her. Ah, if she had but an instant more of time, she could have reached that screening, Arras, and for chance have found some avenue of escape behind it. But now it was too late, she had been discovered. With a feeling that was akin to apathy, she turned to meet her fate. And there, before her, running swiftly across the broad chamber to her side, was Carthoris, his naked longsword gleaming in his hand. For days she had doubted the intentions of the Heliumite. She had thought him a party to her abduction. Since fate had thrown them together she had scarce favoured him with more than the most perfunctory replies to his remarks, unless at such times as the weird and uncanny happenings that Lothar had surprised her out of her reserve. She knew that Carthoris of Helium would fight for her. But whether to save her for himself or another, she was in doubt. He knew that she was promised to cool on a tith, Jeddak of Cale. But if he had been instrumental in her abduction, his motives could not be prompted by loyalty to his friend, or regard for her honour. And yet, as she saw him coming across the marble floor of the audience chamber of Tari of Lothar, his fine eyes filled with apprehension for her safety, his splendid figure personifying all that is finest in the fighting men of Marshal Mars, she could not believe that any faintest trace of perfidy lurked beneath so glorious and exterior. Never she thought in all her life had the sight of any man been so welcome to her. It was with difficulty that she refrained from rushing forward to meet him. She knew that he loved her. But in time she recalled that she was promised to cool on tith. Not even might she trust herself to show too great gratitude to the Helium might lest he misunderstand. Carthoris was by her side now. His quick glance had taken in the scene within the room. The still figure of the Jeddak sprawled upon the floor, the girl hastening toward a shrouded exit. Did he harm you, Thuvia? he asked. She held up her crimson blade that he might see it. No, she said, he did not harm me. A grim smile lighted Carthoris' face. Praise be our first ancestor, he murmured. And now let us see if we may not make good our escape from this accursed city before the Lotharians discover that their Jeddak is no more. With the firm authority that sat so well upon him, in whose veins flowed the blood of John Carter of Virginia and Dejah Thoris of Helium, he grasped her hand, and, turning back across the hall, strode toward the great doorway through which Jav had brought them into the presence of the Jeddak earlier in the day. They had almost reached the threshold when a figure sprang into the apartment through another entrance. It was Jav. He too took in the scene within at a glance. Carthoris turned to face him, his sword ready in his hand, and his great body shielding the slender figure of the girl. Come, Jav of Lothar, he cried, let us face the issue at once, for only one of us may leave this chamber alive with Thuvia of Tarth. Then, seeing that the man wore no sword, he exclaimed, bring on your bowman then, or come with us, as my prisoner, until we have safely passed the outer portals of thy ghostly city. You have killed Tario, exclaimed Jav, ignoring the other's challenge. You have killed Tario! I see his blood upon the floor, real blood, real death. Tario was, after all, as real as I. Yet he was an etherealist. He would not materialize his sustenance. Can it be that they are right? Well, we too are right. And all these ages we have been quarreling, each saying that the other was wrong. However, he is dead now. Of that, I am glad. Now shall Jav come into his own. Now shall Jav be Jeddak of Lothar. As he finished, Tario opened his eyes and then quickly sat up. Greater, sassan! he screamed. And then, Kadar, Kadar! which is the barsoomium for guard. Jav went sickly white. He fell upon his belly, wriggling toward Tario. Oh, my Jeddak, my Jeddak, he whimpered. Jav had no hand in this. Jav, your faithful Jav, but just this instant entered the apartment to find you lying prone upon the floor, and these two strangers about to leave. How it happened, I know not. You leave me most glorious, Jeddak. Cease, Nath, cried Tario. I have heard your words. However, he is dead now. Of that, I am glad. Now shall Jav come into his own. Now shall Jav be Jeddak of Lothar. At last, traitor, I have found you out. Your own words have condemned you as surely as the acts of these red creatures have sealed their fates unless—he paused—unless the woman, but he got no further. Carthoris guessed what he would have said, and before the words could be uttered he had sprung forward and struck the man across the mouth with his open palm. Tario frothed in rage and mortification. And should you again affront the princess of Tarth, born the Heliumite, I shall forget that you wear no sword. Not forever may I control my itching sword-hand. Tario shrank back toward the little doorways behind the dais. He was trying to speak, but so hideously were the muscles of his face working that he could utter no word for several minutes. At last he managed to articulate intelligibly. Die, he shrieked. Die! And then he turned toward the exit of his back. Jav leaped forward, screaming in terror. Have pity, Tario! Have pity! Remember the long ages that I have served you faithfully. Remember all that I have done for Lothar. Do not condemn me now to the death, hideous! Save me! Save me! But Tario only laughed a mocking laugh, and continued to backboard the hangings that hid the little doorway. Jav turned toward Carthoris. Stop him, he screamed! Stop him! If you love life, let him not leave this room. And as he spoke he leaped in pursuit of his jeddak. Carthoris followed Jav's example, but the last of the jeddaks of Barsoom was too quick for them. By the time they reached the aris behind which he had disappeared they found a heavy stone door blocking their further progress. Jav sank to the floor in a spasm of terror. Come, man! cried Carthoris, we are not dead yet. Let us hasten to the avenues and make an attempt to leave the city. We are still alive, and while we live we may yet endeavour to direct our own destinies. Of what avail to sink spineless to the floor. Come, be a man! Jav but shook his head. Did you not hear him call the guards, he moaned? Ah, if we could have but intercepted him, then there might have been hope. But alas! he was too quick for us. Well, well, exclaimed Carthoris impatiently, what have he did call the guards? There will be time enough to worry about that after they come. At present I see no indication that they have any idea of overexerting themselves to obey their jeddak summons. Jav shook his head mournfully. You do not understand, he said, the guards have already come and gone. They have done their work, and we are lost. Look to the various exits. Carthoris and Thuvio turned their eyes in the direction of the several doorways which pierced the walls of the Great Chamber. Each was tightly closed by huge stone doors. Well, asked Carthoris, we are to die the death, whispered Jav faintly. Further than that he would not say. He just sat upon the edge of the jeddak's couch and waited. Carthoris moved to Thuvio's side, and standing there with naked sword, he let his brave eyes roam ceaselessly about the Great Chamber, that no foe might spring upon them unseen. For what seemed ours no sound broke the silence of their living doom. No sign gave their executioners of the time or manner of their death. The suspense was terrible. Even Carthoris of Helium began to feel the terrible strain upon his nerves. If he could but know how and whence the hand of death was to strike, he could meet it unafraid, but to suffer longer the hideous tension of this blighting ignorance of the plans of their assassins was telling upon him grievously. Thuvio of Tarth drew quite close to him. She felt safer with the feel of his arm against hers, and with the contact of her the man looked a new grip upon himself. With his old time smile he turned toward her. It would seem that they are trying to frighten us to death, he said, laughing, and shame be upon me that I should confess it. I think they were close to accomplishing their designs upon me. She was about to make some reply when a fearful shriek broke from the lips of the Lotharia. The end is coming, he cried. The end is coming. The floor! The floor! O Komal, be merciful! Thuvio and Carthoris did not need to look at the floor to be aware of the strange movement that was taking place. Slowly the marble flagging was sinking in all directions toward the centre. At first the movement, being gradual, was scarce noticeable, but presently the angle of the floor became such that one might stand easily only by bending one knee considerably. Jav was shrieking still and clawing at the royal couch that had already commenced to slide toward the centre of the room, where both Thuvio and Carthoris suddenly noted a small orifice which grew in diameter as the floor assumed more closely a funnel-like contour. Now it became more and more difficult to cling to the dizzy inclination of the smooth and polished marble. Carthoris tried to support Thuvia, but himself commenced to slide and slip toward the ever enlarging aperture. Better to cling to the smooth stone, he kicked off his sandals of Zittadar hide, and with his bare feet raced himself against the sickening tilt, at the same time throwing his arms supportingly about the girl. In her terror her own hands clasped out the man's neck. Her cheek was close to his. Death, unseen and of unknown form, seemed close upon them, and because unseen and unknowable infinitely more terrifying. Courage, my princess, he whispered. She looked up into his face to see smiling lips above hers and brave eyes, untouched by terror, drinking deeply of her own. Then the floor sagged and tilted more swiftly. There was a sudden, slipping rush, as they were precipitated toward the aperture. Job screams rose weird and horrible in their ears, and then the three found themselves piled upon the royal couch of Cariel, which had stuck within the aperture at the base of the marble funnel. For a moment they breathed more freely, but presently they discovered that the aperture was continuing to enlarge. The couch slipped downward. Job shrieked again. There was a sickening sensation, as they felt all let go beneath them, as they fell through darkness to an unknown death. Chapter 9 The Battle in the Plane The distance from the bottom of the funnel to the floor of the chamber beneath it could not have been great, for all three of the victims of Cariel's wrath alighted unscathed. Carthoris, still clasping fulvia tightly to his breast, came to the ground cat-like upon his feet, breaking the shock for the girl. Scarce at his feet touched the rough stone flagging of this new chamber, then his sword flashed out ready for instant use. But though the room was lighted, there was no sign of enemy about. Carthoris looked toward Job. The man was pasty white with fear. What is to be our fate? asked the Heliumite. Tell me, man, shake off your terror long enough to tell me, so I may be prepared to sell my life and that of the princess of Tarth as dearly as possible. O maw, whispered Job, we are to be devoured by O maw. Your deity, asked Carthoris, the Lotharian nodded his head. Then he pointed toward a low doorway at one end of the chamber. From thence will he come upon us. Lay aside your puny sword, fool. It will but enrage him the more and make our sufferings the worse. Carthoris smiled, gripping his long sword the more firm. Presently, Job gave a horrified moan at the same time pointing toward the door. He has come, he whimpered. Carthoris and Theovir looked in the direction the Lotharian had indicated, expecting to see some strange and fearful creature in human form. But to their astonishment they saw the broad head and great main shoulders of a huge Banff, the largest that either ever had seen. Slowly and with dignity the mighty beast advanced into the room. Job had fallen to the floor and was wriggling his body in the same servile manner that he had adopted toward Tarja. He spoke to the fierce beast as he would have spoken to a human being, pleading with it for mercy. Carthoris stepped between Thuvia and the Banff, his sword ready to contest the beast's victory over them. Thuvia turned toward Job. Is this Komal, your god? she asked. Job nodded affirmatively. The girl smiled and then, brushing past Carthoris, she stepped swiftly toward the growling carnivore. In low, firm tone she spoke to it as she had spoken to the banths of the golden cliffs and the scavengers before the walls of Lothar. The beast ceased its growling. With lowered head and cat-like fur it came slinking to the girl's feet. Thuvia turned toward Carthoris. It is but a Banff, she said. We have nothing to fear from it. Carthoris smiled. I did not fear it, he replied, for I too believed it to be only a Banff, and I have my longsword. Job sat up and gazed at the spectacle before him, the slender girl weaving her fingers in the tawny mane of the huge creature that he had thought divine, while Komal rubbed his hideous snout against her side. So this is your god, laughed Thuvia. Job looked bewildered. He scarce knew whether he dared chance offending Komal or not, for so strong is the power of superstition that even though we know that we have been reverencing a sham, yet still we hesitate to admit the validity of our new found convictions. Yes, he said, this is Komal, for ages the enemies of Tario have been hurled to this pit to fill his maw, for Komal must be fed. Is there any way out of this chamber to the avenues of the city? asked Carthoris. Job shrugged. Do not know, he replied, never have I been here before, nor ever have I cared to do so. Come, suggested Thuvia, let us explore. There must be a way out. Together the three approached the doorway through which Komal had entered the apartment that was to have witnessed their deaths. Beyond was a low-roofed lair, with a small door at the far end. This to their delight opened to the lifting of an ordinary latch, letting them into a circular arena surrounded by tiers of seats. Here is where Komal is fed in public, explained Job. Had Tario dared, it would have been here that our fates had been sealed. But he feared too much thy keen blade, red man, and so he hurled us all downward to the pit. I did not know how closely connected with the two chambers. Now we may easily reach the avenues and the city gates. Only the bowman may dispute the right of way, and knowing their secret, I doubt that they have power to harm us. Another door led to a flight of steps that rose from the arena level, upward, through the seats, through an exit at the back of the hall. Beyond this was a straight broad corridor, running directly through the palace to the gardens of the side. No one appeared to question them as they advanced, mighty Komal, pacing by the girl's side. Where are the people of the palace, the jeddak's retinue, asked Arthoris. Even in the city streets, as we came through, I scarce saw sign of a human being, yet all about are evidences of a mighty population. Job sighed. Poor Lothar, he said, it is indeed a city of ghosts. There are scarce a thousand of us left, who once were numbered in the millions. Our great city is peopled by the creatures of our own imaginings. For our own needs, we do not take the trouble to materialize these peoples of our brain, yet they are apparent to us. Even now I see great throngs lining the avenue, hastening to and fro in the round of their duties. I see women and children laughing on the balconies. These, we are forbidden to materialize. But yet I see them. They are here. But why not, he mused. No longer need I fear Tario, he has done his worst and failed. Why not indeed? Stay, friends, he continued. Would you see Lothar in all her glory? Arthoris and Theovir nodded their assent, more out of courtesy than because they fully grasped the import of his mutterings. Job gazed at them penetratingly for an instant. Then with a wave of his hand cried, Look! The sight that met them was all inspiring, where before there had been not but deserted pavements and scarlet swords, yawning windows and tenetless doors, now swarmed a countless multitude of happy, laughing people. It is the past, said Job in a low voice. They do not see us. They but live the old, dead past of ancient Lothar, the dead and crumbled Lothar of antiquity, which stood upon the shore of Throxus, mightiest of the five oceans. See those fine upstanding men swinging along the broad avenue? See the young girls and the women smile upon them? See the men greet them with love and respect? Those be seafarers coming up from their ships, which lie at the keys at the city's edge. Brave men they, but the glory of Lothar has faded. See their weapons. They alone bore arms, for they crossed the five seas to strange places where dangers were. With their passing passed the martial spirit of the Lotharians, leaving as the ages rolled by a race of spineless cowards. We hated war, and so we trained not our youth in warlike ways. Thus followed our undoing. For when the seas dried and the green hordes encroached upon us, we could do not but flee. But we remembered the seafaring bowmen of the days of our glory. It is the memory of these which we hurl upon our enemies. As Jav ceased speaking, the picture faded, and once more the three took up their way toward the distant gates along deserted avenues. Twice they sighted Lotharians of flesh and blood. At sight of them and the huge Banth, which they must have recognized as Komal, the citizens turned and fled. They will carry word of our flight to Tario, cried Jav, and soon he will send his bowmen after us. Let us hope that our theory is correct, and that their shafts are powerless against mine's cognizance of their unreality. Otherwise we are doomed. Explain, red man, to the woman, the truths that I have explained to you, that she may meet the arrows with a stronger counter-suggestion of immunity. Barthoris did as Jav bid him. But they came to the great gates without sign of pursuit developing. Here Jav set in motion the mechanism that ruled the huge wheel-like gate aside, and a moment later the three, accompanied by the Banth, stepped out into the plain before Lothar. Scarce that they covered a hundred yards when the sound of many men shouting arose behind them. As they turned, they saw a company of bowmen debouching upon the plain from the gate through which they had but just passed. Upon the walls above the gate were a number of Lotharians, among whom Jav recognized Tario, that Jeddak stood glaring at them, evidently concentrating all the forces of his trained mind upon them, that he was making a supreme effort to render his imaginary creatures deadly was apparent. Jav turned white and commenced to tremble. At the crucial moment he appeared to lose the courage of his conviction. The great Banth turned back toward the advancing bowmen and growled. Barthoris placed himself between Thuvia and the enemy, and facing them awaited the outcome of their charge. Suddenly an inspiration came to Barthoris. Hurl your own bowmen against Tario, he cried to Jav. Let us see a materialized battle between two mentalities. The suggestions seemed to harden the Lotharian, and in another moment the three stood behind solid ranks of huge bowmen who hurled taunts and menaces at the advancing company emerging from the walled city. Jav was a new man the moment his battalion stood between him and Tario. One could almost have sworn the man believed these creatures of his strange hypnotic power to be real flesh and blood. With horse battle cries they charged the bowmen of Tario. Barbed shafts flew thick and fast. Men fell, and the ground was red with gore. Barthoris and Thuvia had difficulty in reconciling the reality of it all with their knowledge of the truth. They saw Uton after Uton march from the gate in perfect step to reinforce the outnumbered company which Tario had first sent forth to arrest them. They saw Jav's forces grow correspondingly, until all about them rolled a sea of fighting, cursing warriors, and the dead lay in heaps about the field. Jav and Tario seemed to have forgotten all else beside the struggling bowmen that surged to and fro, filling the broad field between the forest and the city. The wood loomed close behind Thuvia and Carthoris. The latter cast a glance toward Jav. Come, he whispered to the girl. Let them fight out their empty battle. Neither evidently has power to harm the other. They are like two controversialists hurling words at one another. While they are engaged, we may as well be devoting our energies to an attempt to find the passage through the cliffs to the plain beyond. As he spoke, Jav, turning from the battle for an instant, caught his words. He saw the girl move to accompany the helionite. A cunning look leaped to the Lotharian's eyes. The thing that lay beyond that look had been deep in his heart since first he had laid eyes upon Thuvia of Tarth. He had not recognized it, however, until now that she seemed about to pass out of his existence. He centered his mind upon the helionite and the girl for an instant. Carthoris saw Thuvia of Tarth step forward without stretched hand. He was surprised at this sudden softening toward him, and it was with a full heart that he let his fingers close upon hers as together they turned away from forgotten Lothar into the woods and bent their steps toward the distant mountains. As the Lotharian had turned toward them, Thuvia had been surprised to hear Carthoris suddenly voice a new plan. Remain here with Jav, she had heard him say, while I go to search for the passage through the cliffs. She had dropped back in surprise and disappointment, for she knew that there was no reason why she should not have accompanied him. Certainly she should have been safer with him than left here alone with the Lotharian. And Jav watched the two and smiled his cunning smile. When Carthoris had disappeared within the wood, Thuvia seated herself apathetically upon the scarlet sword to watch the seemingly interminable struggles of the bowmen. The long afternoon dragged its weary way toward darkness, and still the imaginary legions charged and retreated. The sun was about to set when Tario commenced to withdraw his troops slowly toward the city. His plan for a cessation of hostilities through the night evidently met with Jav's entire approval, for he caused his forces to form themselves in orderly utans and march just within the edge of the wood, where they were soon busily engaged in preparing their evening meal and spreading down their sleeping silks and furs for the night. Thuvia could scarce repress a smile as she noted the scrupulous care with which Jav's imaginary men attended to each tiny detail of deportment, as truly as if they had been real flesh and blood. Centuries were posted between the camp and the city. Officers clanked hither and thither, issuing commands, and seeing to it that they were properly carried out. Thuvia turned toward Jav. Why is it, she asked, that you observe such careful nicety in the regulation of your creatures when Tario knows quite as well as you that they orbit figments of your brain? Why not permit them simply to dissolve into thin air until you again require their futile service? You do not understand them, replied Jav. While they exist, they are real. I do but call them into being now, and in a way direct their general actions, but thereafter, until I dissolve them, they are as actual as you or I. Their officers command them under my guidance. I am the general, that is all, and the psychological effect upon the enemy is far greater than where I have to treat them merely as substance-less vagaries. Then too, continued the Lotharian, there is always the hope, which with us is little short of belief, that someday these materializations will merge into the real, that they will remain some of them after we have dissolved their fellows, and that thus we shall have discovered a means for perpetuating our dying race. Some there are who claim already to have accomplished a thing. It is generally supposed that the etherealists have quite a few among their number who are permanent materializations. It is even said that such is Tario, but that cannot be for he existed before we had discovered the full possibilities of suggestion. There are others among us who insist that none of us is real, that we could not have existed all these ages without material food and water had we ourselves been material. Although I am a realist, I rather inclined toward this belief myself. It seems well and sensibly based upon the belief that our ancient forebears developed before their extinction such wondrous mentalities that some of the stronger minds among them lived after the death of their bodies, that we are but the deathless minds of individuals long dead. It would appear possible, and yet insofar as I am concerned I have all the attributes of corporeal existence. I eat, I sleep, I buzz, casting a meaning look upon the girl, I love. Huvia could not mistake the palpable meaning of his words and expression. She turned away with a little shrug of disgust that was not lost upon the Lotharian. He came close to her and seized her arm. Why not Jav, he cried. Who more honorable than the second of the world's most ancient race? Your Heliumite. He is gone. He has deserted you to your fate to save himself. Come, he javs. Huvia of Tarth rose to her full height. Her lifted shoulder turned toward the man. Her haughty chin upraised. A scornful twist to her lips. You lie, she said quietly. The Heliumite knows less of disloyalty than he knows of fear. And of fear he is as ignorant as the unhatched young. Then where is he? Haunted the Lotharian. I tell you he has fled the valley. He has left you to your fate. But Jav will see that it is a pleasant one. Tomorrow we shall return into Lothar at the head of my victorious army. And I shall be Jeddak, and you shall be my consort. Come. And he attempted to crush her to his breast. The girl struggled to free herself, striking at the man with her metal armlets. Yet still he drew her toward him, until both were suddenly startled by a hideous growl that rumbled from the dark wood close behind them. End of chapter 9, recording by Thomas Copeland. Chapter 10 of Thuvia, Made of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Thomas Copeland. Chapter 10 Carr Comac the Bowman. As Carthoris moved through the forest toward the distant cliffs with Thuvia's hand still tight pressed in his, he wondered a little at the girl's continued silence. Yet the contact of her cool palm against his was so pleasant that he feared to break the spell of her newfound reliance in him by speaking. Onward through the dim wood they passed, until the shadows of the quick coming Martian night commenced to close down upon them. Then it was that Carthoris turned to speak to the girl at his side. They must plan together for the future. It was his idea to pass through the cliffs at once if they could locate the passage, and he was quite positive that they were now close to it, but he wanted her assent to the proposition. As his eyes rested upon her, he was struck by her strangely ethereal appearance. She seemed suddenly to have dissolved into the tenuous substance of a dream, and as he continued to gaze upon her, she faded slowly from his sight. For an instant he was dumbfounded, and then the whole truth flashed suddenly upon him. Jav had caused him to believe that Thuvir was accompanying him through the wood, while as a matter of fact he had detained the girl for himself. Carthoris was horrified. He cursed himself for his stupidity, and yet he knew that the fiendish power which the Lotharian had invoked to confuse him might have deceived any. Scarce had he realized the truth, then he had started to retrace his steps toward Lothar. But now he moved at a trot, the earthly fuse that he had inherited from his father, carrying him swiftly over the soft carpet of fallen leaves and ranked grass. Thuria's brilliant light flooded the plain before the walled city of Lothar, as Carthoris broke from the wood opposite the great gate that had given the fugitives egress from the city earlier in the day. At first he saw no indication that there was another than himself anywhere about. The plain was deserted. No myriad bowman camped now beneath the overhanging verger of the giant trees. No gory heaps of torture dead defaced the beauty of the scallot's ward. All was silence. All was peace. The Heliumite, scarce pausing at the forest's verge, pushed on across the plain toward the city, when presently he described a huddled form in the grass at his feet. It was the body of a man lying prone. Carthoris turned the figure over upon its back. It was jove, but torn and mangled almost beyond the recognition. The Prince bent low to note of any spark of life remained, and as he did so, the lids raised, and dull, suffering eyes looked up into his. The Princess of Tarth, cried Carthoris, where is she? Answer me, man, or I complete the work that another has so well begun. Come all, muttered jove. He sprang upon me, and would have devoured me, but for the girl. Then they went away together into the wood, the girl in the great band. Her fingers twined in his pawny maid. Which way went they, asked Carthoris? There, replied jove faintly, poured the passage through the cliffs. Prince of Helium waited to hear no more, but springing to his feet, raced back again into the forest. It was dawn when he reached the mouth of the dark tunnel that would lead him to the other world beyond the valley of ghostly memories and strange hypnotic influences and menaces. Within the long dark passages he met with no accident or obstacle, coming at last into the light of day beyond the mountains, and no great distance from the southern verge of the domains of that equations, not more than one hundred and fifty hod at the most. From the boundary of Torquas to the city of Antor is a distance of some two hundred hods, so that the Heliumite had before him a journey of more than one hundred and fifty earth miles between him and Antor. He could at best but hazard a chance guess that toward Antor Thuvia would take her flight. There lay the nearest water, and there might be expected, some day, a rescuing party from her father's empire. For Carthoris knew Thuvan Din well enough to know that he would leave no stone unturned until he attract down the truth as to his daughter's adduction, and learned all that there might be to learn of her whereabouts. He realized, of course, that the trick which had laid suspicion upon him would greatly delay the discovery of the truth, but little did he guess to what vast proportions had the results of the villainy of Aztop of Dusar already grown. Even as he emerged from the mouth of the passage to look across the foothills in the direction of Antor, Aftarth's battle fleet was winging its majestic way slowly toward the twin cities of Helium, while from far-distant cowl raced another mighty armada to join forces with its ally. He did not know that in the face of the circumstantial evidence against him, even his own people had commenced to entertain suspicions that he might have stolen the Tarthian princess. He did not know of the lengths to which the Dusarians had gone to disrupt the friendship and alliance which existed between the three great powers of the Eastern Hemisphere, Helium, Tarth, and Cowl. How Dusarian emissaries had found employment in important posts in foreign offices of the three great nations, and how through these men messages from one jeddak to another were altered and garbled until the patience and pride of the three rulers and former friends could no longer endure the humiliations and insults contained in these falsified papers? Not any of this, he knew. Nor did he know how even to the last John Carter, warlord of Mars, had refused to permit the jeddak of Helium to declare war against either Tarth or Cowl because of his implicit belief in his son, and that eventually all would be satisfactorily explained. And now two great fleets were moving upon Helium, while the Dusarian spies at the court of Tartus Moors saw to it that the twin cities remained in ignorance of their danger. War had been declared by Thuvan Din, but the messenger who had been dispatched with a proclamation had been a Dusarian who had seen to it that no word of warning reached the twin cities of the approach of the hostile fleet. For several days diplomatic relations had been severed between Helium and her two most powerful neighbors, and with the departure of the ministers had come a total cessation of wireless communication between the disputants as is usual upon Barsoom. But of all this Carthoris was ignorant. All that interested him at present was the finding of Thuvia of Tarth. Her trail, beside that of the huge banth, had been well marked to the tunnel and was once more visible leading southward into the foothills. As he followed rapidly downward toward the dead sea bottom where he knew he must lose the spore in the resilient ochre vegetation, he was suddenly surprised to see a naked man approaching him from the northeast. As the fellow drew closer, Carthoris halted to await his coming. He knew that the man was unarmed and that he was apparently a Lotharian, for his skin was white and his hair auburn. He approached the Heliumite without sign of fear, and when quite close called out the cheery Barsoomian cow of greeting. Who are you? asked Carthoris. I am Carcomac, Odwar of the bowmen, replied the other. A strange thing has happened to me, for ages Tarrio has been bringing me into existence as he needed the services of the army of his mind. Of all the bowmen it has been Carcomac who has been oftenist materialized. For a long time Tarrio has been concentrating his mind upon my permanent materialization. It has been an obsession with him that someday this thing could be accomplished and the future of Lothar assured. He asserted that matter was nonexistent except in the imagination of man, that all was mental, and so he believed that by persisting in his suggestion he could eventually make of me a permanent suggestion in the minds of all creatures. Yesterday he succeeded, but at such a time it must have come all unknown to him, as it came to me without my knowledge, as with my horde of yelling bowmen I pursued the fleeing torquations back to their ochre plains. As darkness settled and the time came for us to fade once more into thin air, I suddenly found myself alone upon the edge of the great plain which lies yonder at the foot of the low hills. My men were gone back to the nothingness from which they had sprung, but I remained naked and unarmed. First I could not understand, but at last came a realization of what had occurred. Tarrio's long suggestions had at last prevailed, and Carcomac had become a reality in the world of men. My harness and my weapons had faded away with my fellows, leaving me naked and unarmed in a hostile country far from Lothar. You wish to return to Lothar? asked Carthoris. No, replied Carcomac quickly. I have no love for Tarrio. Being the creature of his mind, I know him too well. He is cruel and tyrannical. A master I have no desire to serve. Now that he has succeeded in accomplishing my permanent materialization, he will be unbearable, and he will go on until he has filled Lothar with his creatures. I wonder if he has succeeded as well with the maid of Lothar. I thought there were no women there, said Carthoris. In a hidden apartment in the palace of Tarrio, replied Carcomac, that Jeddak has maintained the suggestion of a beautiful girl, hoping that someday she would become permanent. I have seen her there. She is wonderful. But for her sake I hope that Tarrio succeeds not so well with her as he has with me. Now, Redman, I have told you of myself. What of you? Carthoris liked the face and manner of the bowman. There had been no sign of doubt or fear in his expression as he had approached the heavily armed Heliumite, and he had spoken directly under the point. So the Prince of Helium told the bowman of Lothar, who he was and what adventure had brought him to this far country. Good! exclaimed the other when he had done. Carcomac will accompany you. Together we shall find the Princess of Targ, and with you Carcomac will return to the world of men. Such a world as he knew in the long gone past, when the ships of mighty Lothar ploughed angry Throxus, and the roaring surf beat against the barrier of these parched and dreary hills. What mean you, asked Carthoris, had you really a former actual existence? Most assuredly replied Carcomac. In my day I commanded the fleets of Lothar, mightiest of all the fleets that sailed the five salt seas. Wherever men lived upon Barsoom there was the name of Carcomac known and respected. Peaceful were the land races in those distant days, only the seafarers were warriors. But now has the glory of the past faded, nor did I think until I met you that there remained upon Barsoom a single person of our own mold who lived and loved and fought as did the ancient seafarers of my time. Ah, but it will seem good to see men once again, real men. Never had I much respect for the landsmen of my day they remained in their walled cities, wasting their time in play, depending for their protection entirely upon the sea race, and the poor creatures who remain, the Tarios and Jobs of Lothar, are even worse than their ancient forebears. Carthoris was a trifle skeptical as to the wisdom of permitting the stranger to attach himself to him. There was always the chance that he was but the essence of some hypnotic treachery which Tario or Job was attempting to exert upon the Heliumite, and yet so sincere had been the manner and the words of the bowmen, so much the fighting man did he seem, but Carthoris could not find it in his heart to doubt him. The outcome of the matter was that he gave the naked Odwar leave to accompany him, and together they set out upon the spore of Thuvia and Comal. Down to the ochre sea bottom the trail led, there it disappeared as Carthoris had known that it would, but where it entered the plain its direction had been toward Anthor, and so toward Anthor the two turned their faces. It was a long and tedious journey fraught with many dangers. The bowman could not travel at the pace set by Carthoris, whose muscles carried him with great rapidity over the face of the small planet, the force of gravity of which exerts so much less retarding power than that of the earth. Fifty miles a day is a fair average for a Barsoomian, but the son of John Carter might easily have covered a hundred or more miles had he carried to desert his newfound comrade. All the way they were in constant danger of discovery by roving bands of Torquasians, and especially was this true before they reached the boundary of Porquas. Good fortune was with them, however, and although they cited two detachments of the savage green men, they were not themselves seen, and so they came upon the morning of the third day within sight of the glistening domes of distant Anthor. Throughout the journey Carthoris had ever strained his eyes ahead in search of Thuvia and the Great Bath. But not till now had he seen opt to give him hope. This morning, far ahead, halfway between themselves and Anthor, the men saw two tiny figures moving toward the city. For a moment they watched them intently. Then Carthoris, convinced, leaped forward at a rapid run Carcomac following as swiftly as he could. The Heliumite shouted to attract the girl's attention, and presently he was rewarded by seeing her turn and stand looking toward him. At her side, the Great Bath stood with up-pricked ears, watching the approaching man. Not yet could Thuvia of Tarth have recognized Carthoris, though that it was he she must have been convinced, for she waited there for him without sign of fear. Presently he saw her point toward the Northwest beyond him. Without slackening his pace, he turned his eyes in the direction she indicated. Racing silently over the thick vegetation, not half a mile behind, came a score of fierce green warriors charging him upon their mighty thoats. To their right was Carcomac, naked and unarmed, yet running valiantly toward Carthoris and shouting warning, as though he too had but just discovered the silent menacing company that moved so swiftly forward with couched spears and ready longswords. Carthoris shouted to the Lotharian, warning him back, for he knew that he could but uselessly sacrifice his life by placing himself all unarmed in the path of the cruel and relentless savages. But Carcomac never hesitated. With shouts of encouragement to his new friend, he hurried onward toward the Prince of Helium. The red man's heart leaped in response to this exhibition of courage and self-sacrifice. He regretted now that he had not thought to give Carcomac one of his swords, but it was too late to attempt it. For, should he wait for the Lotharian to overtake him or return to meet him, but equations would reach the Ouvial Tarth before he could do so. Even as it was, it would be nip and tuck as to who came first to aside. Again he turned his face in her direction, and now, from Alntorway, he saw a new force hastening toward them, two medium-sized warcraft, and even at the distance they still were from him, he discerned the device of Dusar upon their bows. Now, indeed, seemed little hope for the Ouvial Tarth. With savage warriors of the Horses of Torquas charging toward her from one direction, and no less implacable enemies in the form of the creatures of Astok, Prince of Dusar, bearing down upon her from another, while only a band, the red warrior and an unarmed bowman, were near to defend her, her plight was quite hopeless, and her cause already lost ere ever it was contested. As Thuvia saw Carthoris approaching, she felt again that unaccountable sensation of entire relief from responsibility and fear that she had experienced upon a former occasion. Nor could she account for it, while her mind still tried to convince her heart that the Prince of Helium had been instrumental in her abduction from her father's court. She only knew that she was glad when he was by her side, and that with him there all things seemed possible, even such impossible things as escaped from her present predicament. Now had he stopped panting before her, a brave smile of encouragement lit his face. Courage, my princess, he whispered. To the girl's memory flashed the occasion upon which he had used those same words, in the throne-room of Tariov Lothar, as they had commenced to slip down the sinking marble floor for an unknown fate. Then she had not chidden him for the use of that familiar salutation, nor did she chide him now, though she was promised to another. She wondered at herself, flushing at her own turpitude. For upon Varsum it is a shameful thing for a woman to listen to those two words from another than her husband or her betrothed. Carthoris saw her flush of mortification, and in an instant regretted his words. There was but a moment before the Green Warriors would be upon them. Forgive me, said the man in a low voice, let my great love be my excuse. That and the belief that I have but a moment more of life. And with the words he turned to meet the foremost of the Green Warriors. The fellow was charging with couched spear, but Carthoris leaped to one side, and as the great float in its rider hurtled harmlessly past him, he swung his longsword in a mighty cut that clove the Green Caucus in twain. At the same moment Carcomac leaped with bare hands, clawing at the leg of another of the huge riders. The balance of the horde raced in to close quarters. This mounting, the better to wield their favorite longswords. The Dusarian fliers touched the soft carpet of the ochre-clad sea-bottom, disgorging fifty fighting men from their bowels, and into the swirling sea of cutting, slashing swords sprang Comal, the Great Banth. Recording by Thomas Copeland. Chapter 11. Green Men and White Apes A Torquasian sword smote a glancing blow across the forehead of Carthoris. He had a fleeting vision of soft arms about his neck and warm lips close to his before he lost consciousness. How long he lay there senseless he could not guess. But when he opened his eyes again, he was alone, except for the bodies of the dead Green Men and Dusarians, and the carcass of a Great Banth that lay half across his own. Thuvia was gone, nor was the body of Carcomac among the dead. Weak from loss of blood, Carthoris made his way slowly toward Andor, reaching its outskirts at dark. He wanted water more than any other thing, and so he kept on up a broad avenue toward the Great Central Plaza, where he knew the precious fluid was to be found in a half-ruined building opposite the Great Palace of the Ancient Jeddak, who once had ruled this mighty city. Disheartened and discouraged by the strange sequence of events that seemed foreordained to thwart his every attempt to serve the Princess of Tarth, he paid little or no attention to his surroundings, moving through the deserted city as though no great white apes lurked in the black shadows of the mystery-haunted piles that flanked the broad avenues and the Great Plaza. But if Carthoris was careless of his surroundings, not so other eyes that watched his entrance into the Plaza and followed his slow footsteps, gored the marble pile that housed the tiny half-choked spring whose water one might gain only by scratching a deep hole in the red sand that covered it. And as the helium might enter the small building, a dozen mighty grotesque figures emerged from the doorway of the Palace to speed noiselessly across the Plaza toward him. For half an hour Carthoris remained in the building, digging for water and gaining the few much-needed drops which were the fruits of his labour. Then he rose and slowly left the structure. Scarce had he stepped beyond the threshold and twelve Proquesian warriors leaped upon him. No time then to draw longsword, but swift from his harness flew his long, slim dagger, and as he went down beneath them, more than a single green heart ceased beating at the bite of that keen point. Then they overpowered him and took his weapons away. But only nine of the twelve warriors who had crossed the Plaza returned with their prize. They dragged their prisoner roughly to the Palace pits, where in utter darkness they chained him with rusty links to the solid masonry of the wall. Tomorrow Thar Ban will speak with you, they said. Now he sleeps. But great will be his pleasure when he learns who has wandered amongst us, and great will be the pleasure of Hortangour when Thar Ban drags before him the mad fool who dared prick the great jeddak with his sword. Then they left him to the silence and the darkness. For what seemed ours Carthoris squatted upon the stone floor of his prison, his back against the wall in which was sunk the heavy eyeball that secured the chain which held him. Then, from out of the mysterious blackness before him, there came to his ears the sound of naked feet moving stealthily upon stone, approaching nearer and nearer to where he lay, unarmed and defenseless. Minutes passed, minutes that seemed ours, during which time periods of subpulchral silence would be followed by a repetition of the uncanny scraping of naked feet slinking warily upon him. At last he heard a sudden rush of unshorred souls across the empty blackness, and at a little distance a scuffling sound, heavy breathing, and once what he thought the muttered imprecation of a man battling against great odds. Then the clanging of a chain and a noise as of the snapping back against stone of a broken link. Again came silence, but for a moment only. Now he heard once more the soft feet approaching him. He thought that he discerned wicked eyes gleaming fearfully at him through the darkness. He knew that he could hear the heavy breathing of powerful lungs. Then came the rush of many feet toward him and the things were upon him. Hands terminating in man-like fingers clutched at his throat and arms and legs. Hairy body strained and struggled against his own smooth hide as he battled in grim silence against these horrid foemen in the darkness of the pits of ancient Anthor. Feud like some giant god was Carthoris of Helium, yet in the clutches of these unseen creatures of the pit Stygian Knight he was helpless as a frail woman. Yet he battled on striking futile blows against great hispid breasts that he could not see. Feeling thick squat throats beneath his fingers, the drool of saliva upon his cheek and hot foul breath in his nostrils. Fangs too, mighty fangs he knew were close, and why they did not sink into his flesh he could not guess. At last he became aware of the mighty surging of a number of his antagonists back and forth upon the great chain that held him and presently came the same sound that he had heard at a little distance from him a short time before he had been attacked. His chain had parted and the broken end snapped back against the stone wall. Now he was seized upon either side and dragged at a rapid pace through the dark corridors toward what fate he could not even guess. At first he had thought his foes might be of the tribe of Torquas, but their hairy bodies belied that belief. Now he was at last quite sure of their identity, though why they had not killed and devoured him at once he could not imagine. After half an hour or more of rapid racing through the underground passages that are a distinguishing feature of all Barsoomian cities, modern as well as ancient, his captors suddenly emerged into the moonlight of a courtyard, far from the central plaza. Immediately Carthoris saw that he was in the power of a tribe of the great white apes of Barsoom. All that had caused him doubt before as to the identity of his attackers was the hairiness of their breasts, for the white apes are entirely hairless except for a great shock whistling from their heads. Now he saw the cause of that which had deceived him. Across the chest of each of them were strips of hairy hide, usually of ban, in imitation of the harness of the green warriors who so often camped at their deserted city. Carthoris had granted the existence of tribes of apes that seemed to be progressing slowly toward higher standards of intelligence. Into the hands of such he realized he had fallen. But what were their intentions toward him? As he glanced about the courtyard he saw fully fifty of the hideous beasts squatting on their haunches and at a little distance from him another human being closely guarded. As his eyes met those of his fellow captive a smile lit the other's face and Kaoh, red man, burst from his lips. It was Carcoma, the bowman. Kaoh cried Carthoris in response. How came you here? And what befell the princess? Red men like yourself descended in mighty ships that sailed the air even as the great ships of my distant day sailed the five seas replied Carcoma. They fought with the green men of Torquas. They slew Comal, god of Lothar. I thought they were your friends and I was glad when finally those of them who survived the battle carried the red girl to one of the ships and sailed away with her into the safety of the high air. Then the green men seized me and carried me to a great empty city where they chained me to a wall in a black pit. Afterward came these and dragged me hither. And what have you, red man? Carthoris related all that had befallen him. And as the two men talked, the great apes squattered about them, watching them intently. What are we to do now? asked the bowman. Our case looks rather hopeless, replied Carthoris ruefully. These creatures are born man-eaters. Why, they have not already devoured as I cannot imagine. There, he whispered. See, the end is coming. Carcoma looked in the direction Carthoris indicated to see a huge ape advancing with a mighty bludgeon. It is thus they like best to kill their prey, said Carthoris. Must we die without a struggle? asked Carcoma. Not I, replied Carthoris. Though I know how futile our best defense must be against these mighty brutes. Oh, for our longsword. Or a good bow, added Carcomac and Utan of Bowman. At the words, Carthoris half sprang to his feet, only to be dragged roughly down by his guard. Carcomac, he cried. Why cannot you do what Tario and Jove did? They had no Bowman other than those of their own creation. You must know the secret of their power. Call forth your own Utan, Carcomac. The Lotharian looked to Carthoris in wide-eyed astonishment, as the full purport of the suggestion bore in upon his understanding. Why not? he murmured. The savage ape bearing the mighty bludgeon was slinking toward Carthoris. The Heliumite's fingers were working as he kept his eyes upon his executioner. Carcomac bent his gaze penetratingly upon the apes. The effort of his mind was evidenced in the sweat upon his contracted brows. The creature that was to slay the red man was almost within arm's reach of his prey when Carthoris heard a hoarse shout from the opposite side of the courtyard. In common with the squatting apes and the demon with the club, he turned in the direction of the sound to see a company of sturdy Bowmen rushing from the doorway of the nearby building. With screams of rage, the apes leaped to their feet to meet the charge. A volley of arrows met them halfway, sending a dozen rolling lifeless to the ground. Then the apes closed with their adversaries. All their attention was occupied by the attackers. Even the guard had deserted the prisoners to join in the battle. Come, whispered Carcomac, now we may escape while their attention is diverted from us by Matt Bowmen. And leave those brave fellows, leaderless, cried Carthoris, whose loyal nature revolted at the merest suggestion of such a thing. Carcomac laughed. You forget, he said, that they are but thin hair, figments of my brain. They will vanish unscathed when we have no further need for them. Praised be your first ancestor, red man, that you thought of this chance in time. It would never have occurred to me to imagine that I might wield the same power that brought me into existence. You are right, said Carthoris. Still, I hate to leave them, though there is not else to do. And so the two turned from the courtyard and making their way into one of the broad avenues, crept stealthily in the shadows of the building toward the great central plaza, upon which were the buildings occupied by the green warriors when they visited the deserted city. When they had come to the plaza's edge, Carthoris halted. Wait here, he whispered. I go to fetch thoats, since on foot we may never hope to escape the clutches of these green fiends. To reach the courtyard where the thoats were kept, it was necessary for Carthoris to pass through one of the buildings which surrounded the square. Which were occupied and which were not, he could not even guess. So he was compelled to take considerable chances to gain the enclosure in which he could hear the restless beasts squealing and quarreling among themselves. Chance carried him through a dark doorway into a large chamber in which lay a score or more green warriors wrapped in their sleeping silks and furs. Scares had Carthoris pass through the short hallway that connected the door of the building and the great room beyond it. Then he became aware of the presence of something or someone in the hallway through which he had but just passed. He heard a man yawn. And then behind him, he saw the figure of a sentry rise from where the fellow had been dozing and stretching himself, resumed his wakeful watchfulness. Carthoris realized that he must have passed within a foot of the warrior, doubtless rousing him from his slumber. To retreat now would be impossible. Yet to cross through that room full of sleeping warriors seemed almost equally beyond the pale of possibility. Carthoris shrugged his broad shoulders and chose the lesser evil. Warily he entered the room. At his right against the wall leaned several swords and rifles and spears, extra weapons which the warriors had stacked here ready to their hands should there be a night alarm calling them suddenly from slumber. Beside each sleeper lay his weapon. These were never far from their owners from childhood to death. The sight of the swords made the old man's palm itch. He stepped quickly to them, selecting two short swords, one for Carcomac, the other for himself. Also some trappings for his naked comrade. Then he started directly across the center of the apartment among the sleeping two equations. Not a man of the move until Carthoris had completed more than half of the short, though dangerous, journey. Then a fellow directly in his path turned restlessly upon his sleeping silks and furs. The heliomite paused above him, one of the short swords in readiness should the warrior awaken. For what seemed an eternity to the young prince, the green man continued to move uneasily upon his couch. Then as though actuated by springs, he leaped to his feet and faced the red man. Instantly Carthoris struck, but not before a savage grunt escaped the other's lips. In an instant the room was in turmoil. Warriors leaped to their feet grasping their weapons as they rose and shouting to one another for an explanation of the disturbance. To Carthoris, all within the room, was plainly visible and the dim light reflected from without. For the further moon stood directly at Xenath, but to the eyes of the newly awakened green man, objects as yet had not taken on familiar forms, they but saw vaguely the figures of warriors moving about their apartment. Now one stumbled against the corpse of him whom Carthoris had slain. The fellow stooped and his hand came in contact with the cleft skull. He saw about him the giant figures of other green men, and so he jumped to the only conclusion that was open to him. The thirds, he cried, the thirds are upon us. Rise warriors of Torquas and drive home your swords within the hearts of Torquas' ancient enemies. Instantly the green men began to fall upon one another with naked swords. Their savage lust of battle was aroused, to fight, to kill, to die, with cold steel buried in their vitals. Ah, that to them was nirvana. Carthoris was quick to guess their error and take advantage of it. He knew that in the pleasure of killing they might fight on long after they had discovered their mistake, unless their attention was distracted by sight of the real cause of the altercation, and so he lost no time in continuing across the room to the doorway upon the opposite side, which opened into the inner court, where the savage thoats were squealing and fighting among themselves. Once here he had no easy task before him. To catch and mount one of these habitually rageful and intractable beasts was no child's play under the best of conditions, but now, when silence and time were such important considerations, it might well have seemed quite hopeless to a less resourceful and optimistic man than the son of the great warlord. From his father he had learned much concerning the traits of these mighty beasts, and from Tars Tarkas also, when he had visited that great green jeddak among his horde at Thark. So now he centred upon the work in hand all that he had ever learned about them from others and from his own experience, for he too had ridden and handled them many times. A temper of the thoats of Tarkas appeared even shorter than their vicious cousins among the Tharps and Warhoons, and for a time it seemed unlikely that he should escape a savage charge on the part of a couple of old bulls that circled squealing about him. But at last he managed to get close enough to one of them to touch the beast. With the feel of his hand upon the sleek hide, the creature quieted, and in answer to the telepathic command of the red man, sank to its knees. In a moment Carthoris was upon its back, guiding it toward the great gate that leads from the courtyard through a large building at one end into an avenue beyond. The other bull, still squealing and enraged, followed after his fellow. There was no bridle upon either, for these strange creatures are controlled entirely by suggestion, when they are controlled at all. Even in the hands of the giant green men, bridle reins would be hopelessly futile against the mad savagery and mastodonic strength of the thoat, and so they are guided by that strange telepathic power with which the men of Mars have learned to communicate in a crude way with the lower orders of their planet. With difficulty Carthoris urged the two beasts to the gate, where, leaning down, he raised the latch. Then the thoat that he was riding placed his great shoulder to the skilled wood planking, pushed through, and a moment later the man and the two beasts were swinging silently down the avenue to the edge of the plaza, where Carcomac hid. Here Carthoris found considerable difficulty in subduing the second thoat, and as Carcomac had never before ridden one of the beasts, it seemed a most hopeless job. But at last the bowman managed to scramble to the sleek back, and again the two beasts fled softly down the moss-grown avenues toward the open sea bottom beyond the city. All that night in the following day and the second night they rode toward the northeast. No indication of pursuit developed, and at dawn of the second day Carthoris saw in the distance the waving ribbon of great trees that marked one of the long basumian waterways. Immediately they abandoned their thoats and approached the cultivated district on foot. Carthoris also discarded the metal from his harness, or such of it as might serve to identify him as a heliomite, or of royal blood, for he did not know to what nation belonged this waterway, and upon Mars it is always well to assume every man and nation your enemy, until you have learned contrary. It was mid-afternoon when the thoat last entered one of the roads that cut through the cultivated districts at regular intervals, joining the arid wastes on either side with the great white central highway that follows through the center from end to end of the far-reaching, fred-like farmlands. The high walls surrounding the fields served as a protection against surprise by raiding green hordes, as well as keeping the savage banths and other carnivora from the domestic animals and the human beings upon the farms. Carthoris stopped for the first gate he came to, pounding for admission. The young man who answered his summons greeted the two hospitably, though he looked with considerable wonder upon the white skin and auburn hair of the bowman. After he had listened for a moment to a partial narration of their escape from the Torquasians, he invited them within, took them to his house, and bade the servants there, prepared food for them. As they waited in the low-ceiling, pleasant living room of the farmhouse until the meal should be ready, Carthoris drew his host into conversation that he might learn his nationality, and thus the nation under whose dominion lay the waterway where circumstance had placed him. I am Hal Vass, said the young man, son of Vass Kor, of Dusar, a noble in the retinue of Asta, Prince of Dusar. At present I am Dwar of the road for this district. Carthoris was very glad that he had not disclosed his identity, for though he had no idea of anything that had transpired since he had left Helium, or that Astok was at the bottom of all his misfortunes, he well knew that the Dusarian had no love for him, and that he could hope for no assistance within the dominions of Dusar. Who are you, asked Hal Vass? By your appearance I take you for a fighting man, but I see no insignia upon your harness. Can it be that you are a panthen? Now, these wandering soldiers of fortune are common upon Barsoom, where most men love to fight. They sell their services wherever war exists, and in the occasional brief intervals, when there is no organized warfare between the Red Nations, they join one of the numerous expeditions that are constantly being dispatched against the Green Man, in protection of the water ways that traverse the wilder portions of the globe. When their service is over, they discard the metal of the nation they have been serving, until they shall have found a new master. In the intervals there were no insignia, their war-worn harness, and grim weapons, being sufficient to attest their calling. The suggestion was a happy one, and Carthoris embraced the chance it afforded to account satisfactorily for himself. There was, however, a single drawback. In times of war, such panthens as happened to be within the domain of a belligerent nation were compelled to don the insignia of that nation and fight with their warriors. As far as Carthoris knew, Dusar was not at war with any other nation. But there was never any telling when one Red Nation would be flying at the throat of the neighbor, even though the great and powerful alliance at the head of which was his father, John Carter, had managed to maintain a long peace upon the greater portion of Barsoom. A pleasant smile lighted Halba's face as Carthoris admitted his vocation. It is well, exclaimed the young man, that you chance to come hither. For here you will find the means of obtaining service in short order. My father, Vas Kor, is even now with me, having come hither to recruit a force for the new war against Helium. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Thomas Copeland, Chapter 12, To Save Dusar. The Ovea of Tarth, battling for more than life against the lust of Jav, cast a quick glance over her shoulder toward the forest from which it rumbled the fierce growl. Jav looked too. What they saw, filled each with apprehension, was Komal, the Banth-god, rushing wide-jawed upon them. Which had he chosen for his prey, or was it to be both? They had not long to wait. For though the Lotharian attempted to hold the girl between himself and the terrible fangs, the great beast found him at last. Then, shrieking, he attempted to fly toward Lothar after pushing Thuvia bodily into the face of the man-eater. But his flight was of short duration. In a moment Komal was upon him, rending his throat and chest with demoniacal fury. The girl reached their side a moment later, but it was with difficulty that she tore the mad beast from its prey. Still growling and casting hungry glances back on Jav, the Banth at last permitted itself to be led away into the wood. With her giant protector by her side, Thuvia set forth to find the passage through the cliffs, that she might attempt the seemingly impossible feat of reaching far distant Tarth across the more than 17,000 hards of savage Barsoom. She could not believe that Carthoris had deliberately deserted her, and so she kept a constant watch for him. But as she bore too far to the north in her search for the tunnel, she passed the Heliumite as he was returning to Lothar in search of her. Thuvia of Tarth was having difficulty in determining the exact status of the Prince of Helium in her heart. She could not admit even to herself that she loved him, and yet she had permitted him to apply to her that term of endearment and possession to which a Barsoomian maid should turn deaf ears when voiced by other lips than those of her husband or fiancée, my princess. Gulontith, Jeddak of Cowl, to whom she was affianced, commanded her respect and admiration. Had it been that she had surrendered to her father's wishes because of Peake, that the handsome Heliumite had not taken advantage of his visits to her father's court, to push the suit for her hand that she had been quite sure he had contemplated since that distant day the two had sat together upon the carved seat within the gorgeous garden of the Jeddaks that graced the inner courtyard of the palace of Selensisol at Kadabra. Did she love Gulontith? Bravely she tried to believe that she did. But all the while her eyes wandered through the coming darkness for the figure of a clean-limbed fighting man, black-haired and grey-eyed. Black was the hair of Gulontith, but his eyes were brown. It was almost dark when she found the entrance to the tunnel. Safely she passed through to the hills beyond, and here, under the bright light of Mars' two moons, she halted to plan her future action. Should she wait here in the hope that Carthoris would return in search of her? Or should she continue her way northeast toward Tarth, where first would Carthoris have gone after leaving the valley of Lothar? Her parched throat and dry tongue gave her the answer toward Odenthor and water. Well, she too would go first to Odenthor, where she might find more than the water she needed. With Komal by her side she felt little fear, for he would protect her from all other savage beasts. Even the great white apes would flee the mighty banth in terror. Men only need she fear, but she must take this and many other chances before she could hope to reach her father's court again. When at last Carthoris found her, only to be struck down by the longsword of a green man, Thuvia prayed that the same fate might overtake her. The sight of the Red Warriors leaping from their flyers had, for a moment, filled her with renewed hope—hope that Carthoris of Helium might be only stunned and that they would rescue him. But when she saw the Dusarian metal upon their harness, and that they sought only to escape with her alone from the charging of equations, she gave up. Komal too was dead, dead across the body of the Heliumite. She was indeed alone now. There was none to protect her. The Dusarian warriors dragged her to the deck of the nearest flyer. All about them the green warriors surged in an attempt to wrest her from the Red. At last those who had not died in the conflict gained the decks of the two craft. The engines throbbed and purred. The propellers whirred. Quickly the swift boats shot heavenward. Thuvia of Carth glanced about her. A man stood near, smiling down into her face. The gasp of recognition she looked full into his eyes. And then, with a little moan of terror and understanding, she buried her face in her hands and sank to the polished skelwood deck. It was Astok, Prince of Dusar, who bent above her. Swift were the flyers of Astok of Dusar, and great the need for reaching his father's court as quickly as possible, for the fleets of war of Helium and Carth and Kaol were scattered far and wide above Barsoom. Nor would it go well with Astok of Dusar, should any one of them discover Thuvia of Carth a prisoner upon his own vessel. Aonthor lies in fifty south latitude and forty east of Hortes, the deserted seat of ancient Barsoomian culture and learning. While Dusar lies fifteen degrees north of the equator and twenty degrees east from Hortes. Great though the distance is, flyers covered it without a stop. Long before they had reached their destination Thuvia of Carth had learned several things that cleared up the doubts that it has sailed her mind for many days. Scarce had they risen above Aonthor, then she recognized one of the crew as a member of the crew of that other flyer that had borne her from her father's gardens to Aonthor. The presence of Astok upon the craft settled the whole question. She had been stolen by emissaries of the Dusarian Prince. Carthoris of Helium had had nothing to do with it. Nor did Astok deny the charge when she accused him. He only smiled and pleaded his love for her. I would sooner mate with a white ape, she cried, when he would have urged to suit. Astok glowered sullenly upon her. You shall mate with me, Thuvia of Tarthigroul, or by your first ancestor you shall have your preference and mate with a white ape. The girl made no reply, nor could he draw her into conversation during the balance of the journey. As a matter of fact Astok was a trifle odd by the precautions of the conflict which his abduction of the Tarthian Princess had induced, nor was he over-comfortable with the weight of responsibility which the possession of such a prisoner entailed. His one thought was to get her to Dusar, and there let his father assume the responsibility. Meantime he would be as careful as possible to do nothing to affront her lest they all might be captured, and he have to account for his treatment of the girl, to one of the great jeddaks whose interests centered in her. And so at last they came to Dusar, where Astok hid his prisoner in a secret room high in the east tower of his own palace. He had sworn his men to silence in the matter of the identity of the girl, for until he had seen his father, Nutus, jeddak of Dusar, he dared not let anyone know whom he had brought with him from the south. But when he appeared in the great audience chamber before the cruel, lipped man who was his sire, he found his courage oozing, and he dared not speak of the princess he had within his palace. It occurred to him to test his father's sentiments upon the subject, and so he told a tale of capturing one who claimed to know the whereabouts of Thuvia of Tarth. And if you command it, sire, he said, I will go and capture her, fetching her here to Dusar. Nutus frowned and shook his head. You were done enough already to set Tarth and Cowell and Helium all three upon us at once, should they learn your part in the theft of the Tarth princess. That you succeeded in shifting the guilt upon the Prince of Helium was fortunate, and a masterly move of strategy. But were the girl to know the truth, and ever return to her father's court, all Dusar would have to pay the penalty. And to have her here, a prisoner amongst us, would be an admission of guilt from the consequences of which not could save us. It would cost me my throne, Astok, and that I have no mind to lose. If we had her here, the elder man suddenly commenced to muse, repeating the phrase again and again. If we had her here, Astok, he exclaimed fiercely, ah, if we but had her here, and none knew that she was here. Can you not guess, man? The guilt of Dusar might be for ever buried with her bones, he concluded, in a low, savage whisper. Astok, Prince of Dusar, shuddered. Weak he was, yes, and wicked too. The suggestion that his father's words implied turned him cold with horror. Cruel to their enemies are the men of Mars, but the word enemies is commonly interpreted to mean men only. Assassination runs riot in the great Barsoomian cities, yet to murder a woman is a crime so unthinkable that even the most hardened of the paid assassins would shrink from you in horror, should you suggest such a thing to him. Nutus was apparently oblivious to his son's all-too-patent terror at his suggestion. Presently, he continued, you say that you know where the girl lies hid, since she was stolen from your people at Anthor. Should she be found by any one of the three powers, her unsupported story would be sufficient to turn them all against us. There is but one way, Astok, cried the older man. You must return at once to her hiding place and fetch her hither in all secrecy, and look you here. Return not to Dusar without her upon pain of death. Astok, Prince of Dusar, well knew his royal father's temper. He knew that in the tyrant's heart there pulsed no single throb of love for any creature. Astok's mother had been a slave woman. Nutus had never loved her. He had never loved another. In youth he had tried to find a bride at the courts of several of his powerful neighbors, but their women would have none of him. After a dozen daughters of his own nobility had sought self-destruction rather than wed him, he had given up. And then it had been that he had legally wed one of his slaves, that he might have a son to stand among the jeds, when Nutus died and a new jeddak was chosen. Slowly Astok withdrew from the presence of his father. With white face and shaking limbs he made his way to his own palace. As he crossed the courtyard his glance chanced to wander to the great east tower, looming high against the azure of the sky. At sight of it beads of sweat broke out upon his brow. Isis, no other hand than his could be trusted to do the horrid thing. With his own fingers he must crush the life from that perfect throat or plunge the silent blade into the red-red heart. The heart that he had hoped would brim with love for in. But had it done so, he recalled the haughty contempt with which his protestations of love had been received. He went cold and then hot to the memory of it. His compunctions cooled as the self-satisfaction of a near revenge crowded out the finer instincts that had for a moment asserted themselves. The good that he had inherited from the slave woman was once again submerged in the bad blood that had come down to him from his royal sire, as in the end it always was. Cold smiles had planted the terror that had delayed his eyes. He turned his steps toward the tower. He would see her before he set out upon the journey that was to blind his father to the fact that the girl was already in Dusar. Quietly he passed in through the secret way, ascending a spiral runway to the apartment in which the princess of Tarth was immured. As he entered the room he saw the girl leaning upon the sill of the east casement, gazing out across the rooftops of Dusar toward distant Tarth. He hated Tarth. The thought of it filled him with rage. Why not finish her now and have it done with? At the sound of his step she turned quickly toward him. Ah, how beautiful she was! His sudden determination faded beneath the glorious light of her wondrous beauty. He would wait until he had returned from his little journey of deception. Maybe there might be some other way, then, some other hand to strike the globe. That face, those eyes before him, he could never do it. Of that he was positive. He had always gloried in the cruelty of his nature, but Isis, he was not that cruel. No, another must be found, one whom he could trust. He was still looking at her as she stood there before him, meeting his gaze steadily and unafraid. He felt the hot passion of his love mounting higher and higher. Why not sue once more? If she would relent, all might yet be well. Even if his father could not be persuaded, they could fly to Tarth, laying all the blame of the navery and intrigue that had thrown four great nations into war upon the shoulders of Newtus, and who was there that would doubt the justice of the charge. Tuvia, he said, I come once again, for the last time, to lay my heart at your feet. Tarth and Kael and Dusar are battling with Helium because of you. Wed me, Tuvia, and all may yet be as it should be. The girl shook her head. Wait, he commanded, before she could speak. Know the truth before you speak words that may seal not only your own fate, but that of the thousands of warriors who battle because of you. Refuse to wed me willingly? And Dusar would be laid waste, should ever the truth be known to Tarth and Kael and Helium. They would raise our cities, leaving not one stone upon another. They would scatter our peoples across the face of Barsoom from the frozen north to the frozen south, hunting them down and slaying them until this great nation remained only as a hated memory in the minds of men. But while they are exterminating the Dusarians, countless thousands of their own warriors must perish, and all because of the stubbornness of a single woman who would not wed the prince who loves her. Refuse, Tuvia of Tarth, and there remains but a single alternative. No man must ever know your fate. Only a handful of loyal servitors besides my royal father and myself know that you were stolen from the gardens of Thuvan Dyn by Astok, Prince of Dusar, or that today you be imprisoned in my palace. Refuse, Tuvia of Tarth, and you must die to save Dusar. There is no other way. Nutus the Jeddak has so decreed, I have spoken. For a long moment the girl let her level gaze rest full upon the face of Astok of Dusar. Then she spoke, and though the words were few, the unimpassioned tone carried unfathomable depths of cold contempt. Better all that you have threatened, she said, than you. Then she turned her back upon him and went to stand once more before the east window, gazing with sad eyes toward distant Tarth. Astok wheeled and left the room, returning after a short interval of time with food and drink. Here he said his sustenance until I return again. The next to enter this apartment will be your executioner. Commend yourself to your ancestors, Thuvia of Tarth, for within a few days you shall be with them. Then he was gone. Half an hour later he was interviewing an officer high in the navy of Dusar. With the wet vaskor he asked. He is not at his palace. South, to the great waterway, that skirts Torquas, replied the other. His son, Halvas, is doir of the road there, and dither has vaskor gone to enlist recruits among the workers on the farms. Good, said Astok. And a half hour more found him rising above Dusar in his swiftest flyer. End of Chapter 12 Recording by Thomas Copeland Chapter 13 of Thuvia, made of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Thomas Copeland Chapter 13 Tarjun the Panthan The face of Carthoris of Helium gave no token of the emotions that convulsed him inwardly as he heard from the lips of Halvas that Helium was at war with Dusar, and that fate had thrown him into the service of the enemy. That he might utilize this opportunity to the good of Helium scarce suffice to outweigh the chagrin he felt that he was not fighting in the open at the head of his own loyal troops. To escape the Dusarians might prove an easy matter and then again it might not. Should they suspect his loyalty and the loyalty of an impressed Panthan was always open to suspicion, he might not find an opportunity to allude their vigilance until after the termination of the war, which might occur within days or again only after long and weary years of bloodshed. He recalled that history recorded wars in which actual military operations had been carried on without cessation for five or six hundred years, and even now there were nations upon Barsoom with which Helium had made no peace within the history of man. The outlook was not cheering. He could not guess that within a few hours he would be blessing the fate that had thrown him into the service of Dusar. Ah, exclaimed Halvas, here is my father now, Kaor, Vas Kor. Here is one you will be glad to meet, a doubly Panthan, he hesitated, Tarjun, interjected Carthoris, seizing upon the first appellation that occurred to him. As he spoke his eyes crossed quickly to the tall warrior who was entering the room. Where before had he seen that giant figure, that taciturn countenance and the livid sword-cut from temple to mouth? Vas Kor, repeated Carthoris mentally, Vas Kor. Where had he seen the man before? And then the noble spoke, and like a flash, it all came back to Carthoris, the forward servant upon the landing stage at Tarth, that time that he had been explaining the intricacies of his new compass to Thuvandin, the lone slave that had guarded his own hangar, that night he had left upon his ill-fated journey for Tarth, the journey that had brought him so mysteriously to far Anthor. Vas Kor, he repeated aloud, blessed be your ancestors for this meeting, nor did the Dusarian guess the wealth of meaning that lay beneath that hackneyed phrase with which a Barsoomian acknowledges an introduction. And bless be yours, Tarjun, replied Vas Kor. Now came the introduction of Carcomac to Vas Kor, and as Carthoris went through the little ceremony there came to him the only explanation he might make to account for the white skin and auburn hair of the bowman. For he feared that the truth might not be believed, and thus suspicion be cast upon them both from the beginning. Carcomac, he explained, is, as you can see, a thern. He has wandered far from his ice-bound southern temples in search of adventure. I came upon him in the pits of Anthor, but though I have known him so short a time, I can vouch for his bravery and loyalty. Since the destruction of the fabric of their false religion by John Carter, the majority of the therms had gladly accepted the new order of things, so that it was now no longer uncommon to see them mingling with the multitudes of red men in any of the great cities of the outer world. So Vas Kor neither felt nor expressed any great astonishment. All during the interview, Carthoris watched cat-like for some indication that Vas Kor recognized in the battered pant than the erstwhile gorgeous prince of Helium. But the sleepless nights, the long days of marching and fighting, the wounds and the dried blood had evidently sufficed to obliterate the last remnant of his likeness to his former self. And then Vas Kor had seen him but twice in all his life. Little wonder that he did not know him. During the evening, Vas Kor announced that on the morrow they should depart north toward Dusar, picking up recruits at various stations along the way. In a great field behind the house, a flyer lay, a fair-sized cruiser transport that would accommodate many men, yet swift and well armed also. Here Carthoris slept and Carcomac, too, with the other recruits, under guard of the regular Dusarian warriors that manned the craft. Toward midnight, Vas Kor returned to the vessel from his son's house, repairing it once to his cabin. Carthoris, with one of the Dusarians, was on watch. It was with difficulty that the Helium might repress a cold smile as the noble passed within a foot of him, then a foot, the long, slim, heliomitic blade that swung in his harness. How easy it would have been, how easy to avenge the cowardly trick that had been played upon him, to avenge Helium, and Tar, and Thuvia. But his hand moved not toward the daggers' hilt. For, first, Vas Kor must serve a better purpose. He might know where Thuvia of Tarth lay hidden now, if it had truly been Dusarians that had spirited her away during the fight before Andor. And then, too, there was the instigator of the entire foul plot. He must pay the penalty, and who better than Vas Kor could lead the Prince of Helium to Astak of Dusar. Faintly out of the night there came to Carthoris's ears the purring of a distant motor. He scanned the heavens. Yes, there it was, far to the north, dimly outlined against the dark void of space that stretched illimitably beyond it, the faint suggestion of a flyer passing unlighted through the Barsoomian night. Carthoris, knowing not whether the craft might be friend or foe of Dusar, gave no sign that he had seen, but turned his eyes in another direction, leaving the matter to the Dusarian who stood watch with him. Presently the fellow discovered the oncoming craft and sounded the low alarm which brought the balance of the watch and an officer from their sleeping silks and furs upon the deck nearby. The cruiser transport lay without lights, and, resting as she was upon the ground, must have been entirely invisible to the oncoming flyer which all presently recognized as a small craft. It soon became evident that the stranger intended making a landing, for she was now spiraling slowly above them, dropping lower and lower in each graceful curve. It is the Thuria, whispered one of the Dusarian warriors, I would know her in the blackness of the pits among ten thousand other craft. Right you are, exclaimed Vascor, who had come on deck, and then he hailed. Kaor, Thuria! Kaor came presently from above, after a brief silence. Then port ship, cruiser transport Caucasus, Vascor of Dusar. Good came from above. Is there safe landing alongside? Yes, close into starboard. Wait, we will show our lights. And a moment later the small craft settled close beside the Caucasus, and the lights of the latter were immediately extinguished once more. Several figures could be seen slipping over the side of the Thuria and advancing towards the Caucasus. Ever suspicious the Dusarians stood ready to receive the visitors as friends or foes, as closer inspection might prove them. Carthoris stood quite near the rail, ready to take sides with the newcomers, should chance have it that they were Heliumites playing a bold stroke of strategy upon this lone Dusarian ship. He had led light parties himself, and knew that such a contingency was quite possible. The face of the first man to cross the rail un-deceived him, with a shock that was not at all unpleasurable. It was the face of Astok, Prince of Dusar. Scarce noticing the others upon the deck of the Caucasus, Astok strode forward to accept Vascor's greeting. Then he summoned the noble below. The warriors and officers returned to their sleeping silks and furrows, and once more the deck was deserted except for the Dusarian warrior and Turchin, the Pantan, who stood guard. The latter walked quietly to info. The former leaned across the rail, wishing for the hour that would bring him relief. He did not see his companion approach the lights of the cabin of Vascor. He did not see him stoop, with ear close pressed to a tiny ventilator. May the white apes take us all, cried Astok ruefully, if we are not in as ugly a snarl as you have ever seen. Nutus thinks that we have her in hiding far away from Dusar. He has bitten me bring her here. He paused. No man should have heard from his lips the thing he was trying to tell. It should have been forever the secret of Nutus and Astok, for upon it rested the safety of a throne. With that knowledge any man could rest from the Jeddak of Dusar whatever he listed. But Astok was afraid, and he wanted from this older man the suggestion of an alternative. He went on. I am to kill her, he whispered, looking fearfully around. Nutus merely wishes to see the body that he may know his commands have been executed. I am now supposed to be gone to the spot where we have her hidden that I may fetch her in secrecy to Dusar. None is to know that she has ever been in the keeping of a Dusaria. I do not need to tell you what would be Faldusar should Tarth and Helium and Kale ever learn the truth. The jaws of the listener at the ventilator clicked together with a vicious snap. Before he had guessed at the identity of the subject of this conversation. Now he knew, and they were to kill her. His muscular fingers clenched until the nails bit into the palms. And you wish me to go with you while you fetch her to Dusar? Vaskor was saying. Where is she? Astok bent close and whispered into the other's ear. The suggestion of a smile crossed the cruel features of Vaskor. He realized the power that lay within his grasp. He should be a Jedd, at least. And how may I help you, my prince? asked the older man, swavly. I cannot kill her, said Astok. Isis, I cannot do it. When she turns those eyes upon me, my heart becomes water. Vaskor's eyes narrowed. And you wish, he paused, the interrogation unfinished, yet complete. Astok nodded. You do not love her, he said. But I love my life, though I am only a lesser noble, he concluded, meaningly. You shall be a greater noble, a noble of the first rank, exclaimed Astok. I would be a Jedd, said Vaskor bluntly. Astok hesitated. A Jedd must die before there can be another Jedd, depleted. Jedds have died before, snapped Vaskor. It would, doubtless, be not difficult for you to find a Jedd you do not love, Astok. There are many who do not love you. Already Vaskor was commencing to presume upon his power over the young prince. Astok was quick to note and appreciate the subtle change in his lieutenant. A cunning scheme entered his weakened, wicked brain. As you save, Vaskor, he exclaimed, you shall be a Jedd when the thing is done, and then to himself. Nor will it then be difficult for me to find a Jedd I do not love. When shall we return to Dusar, asked the noble. Once, replied Astok, let us get underway now. There is not to keep you here. I had intended sailing on the morrow, picking up such recruits as the various dwarves of the roads might have collected for me, as we returned to Dusar. Let the recruits wait, said Astok. Or better still, come you to Dusar upon the Thuria, leaving the Caucasus to follow and pick up the recruits. Yes, acquiesced Vaskor. That is the better plan. Come, I am ready. And he rose to accompany Astok to the latter's flyer. The listener of the ventilator came to his feet slowly like an old man. His face was drawn and pinched and very white beneath the light copper of his skin. She was to die. And he, helpless to avert the tragedy. He did not even know where she was imprisoned. The two men were ascending from the cabin to the deck. Tejun, the panthan, crept close to the companion-way, his sinuous fingers closing tightly upon the hilt of his dagger. Could he dispatch them both before he was overpowered? He smiled. He could slay an entire ooton of her enemies in his present state of mind. They were almost abreast of him now, Astok was speaking. Bring a couple of her men along, Vaskor, he said. We are shorthanded upon the Thuria, so quickly did we depart. The panthan's fingers dropped from the dagger's hilt. His quick mind had grasped here a chance for suckering Thuvia of Tarth. He might be chosen as one to accompany the assassins. And once he had learned where the captive lay, he could dispatch Astok and Vaskor as well as now. To kill them before he knew where Thuvia was hid was simply to leave her to death at the hands of others. For sooner or later, Nutus would learn her whereabouts, and Nutus, Jeddak of Dusar, could not afford to let her live. Tejun put himself in the path of Vaskor that he might not be overlooked. The noble aroused the men sleeping upon the deck. But always before him the strange panthan whom he had recruited that same day found means for keeping himself to the fore. Vaskor turned to his lieutenant, giving instruction for the bringing of the Calxus to Dusar, and the gathering up of the recruits. Then he signed to two warriors who stood close behind the padwar. You two accompany us to the Thuria, he said, and put yourselves at the disposal of her duar. It was dark upon the deck of the Calxus, so Vaskor had not a good look at the faces of the two he chose. But that was of no moment, for there were but common warriors to assist with the ordinary duties upon a flyer, and to fight, if need be. One of the two was Carcomac, the bowman. The other was not Carthoris. The Heliumite was mad with disappointment. He snatched his dagger from his harness, but already Astok had left the deck of the Calxus, and he knew that before he could overtake him, should he dispatch Vaskor, he would be killed by the Dusarian warriors, who now were thick upon the deck. With either one of the two alive, Thuvia was in as great danger as though both live. It must be both. As Vaskor descended to the ground, Carthoris boldly followed him, nor did any attempt to halt him, thinking doubtless that he was one of the party. After him came Carcomac and the Dusarian warrior who had been detailed to duty upon the Thuria. Carthoris walked close to the left side of the ladder. Now they came to the dense shadow under the side of the Thuria. It was very dark there, so that they had to grop for the ladder. Carcomac preceded the Dusarian. The ladder reached upward for the swinging rounds, and as he did so, steel fingers closed upon his windpipe, and a steel blade pierced the very center of his heart. To June the panthan was the last to clamor over the rail of the Thuria, drawing his rope ladder in after him. A moment later the flyer was rising rapidly, headed for the north. At the rail Carcomac turned to speak to the warrior who had been detailed to accompany him. His eyes went wide as they rested upon the face of the young man, whom he had met beside the granite cliffs, the guard mysterious Lothar. How did he come in place of the Dusarian? A quick sign and Carcomac turned once more to find the Thuria's Dwar, that he might report himself for duty. Behind him followed the panthan. Carthoris blessed the chance that had caused Vascor to choose the bowman of all others, for had it been another Dusarian there would have been questions to answer as to the whereabouts of the warrior who lay so quietly in the field beyond the residence of Haldas, Dwar of the southern road. And Carthoris had no answer to that question other than his sword point, which alone was scarce adequate to convince the entire crew of the Thuria. The journey to Dusar seemed interminable to the impatient Carthoris, though as a matter of fact it was quickly accomplished. Sometime before they reached their destination, they met and spoke with another Dusarian war flyer. From it they learned that a great battle was soon to be fought south-east to Dusar. The combined navies of Dusar, Tarth and Kaol had been intercepted in their advance toward Helium by the mighty Heliomitic navy, the most formidable upon Barsoon, not alone in numbers and armament, but in the training and courage of its officers and warriors, and the zitted-dark proportions of many of its monster battleships. Not for many a day had there been a promise of such a battle, four Jeddaks were in direct command of their own fleets, Hulantith of Kaol, Thuvangin of Tarth, and Nutus of Dusar upon one side, while upon the other was Tardis Mors, Jeddak of Helium. With the latter was John Carter, Warlord of Mars. From the far north, another force was moving south across the barrier cliffs, the new navy of Talu, Jeddak of Okar, coming in response to the call from the Warlord. Upon the decks of the sullen ships of war, black-bearded yellow men looked over eagerly toward the south. Gorgeous were they in their splendid cloaks of Orlac and apt. Fierce, formidable fighters from the hot-house cities of the frozen north, and from the distant south, from the sea of Omene and the cliffs of Gold, from the temples of the Therns and the Garden of Isis, other thousands sailed into the north at the call of the great man they all had learned to respect and respecting love. Hacing the flagship of his mighty fleet, second only to the navy of Helium, was the ebon Zodar, Jeddak of the firstborn, his heart beating strong in anticipation of the coming moment when he should hurl his savage crews and the weight of his mighty ships upon the enemies of the Warlord. But would these allies reach the theater of war in time to be of a veil to Helium? Or would Helium need them? Carthoris, with the other members of the crew of the Theoria, heard the gossip and the rumors. None knew of the two fleets, the one from the south and the other from the north, that were coming to support the ships of Helium, and all of Dusar were convinced that nothing now could save the ancient power of Helium from being wiped forever from the upper era of Barsoon. Carthoris, too, loyal son of Helium that he was, felt that even his beloved navy might not be able to cope successfully with the combined forces of three great powers. Now the Theoria touched the landing stage above the palace of Astop. Hurriedly, the Prince and Vascor disembarked and entered the drop that would carry them to the lower levels of the palace. Close beside it was another drop that was utilized by common warriors. Carthoris touched Carcomac upon the arm. Oh, you whispered. You are my only friend among a nation of enemies. Will you stand by me? To the death, replied Carcomac. The two approached the drop. A slave operated it. Where are your passes? He asked. Carthoris fumbled in his pocket pouch as though to search for them, at the same time entering the cage. Carcomac followed him, closing the door. The slave did not start the cage downward. Every second counted. They must reach the lower level as soon as possible after Astok and Vascor if they would know whether the two went. Carthoris turned suddenly upon the slave, hurling him to the opposite side of the cage. Bind and gag him, Carcomac, he cried. Then he grasped the control lever, and as the cage shot downward at sickening speed, the bowman grappled with the slave. Carthoris could not leave the control to assist his companion, for should they touch the lowest level of the speed at which they were going, all would be dashed to instant death. Below him he could now see the top of Astok's cage in the parallel shaft, and he reduced the speed of his to that of the other. The slave commenced to scream. Silence him, cried Carthoris. A moment later, a limp form crumbled to the floor of the cage. The assailants said Carcomac. Carthoris brought the cage to a sudden stop at one of the higher levels of the palace. Opening the door he grasped the still form of the slave and pushed it out on the floor. Then he banged the gate and resumed the downward drop. Once more he sighted the top of the cage that held Astok and Vascor. An instant later it had stopped, and as he brought his car to a halt he saw the two men disappear through one of the exits of the corridor beyond. End of Chapter 13, Recording by Thomas Copeland Chapter 14 of Thuvia, Made of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs This Librivox recording is in the public domain, Recording by Thomas Copeland Chapter 14 Coulomb Tiths Sacrifice The morning of the second day of her incarceration in the east tower of the palace of Astok, Prince of Dusar, found Thuvia of Tarth waiting in dull apathy the coming of the assassin. She had exhausted every possibility of escape, going over and over again the door and the windows, the floor and the walls. The solid ersite slabs she could not even scratch. The tough Barsoomian glass of the windows would have shattered to nothing less than a heavy sledge in the hands of a strong man. The door and the lock were impregnable. There was no escape. And they had stripped her of her weapons so that she could not even anticipate the hour of her doom, thus robbing them of the satisfaction of witnessing her last moments. When would they come? Would Astok do the deed with his own hands? She doubted that he had the courage for it. At heart he was a coward. She had known it since first she had heard him brag, as a visitor at the court of her father he had sought to impress her with his valour. She could not help but compare him with another. And with whom would an affianced bride compare an unsuccessful suitor? With her betrothed? And did Thuvia of Tarth now measure Astok of Dusar by the standards of Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kael? She was about to die. Her thoughts were her own to do with as she pleased. Yet furthest from them was Kulan Tith. Instead the figure of the tall and comely Heliumite filled her mind, crowding therefrom all other images. She dreamed of his noble face, the quiet dignity of his bearing, the smile that lit his eyes as he conversed with his friends, and the smile that touched his lips as he fought with his enemies, the fighting smile of his Virginian sire. And Thuvia of Tarth, true daughter of Barsoom, found her breath quickening and heart leaping to the memory of this other smile, the smile that she would never see again. With a little half sob the girl sank to the pile of silks and furs that were tumbled in confusion beneath the east windows, burying her face and her arms. In the corridor outside her prison room two men had paused in heated argument. I tell you again, Astok, when saying that I shall not do this thing unless you be present in the room. There was little of the respect due royalty in the tone of the speaker's voice. The other, noting it, flushed. To not impose too far upon my friendship for you, Vaskor, he snapped. There is a limit to my patience. There is no question of royal provocative here, returned Vaskor. You ask me to become an assassin in your stead, and against your dead acts strict injunctions. You are in no position, Astok, to dictate to me. But rather should you be glad to exceed to my reasonable request that you be present, thus sharing the guilt with me. Why should I bear it all? The younger man scowled, but he advanced toward the locked door, and as it swung in upon its hinges he entered the room beyond at the side of Vaskor. Across the chamber the girl, hearing them enter, rose to her feet and faced them. Under the soft copper of her skin she blanched just a trifle, but her eyes were brave and level, and the haughty tilt of her firm little chin was eloquent of loathing and contempt. You still prefer death, asked Astok. To you, yes, replied the girl coldly. The Prince of Dusar turned to Vaskor and nodded. The noble drew his short sword and crossed the room toward Thuvia. Neal, he commanded. I prefer to die standing, she replied. As you will, said Vaskor, feeling the point of his blade with his left thumb. In the name of Nutus, Jeddak of Dusar, he cried, and ran quickly toward her. In the name of Carthoris, Prince of Helium, came in low tones from the doorway. Vaskor turned to see the pant then he had recruited at his son's house, leaping across the floor toward him. The fellow brushed past Astok with an after him, you, callot! Vaskor wheeled to meet the charging man. What means this treason, he cried. Astok, with bared sword, leaped to Vaskor's assistance. The panthen sword clashed against that of the noble, and in the first encounter Vaskor knew that he faced a master swordsman. Before he had to realize the stranger's purpose, he found the man between himself and Thuvia of Tarth, at bay facing the two swords of the Dusarians. But he fought not like a man at bay. Ever was he the aggressor, and though always he kept his flashing blade between the girl and her enemies, yet he managed to force them, hither and thither, about the room, calling to the girl to follow close behind him. Until it was too late, neither Vaskor nor Astok dreamed of that which lay in the panthen's mind. But at last, as the fellow stood with his back toward the door, both understood, they were penned in their own prison, and now the intruder could slay them at his will, for Thuvia of Tarth was bolting the door at the man's direction, first taking the key from the opposite side, where Astok had left it when they had entered. Astok, as was his way, finding that the enemy did not fall immediately before their swords, was leaving the brunt of the fighting to Vaskor, and now, as his eyes appraised the panthen carefully, they presently went wider and wider, for slowly he had come to recognize the features of the Prince of Helium. The Heliumite was pressing close upon Vaskor. The noble was bleeding from a dozen wounds. Astok saw that he could not for long withstand the cunning craft of that terrible sword-hand. Courage, Vaskor, he whispered in the other's ear, I have a plan. Hold him but a moment longer, and all will be well. But the balance of the sentence, with Astok, Prince of Dusar, he did not voice aloud. Vaskor, dreaming no treachery, nodded his head, and for a moment succeeded in holding Carthoris at bay. Then the Heliumite and the girl saw the Dusarian Prince run swiftly to the opposite side of the chamber, touch something in the wall that sent a great panel swinging inward, and disappear into the black vault beyond. It was done so quickly that by no possibility could they have intercepted him. Carthoris, fearful lest Vaskor might similarly elude him, or Astok return immediately with reinforcements, sprang viciously in upon his antagonist, and a moment later, the headless body of the Dusarian noble rolled upon the air-side floor. Come, cried Carthoris, there is no time to be lost. Astok will be back in a moment with enough warriors to overpower me. But Astok had no such plan in mind. For such a move would have meant the spreading of the fact among the palace gossips that the Tarthian princess was a prisoner in the East Tower. Quickly would the word have come to his father, and no amount of falsifying could have explained away the facts that the jeddak's investigation would have brought to light. Instead, Astok was racing madly across a long corridor to reach the door of the tower room before Carthoris and Thuvia left the apartment. He had seen the girl remove the key and place it in her pocket pouch, and he knew that a dagger-point driven into the keyhole from the opposite side would imprison them in the secret chamber until eight dead worlds circled the cold, dead sun. As fast as he could run, Astok entered the main corridor that led to the tower chamber, would he reach the door in time? What if the heliomite should have already emerged, and he should run upon him in the passageway? Astok felt a cold chill round his spine. He had no stomach to face that uncanny blade. He was almost at the door. Around the next turn of the corridor it stood. No, they had not left the apartment. Evidently Vas Kor was still holding the heliomite. Astok could scarcely press a grin at the clever manner in which he had outwitted the noble and disposed of him at the same time. And then he rounded the turn and came face to face with an auburn-haired white giant. The fellow did not wait to ask the reason for his coming. Instead he leaped upon him with a longsword so that Astok had to parry a dozen vicious cuts before he could disengage himself and flee back down the runway. A moment later Carthoris and Thuvia entered the corridor from the secret chamber. Well, Carcomac asked the heliomite. It is fortunate that you left me here, right man, said the bowman. I but just now intercepted one who seemed over-anxious to reach the store. It was he whom they called Astok, Prince of Dusar. Carthoris smiled. Where is he now? he asked. He escaped my blade and ran down this corridor, replied Carcomac. We must lose no time then, exclaimed Carthoris. He will have the guard upon us yet. Together the three hastened along the winding passages through which Carthoris and Carcomac attract the Dusarians by the marks of the latter sandals in the thin dust that overspread the floors of these seldom used passageways. They had come to the chamber at the entrances to the lifts before they met with opposition. Here they found a handful of guardsmen and an officer who, seeing that they were strangers, questioned their presence in the palace of Astok. Once more Carthoris and Carcomac had recourse to their blades, and before they had won their way to one of the lifts, the noise of the conflict must have aroused the entire palace, for they heard men shouting, and as they passed the many levels on their quick passage to the landing stage, they saw armed men, running hither and thither, in search of the cause of the commotion. Beside the stage lay the Thuria, with three warriors on guard. Again the Heliumite and the Lotharian thought shoulder to shoulder, but the battle was soon over for the Prince of Helium alone would have been a match for any three that Dussock would produce. Scare said the Thuria risen from the ways, ere a hundred or more fighting men leaped to view upon the landing stage. At their head was Astok of Dussock, and as he saw the two he had thought so safely in his power, slipping from his grasp, he danced with rage and chagrin, shaking his fists and hurling abuse and vile insults at them. With her bow inclined upward at a dizzy angle, the Thuria shot meteor-like into the sky. From a dozen points swift patrol boats started after her, for the scene upon the landing stage above the palace of the Prince of Dussock had not gone unnoticed. A dozen times shots grazed the Thuria's sides, and as Carthoris could not leave the control levers, Thuvia of Tarth turned the muzzles of the craft's rapid-fire guns upon the enemy, as she clung to the steep and slippery surface of the deck. It was a noble race and a noble fight. One against a score now, for other Dussorian craft had joined in the pursuit, but Astok, Prince of Dussock, had built well when he built the Thuria. None in the navy of his sire possessed a swifter flier. No other craft so well armored or so well armed. One by one the pursuers were distanced, and as the last of them fell out of range behind, Carthoris dropped the Thuria's nose to a horizontal plane, as with lever drawn to the last notch she tore through the thin air of dying Mars toward the east and Tarth. Thirteen and a half thousand hards away laid Tarth, a stiff thirty-hour journey for the swiftest of fliers, and between Dussock and Tarth might lie half the navy of Dussock, for in this direction was the reported seat of the great naval battle that even now might be in progress. Could Carthoris have known precisely where the great fleets of the contending nations lay, he would have hastened to them without delay, for in the return of Thuvia to Rhaesire lay the greatest hope of peace. Half the distance they covered without sighting a single warship. Then Karkomak called Carthoris's attention to a distant craft that rested upon the ogre vegetation of the great dead sea bottom, above which the Thuria was feeding. About the vessel many figures could be seen swarming. With the aid of powerful glasses the Heliumites saw that they were green warriors, and that they were repeatedly charging down upon the crew of the stranded airship. The nationality of the latter he could not make out at so great a distance. It was not necessary to change the course of the Thuria to permit of passing directly above the scene of battle, but Carthoris dropped his craft a few hundred feet that he might have a better and closer view. If the ship was of a friendly power he could do no less than stop and direct his guns upon our enemies, though with the precious freight he carried he scarcely felt justified in landing, for he could offer but two swords in reinforcement, scarce enough to warrant jeopardizing the safety of the Princess of Tarth. As they came close above the stricken ship they could see that it would be but a question of minutes before the green horde would swarm across the armored bulwarks to glut the ferocity of their bloodlust upon the defenders. It would be futile to descend, said Carthoris to Thuria. The craft may even be of doosar, she shows no insignia. All that we may do is fire upon the hordesmen. And as he spoke he stepped to one of the guns and deflected its muzzle toward the green warriors at the ship's side. At the first shot from the Thuria, those upon the vessel below evidently discovered her for the first time. Immediately a device fluttered from the bow of the warship on the ground. Huvia of Tarth caught her breath quickly glancing at Carthoris. The device was that of Coulon Tith, Jeddak of Cale, the man to whom the Princess of Tarth was betrothed. How easy for the Heliumite to pass on, leaving his rival to the fate that could not for long be averted. No man could accuse him of cowardice or treachery, for Coulon Tith was in arms against Helium. And further upon the Thuria were not enough swords to delay, even temporarily, the outcome that already was a foregone conclusion in the minds of the watchers. What would Carthoris, Prince of Helium, do? Scarce had the device broken to the faint breeze, ere the bow of the Thuria dropped at a sharp angle toward the ground. Can you navigate her? asked Carthoris of Thuvia, the girl nodded. I am going to try to take the survivors aboard, he continued. It will need both Carcomac and myself to man the guns, while the Caleans take to the boarding tackle. Keeper Bow depressed against the rifle fire. She can bear it better in her forward armor, and at the same time the propellers will be protected. He hurried to the cabin as Thuvia took the control. A moment later the boarding tackle dropped from the heel of the Thuria and from a dozen points along either side stout knotted leather lines trail downward. At the same time a signal broke from her bow. Prepare to board us. A shout arose from the deck of the Calean warship. Carthoris, who by this time had returned from the cabin, smiled sadly. He was about to snatch from the jaws of death the man who stood between himself and the woman he loved. Take the port bow-gun, Carcomac, he called to the bowmen, and himself stepped to the gun upon the starboard bow. They could now feel the sharp shock of the explosions of the green warriors' projectiles against the armored sides of the staunch Thuria. It was a forlorn hope at best. At any moment the repulsive ray tanks might be pierced. The men upon the Calean ship were battling with renewed hope. In the bow stood Coulon Tith, a brave figure fighting beside his brave warriors, beating back the ferocious green men. The Thuria came low above the other craft. The Caleans were forming under their officers in readiness to board, and then a sudden fierce fuselage from the rifles of the green warriors vomited their hail of death and destruction into the side of the brave flyer. Like a wounded bird she dived suddenly Marsward careening drunkenly. Thuria turned the bow upward in an effort to avert the imminent tragedy, but she succeeded only in lessening the shock of the flyer's impact as she struck the ground beside the Calean ship. When the green men saw only two warriors and a woman upon the deck of the Thuria, a savage shout of triumph arose from their ranks while an answering groan broke from the lips of the Caleans. The former now turned their attention upon the new arrival, for they saw her defenders could soon be overcome, and that from her deck they could command the deck of the better man ship. As they charged a shout of warning came from Coulon Tith, upon the bridge of his own ship, and with it an appreciation of the valor of the act that had put the smaller vessel in these sore straits. Who is it, he cried, that offers his life in the service of Coulon Tith, never was wrought a nobler deed of self-sacrifice upon Barsoom. The green horde was scrambling over the Thuria's side as there broke from the bow the device of Carthoris, Prince of Helium, in reply to the query of the Jeddak of Cale. None upon the smaller flyer had opportunity to note the effect of this announcement upon the Caleans, for their attention was claimed slowly now by that which was transpiring upon their own deck. Carcomac stood behind the gun he had been operating, staring with wide eyes at the onrushing hideous green warriors. Carthoris, seeing him thus, felt a pang of regret that, after all, this man that he had thought so valorous, should prove in the hour of need as spineless as Jav or Talria. Carcomac, the man, he shouted, rip yourself. Remember the days of the glory of the seafarers of Lothar. Fight, fight, man, fight as never man fought before. All that remains to us is to die fighting. Carcomac turned toward the Heliumite, a grim smile upon his lips. Why should we fight? he asked, against such fearful odds. There is another way. A better way? Look! he pointed toward the companion way that led below deck. The green men, a handful of them, had already reached the furious deck, as Carthoris glanced in the direction the Lotharian had indicated. The sight that met his eyes set his heart to thumping in joy and relief. Thuvia of Tarth might yet be saved. For, from below, there poured a stream of giant bowmen, grim and terrible. Not the bowmen of Tarria or Jav, but the bowmen of an adwar of bowmen, savage fighting men, eager for the fray. The green warriors paused in momentary surprise and consternation, but only for a moment. Then, with hard war cries, they leaped forward to meet these strange new foemen. A volley of arrows stopped them in their tracks. In a moment, the only green warriors upon the deck of the Thuria were dead warriors. And the bowmen of Carcomac were leaping over the vessel's sides to charge the hordesmen upon the ground. Uton after Uton tumbled from the bowels of the Thuria to launch themselves upon the unfortunate green men. Doulon Tith and his Kaolin stood wide-eyed and speechless with amazement, as they saw thousands of these strange, fierce warriors emerge from the companion way of the small craft that could not comfortably have accommodated more than fifty. At last the green men could withstand the onslaught of overwhelming numbers no longer. Slowly, at first, they fell back across the ochre plain. The bowmen pursued them. Carcomac, standing upon the deck of the Thuria, trembled with excitement. At the top of his lungs he voiced the savage war cry of his forgotten day. He roared encouragement and commands at his battling Utons, and then, as they charged further and further from the Thuria, he could no longer withstand the lure of battle. Leaping over the ship's sides to the ground, he joined the last of his bowmen as they raced off over the dead sea bottom in pursuit of the fleeing green horde. Beyond a low promontory of what once had been an island, the green men were disappearing toward the west. Close upon their heels raced the fleet bowmen of a bygone day, and, forging steadily ahead among them, Carthoris and Thuvia could see the mighty figure of Carcomac, brandishing aloft the torquation short-sword with which he was armed, as he urged his creatures after the retreating enemy. As the last of them disappeared, behind the promontory, Carthoris turned toward Thuvia of Tarth. They have taught me a lesson, these vanishing bowmen of Lothar, he said. When they have served their purpose, they remain not to embarrass their masters by their presence. Hulantith and his warriors are here to protect you. My acts have constituted the proof of my honesty of purpose. Goodbye. And he knelt at her feet, raising a bit of her harness to his lips. The girl reached out a hand and laid it upon the thick black hair of the head bent before her. Softly she asked, Where are you going, Carthoris? With Carcomac, the bowman, he replied, There will be fighting and forgetfulness. The girl put her hands before her eyes, as though to shut out some mighty temptation from her sight. May my ancestors have mercy upon me, she cried, If I say the thing I have no right to say. But I cannot see you cast your life away, Carthoris, Prince of Helium. Stay, my chieftain, stay, I love you. A cough behind them brought both about. And there they saw standing, not two paces from them, Hulantith, Jeddak of Cale. For a long moment none spoke. Then Hulantith cleared his throat. I could not help hearing all that passed, he said. I am no fool to be blind to the love that lies between you. Nor am I blind to the lofty honor that has caused you, Carthoris, to risk your life and hers to save mine, though you thought that that very act would rob you of the chance to keep her for your own. Nor can I fail to appreciate the virtue that has kept your lips sealed against words of love for this healer, Mythuvia. For I know that I have but just heard the first declaration of your passion for him. I do not condemn you. Rather should I have condemned you had you entered a loveless marriage with me. Take back your liberty, Thuvia of Tarthi cried, and bestow it where your heart already lies and chained. And when the golden collars are clasped about your necks, you will see that Hulantith's is the first sword to be raised in declaration of eternal friendship for the new princess of Helium and her royal mate. End of Chapter 14. Recording by Thomas Copeland Glossary of Thuvia made of Mars by Edgar B. Sparrows Lisley Brevox's recording is in the public domain. Recording by Thomas Copeland. A glossary of names and terms used in the Martian books. Andor, a dead city of ancient Mars. Isle of Hope, an isle leading to the courtroom in Helium. Apt. An arctic monster. A huge white furred creature with six limbs, four of which short and heavy, carry it over the snow and ice. The other two, which grow forward from its shoulders on either side of its long powerful neck, terminate in white hairless hands with which it seizes and holds its prey. Its head and mouth are similar in appearance to those of a hippopotamus, except that from the sides of the lower jawbone, two mighty horns curve slightly downward toward the front. Its two huge eyes extend in two vast oval patches from the center of the top of the cranium down either side of the head to below the roots of the horns, so that these weapons really grow out from the lower part of the eyes, which are composed of several thousand ocelli each. Each ocellus is furnished with its own lid, and the apt cannon will close as many of the facets of his huge eyes as he chooses. See the warlord of Mars. Astok, Prince of Dusar. Avenue of Ancestors. A street in Helium. Banth, Barsoomian Lion. A fierce beast of prey that roams the low hills surrounding the dead seas of ancient Mars. It is almost hairless, having only a great bristly mane about its thick neck. Its long, lithe body is supported by ten powerful legs, its enormous jaws are equipped with several rows of long needle-like fangs, and its mouth reaches to a point far back of its tiny ears. It has enormous protruding eyes of green. See the gods of Mars. Bar Comus. Jeddak of Warhoon. See a princess of Mars. Barsoom, Mars. Black pirates of Barsoom. Men six feet and over in height have clear cut and handsome features. Their eyes are well-set and large, though a slight narrowness lends them a crafty appearance. The iris is extremely black, while the eyeball itself is quite white and clear. Their skin has the appearance of polished ebony. See the gods of Mars. Callit, a dog. About the size of a shetland pony, and has ten short legs. The head bears a slight resemblance to that of a frog, except that the jaws are equipped with three rows of long sharp tusks. See a princess of Mars. Carter, John. Warlord of Mars. Arthurus of Helium. Son of John Carter and Dejah Thoris. Dach Kovah. Jedd among the Warhoons. Later Jeddak. Darsene. Emilian-like reptile. Dato. Chief or Prince among the firstborn. Dejah Thoris. Princess of Helium. Dorkantos. Son of Kantos Khan. Padwar of the Fifth Uttan. Dore. Valley of Heaven. Dottar Sochat. John Carter's Martian name. From the surnames of the first two warrior chieftains he killed. Dussoh. A Martian kingdom. Dwar. Captain. Ursight. A kind of stone. Father of Therns. High priest of religious cult. Firstborn. Black race. Black pirates. Karkomak. Ardwar of Lotharian Bome. Gate of Jeddaks. A gate in Helium. Ghazava. Tarstarkis' dead wife. Gurtus. Dwar of the Tenth Uttan. Haad. Martian Maya. Hal Vass. Son of Vasco the Dusarian noble. Hastor. A city of Helium. Hecador. Title of Father of Therns. Helium. The empire of the grandfather of Dejah Thoris. Holy Therns. A Martian religious cult. Hortangur. Jeddak of Torquas. Horvastus. Hadoar in the navy of Helium. Horus. Desserted city. Barsoomian Greenwich. Ilal. A city of Ocar. Ice. River of Death. Sea of Princess of Mars. Isis. Goddess of Death. Whose abode is upon the banks of the lost Sea of Chorus. Seed the Gods of Mars. Job of Lotharia. Jedd. King. Jeddak. Emperor. Kab Kaja. Jeddak of the Warhounds of the South. Kadabra. Capital of O'Conn. Kadaw. Guard. Kalsus. Ruser. Transport under Vasco. Kantos Khan. Hadoar in the Helium Navy. Kaol. A Martian kingdom in the Eastern Hemisphere. Kaor. Greeting. Karad. Martian degree. Komal. The Lotharian god. A huge bet. Korad. A dead city of ancient Mars. Sea of Princess of Mars. Korus. The Lost Sea of Dor. Hulan Tith. Jeddak of Kaol. Sea the Warlord of Mars. Lakor. A Thern. Lerach. A Dusarian warrior. Artificer. Lorquas Ptome. Jedd among the Tharks. Sea a Princess of Mars. Lothar. The Forgotten City. Marantina. A Principality of Okar. Matai Shang. Father of Thern. Sea the Gods of Mars. Morse Kaja. A Jedd of Lesserheedio. Notam. Royal Psychologist of Zodonga. Nutus. Jeddak of Dusar. Odd. Martian Foot. Odwar. A Commander or General. Okar. Land of the Yellow Man. Old Ben. Or Uncle Ben. The writer's body servant. Colored. Omaad. Man with one name. Omin. The Buried Sea. Orlak. A black and yellow striped arctic monster. Oats Mountains. Surrounding the Valley Dor and the Lost Sea of Korus. Padua. Lieutenant. Panthan. A Soldier of Fortune. Parfak. The Zodongan who brought food to John Carter in the pits of Sartaris. Sea the Gods of Mars. Pedestal of Truth. Within the courtroom of Hedia. Fedor. Daughter of Matai Shang. Sea the Gods of Mars. Pimalia. Gorgeous flowering plant. Plantmen of Barsoom. A race inhabiting the Valley Dor. They are 10 or 12 feet in height when standing erect. Their arms are very short and fashioned after the manner of an elephant's trunk being sinuous. The body is hairless and ghoulish blue except for a broad band of white which encircles the protruding single eye. The pupil, iris and ball of which are dead white. The nose is a ragged inflamed circular hole in the center of the blank face resembling a fresh bullet wound which has not yet commenced to bleed. There is no mouth in the head. With the exception of the face the head is covered by a tangled mass of jet black hair some 8 or 10 inches in length. Each hair is about the thickness of a large angle worm. The body, legs and feet are of human shape but of monstrous proportions. The feet being fully three feet long and very flat and broad. The method of feeding consists in running their odds hands over the surface of the turf propping off the tender vegetation with razor like talons and sucking it up from two mouths which lie one in the palm of each hand. They are equipped with a massive tail about six feet long, quite round where it joins the body but tapering to a flat thin blade toward the end which trails at right angles to the ground. See the gods of Mars. Prince Sauron, overlord of the navy of Tarth. Tarth, a Martian kingdom. Thor, family name of three Zodangan brothers. Saab Thong, prince of Zodanga, see a princess of Mars. Safa, a Martian inch. Saak, jump. Selensis ol, Jeddakavokar, see the warlord of Mars. Sauron Tal, Carthoris major domo. Sarkoja, a green Martian woman, see a princess of Mars. Sartorthrog, a holy thern of the tenth cycle. Shador, island of Nomeen, used as a prison. Silian, slimy reptiles inhabiting the Sea of Chorus. Sith, hornet-like monster, bald-faced and about the size of a herford bull. As frightful jaws in front and mighty poisoned sting behind. The eyes of myriad facets cover three-fourths of the head, permitting the creature to see in all directions at one at the same time. See the warlord of Mars. Skeel, a Martian heartwood. Sola, a young green Martian woman. Sola, an official of the palace. Sompus, a kind of tree. Sorak, a little pet animal among the red Martian women about the size of a cat. Sorapus, a Martian heartwood. Sorav, an officer of Solensis old. Tal, a Martian second. Talhaegis, Jeddak of Thark. Talu, rebel prince of Marantina. Tangama, war moon warrior. Tardos Mors, grandfather of Dejah Thoris and Jeddak of Helium. Tario, Jeddak of Lothar. Tars Tarkas, a green man, chieftain of the Tharks. Temple of reward in Helium. Tenth Cycle, a sphere or plane of eminence among the holy ferns. Thabas, Isis chief. Thonkosis, Jeddak of Zedonga, see a princess of Mars. Thark, city and name of a green Martian horde. Thot, a green Martian horse. Ten feet high at the shoulder with four legs on either side. A broad flat tail, larger at the tip than at the root, which it holds straight out behind while running. A mouth splitting its head from snout to the long massive neck. It is entirely devoid of hair and is of a dark slate color and exceedingly smooth and glossy. It has a white belly and the legs are shaded from slate at the shoulders and hips to a vivid yellow at the feet. The feet are heavily padded and nailless, see a princess of Mars. Thor, ban, Jeddak of the green man of Tarkwas. Thorian, chief of the lesser therns. Throne of righteousness in the courtroom of Helium. Throxus, mightiest of the five oceans. Thirds, a green horde inimical to Tarkwas. Thuria, the nearer moon. Thurid, a black dator. Thuvan din, Jeddak of Tarth. Thuvia, princess of Tarth. Taurith, officer of the guards at Submarine Pool. Torkar Bar, Kaolian noble, dwar of the Kaolian road. Tarkwas, a green horde. Tarjun, Carthoris alias. Huton, a company of 100 men, military. Vaskor, a Dusarian noble. Warhun, a community of green men, enemy of Tark. Wula, a Barsoomian callate. Zat, a Martian minute. Zavarian, a Helium warship. Zodah, dator among the first born. Yersted, commander of the submarine. Zod, Tharkian warrior. Zataras, Jeddav Zodanga. Zithad, dator of the guard of Isis, see the gods of Mars. Zithidars, mastodonian draft animals. Zodanga, Martian city of red men, war with Helium. Zod, a Martian hour. End of glossary, recording by Thomas Copeland. End of Thuvia, made of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.