Chapter 1 of Thuvia, Made of Mars.  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.   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.  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.  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.  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.  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.  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.  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 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.  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.  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.  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.  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.  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.  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.  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.  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 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.  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.  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.  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.  He half rose from the couch, leaning far forward and pointing an accusing finger at Carthoris.   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.  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.  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.  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.  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?  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?  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 figh