“Explain yourself,” said the Jeddak.

“Let me explain,” interrupted Pan Dan Chee, “for after all the responsibility is mine. I urged this action upon Lan Sohn Wen.”

The Jeddak nodded. “Proceed,” he said.

chapter IV

I COULDN’T comprehend why they were making such an issue of bringing in a prisoner, nor why men had died for less, as Ho Ran Kim had reminded Lan Sohn Wen. In Helium, a warrior would have received at least commendation for bringing in a prisoner. For bringing in John Carter, Warlord of Mars, a common warrior might easily have been ennobled by an enemy prince.

“My Jeddak,” commenced Pan Dan Chee, “while I was beset by six green warriors, this man, who says he is known as John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom, came of his own volition to fight at my side. From whence he came I do not know. I only know that at one moment I was fighting alone, a hopeless fight, and that at the next there fought at my side the greatest swordsman Horz has ever seen. He did not have to come; he could have left at any time, but he remained; and because he remained I am alive and the last of the six green warriors lies dead by the ancient waterfront. He would have escaped had not John Carter leaped to the back of a great thoat and pursued him.

“Then this man could have escaped, but he came back. He fought for a soldier of Horz. He trusted the men of Horz. Are we to repay him with death?”

Pan Dan Chee ceased speaking, and Ho Ran Kim turned his blue eyes upon me. “John Carter,” he said, “what you have done commands the respect and sympathy of every man of Horz. It wins the thanks of their Jeddak, but—” He hesitated. “Perhaps if I tell you something of our history, you will understand why I must condemn you to death.” He paused for a moment, as though in thought.

At the same time I was doing a little thinking on my own account. The casual manner in which Ho Ran Kim had sentenced me to death had rather taken my breath away. He seemed so friendly that it didn’t seem possible that he was in earnest, but a glance at the glint in those blue eyes assured me that he was not being facetious.

“I am sure,” I said, “that the history of Horz must be most interesting; but right now I am most interested in learning why I should have to die for befriending a fighting man of Horz.”

“That I shall explain,” he said.

“It is going to take a great deal of explaining, your majesty,” I assured him.

He paid no attention to that, but continued. “The inhabitants of Horz are, as far as we know, the sole remaining remnant of the once dominant race of Barsoom, the Orovars. A million years ago our ships ranged the five great oceans, which we ruled. The city of Horz was not only the capital of a great empire, it was the seat of learning and culture of the most glorious race of human beings a world has ever known. Our empire spread from pole to pole. There were other races on Barsoom, but they were few in numbers and negligible in importance. We looked upon them as inferior creatures. The Orovars owned Barsoom, which was divided among a score of powerful jeddaks. They were a happy, prosperous, contented people, the various nations seldom warring upon one another. Horz had enjoyed a thousand years of peace.

“They had reached the ultimate pinnacle of civilization and perfection when the first shadow of impending fate darkened their horizon—the seas began to recede, the atmosphere to grow more tenuous. What science had long predicted was coming to pass—a world was dying.

“For ages our cities followed the receding waters. Straits and bays, canals and lakes dried up. Prosperous seaports became deserted inland cities. Famine came. Hungry hordes made war upon the more fortunate. The growing hordes of wild green men overran what had once been fertile farm land, preying upon all.

“The atmosphere became so tenuous that it was difficult to breathe. Scientists were working upon an atmosphere plant, but before it was completed and in successful operation all but a few of the inhabitants of Barsoom had died. Only the hardiest survived—the green men, the red men, and a few Orovars; then life became merely a battle for the survival of the fittest.

“The green men hunted us as we had hunted beasts of prey. They gave us no rest, they showed us no mercy. We were few; they were many. Horz became our last city of refuge, and our only hope of survival lay in preventing the outside world from knowing that we existed; therefore, for ages we have slain every stranger who came to Horz and saw an Orovar, that no man might go away and betray our presence to our enemies.

“Now you will understand that no matter how deeply we must regret the necessity, it is obvious that we cannot let you live.”

“I can understand,” I said, “that you might feel it necessary to destroy an enemy; but I see no reason for destroying a friend. However, that is for you to decide.”

“It is already decided, my friend,” said the Jeddak. “You must die.”

“Just a moment, O Jeddak!” exclaimed Pan Dan Chee. “Before you pass final judgment, consider this alternative. If he remains here in Horz, he cannot carry word to our enemies. We owe him a debt of gratitude. Permit him then to live, but always within the walls of the citadel.”

There were nods of approval from the others present, and I saw by his quickly darting eyes that Ho Ran Kim had noticed them. He cleared his throat. “Perhaps that is something that should be given thought,” he said. “I shall reserve judgment until the morrow. I do so largely because of my love for you, Pan Dan Chee; inasmuch as, because it was due to your importunities that this man is here, you must suffer whatever fate is ordained for him.”

Pan Dan Chee was certainly surprised, nor could he hide the fact; but he took the blow like a man. “I shall consider it an honor,” he said, “to share any fate that may be meted to John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom.”

“Well said, Pan Dan Chee!” exclaimed the Jeddak. “My admiration for you increases as does the bitterness of my sorrow when I contemplate the almost inescapable conviction that on the morrow you die.”

Pan Dan Chee bowed. “I thank your majesty for your deep concern,” he said. “The remembrance of it will glorify my last hours.”

The Jeddak turned his eyes upon Lan Sohn Wen, and held them there for what seemed a full minute. I would have laid ten to one that Ho Ran Kim was about to cause himself further untold grief by condemning Lan Sohn Wen to death. I think Lan Sohn Wen thought the same thing. He looked worried.

“Lan Sohn Wen,” said Ho Ran Kim, “you will conduct these two to the pits and leave them there for the night. See that they have good food and every possible comfort, for they are my honored guests.”

“But the pits, your majesty!” exclaimed Lan Sohn Wen. “They have never been used within the memory of man. I do not even know that I can find the entrance to them.”

“That is so,” said Ho Ran Kim, thoughtfully. “Even if you found them they might prove very dirty and uncomfortable. Perhaps it would be kinder to destroy John Carter and Pan Dan Chee at once.”

“Wait, majesty,” said Pan Dan Chee. “I know where lies the entrance to the pits. I have been in them. They can easily be made most comfortable. I would not think of altering your plans or causing you immediately the deep grief of sorrowing over the untimely passing of John Carter and myself. Come, Lan Sohn Wen! I will lead the way to the pits of Horz!”

chapter V

IT WAS A GOOD THING for me that Pan Dan Chee was a fast talker. Before Ho Ran Kim could formulate any objections we were out of the audience chamber and on our way to the pits of Horz, and I can tell you that I was glad to be out of sight of that kindly and considerate tyrant. There was no telling when some new humanitarian urge might influence him to order our heads lopped off instanter.

The entrance to the pits of Horz was in a small, windowless building near the rear wall of the citadel. It was closed by massive gates that creaked on corroded hinges as two of the warriors who had accompanied us pushed them open.

“It is dark in there,” said Pan Dan Chee. “We’ll break our necks without a light.”

Lan Sohn Wen, being a good fellow, sent one of his men for some torches; and when he returned, Pan Dan Chee and I entered the gloomy cavern.

We had taken but a few steps toward the head of a rock hewn ramp that ran downward into Stygian darkness, when Lan Sohn Wen cried, “Wait! Where is the key to these gates?”

“The keeper of the keys of some great jeddak who lived thousands of years ago may have known,” replied Pan Dan Chee, “but I don’t.”

“But how am I going to lock you in?” demanded Lan Sohn Wen.

“The Jeddak didn’t tell you to lock us in,” said Pan Dan Chee. “He said to take us to the pits and leave us there for the night. I distinctly recall his very words.”

Lan Sohn Wen was in a quandary, but at last he hit upon an avenue of escape. “Come,” he said, “I shall take you back to the Jeddak and explain that there are no keys; then it will be up to him.”

“And you know what he will do!” said Pan Dan Chee.

“What?” asked Lan Sohn Wen.

“He will order us destroyed at once. Come, Lan Sohn Wen, do not condemn us to immediate death. Post a guard here at the gates, with orders to kill us if we try to escape.”

Lan Sohn Wen considered this for a moment, and finally nodded his head in acquiescence. “That is an excellent plan,” he said, and then he detailed two warriors to stand guard; and arranged for their relief, after which he wished us good night and departed with his warriors.

I have never seen such courteous and considerate people as the Orovars; it might almost be a pleasure to have one’s throat slit by one of them, he would be so polite about it. They are the absolute opposites of their hereditary enemies, the green men; for these are endowed with neither courtesy, consideration, nor kindness. They are cold, cruel, abysmal brutes to whom love is unknown and whose creed is hate.

Nevertheless, the pits of Horz was not a pleasant place. The dust of ages lay upon the ramp down which we walked. From its end a corridor stretched away beyond the limits of our torchlight. It was a wide corridor, with doors opening from it on either side. These, I presumed, were the dungeons where ancient jeddaks had confined their enemies. I asked Pan Dan Chee.

“Probably,” he said, “though our jeddaks have never used them.”

“Have they never had enemies?” I asked.

“Certainly, but they have considered it cruel to imprison men in dark holes like this; so they have always destroyed them immediately they were suspected of being enemies.”

“Then why are the pits here?” I demanded.

“Oh, they were built when the city was built, perhaps a million years ago, perhaps more. It just chanced that the citadel was built around the entrance.”

I glanced into one of the dungeons. A mouldering skeleton lay upon the floor, the rusted irons that had secured it to the wall lying among its bones. In the next dungeon were three skeletons and two magnificently carved, metal bound chests. As Pan Dan Chee raised the lid of one of them I could scarce repress a gasp of astonishment and admiration. The chest was filled with magnificent gems in settings of elaborate beauty, specimens of forgotten arts, the handicraft of master craftsmen who had lived a million years ago. I think that nothing that I had ever seen before had so impressed me. And it was depressing, for these jewels had been worn by lovely women and brave men who had disappeared into an oblivion so complete that not even a memory of them remained.

My reverie was interrupted by the sound of shuffling feet behind me. I wheeled; and, instinctively, my hand flew to where the hilt of a sword should have been but was not. Facing me, and ready to spring upon me, was the largest ulsio I had ever seen.

These Martian rats are fierce and unlovely things. They are many legged and hairless, their hide resembling that of a new-born mouse in repulsiveness. Their eyes are small and close set and almost hidden in deep, fleshy apertures. Their most ferocious and repulsive features, however, are their jaws, the entire bony structure of which protrudes several inches beyond the flesh, revealing five sharp, spadelike teeth in each jaw, the whole suggesting the appearance of a rotting face from which much of the flesh has sloughed away. Ordinarily they are about the size of an Airedale terrier, but the thing that leaped for me in the pits of Horz that day was as large as a small puma and ten times as ferocious.

As the creature leaped for my throat, I struck it a heavy blow on the side of its head and knocked it to one side; but it was up at once and at me again; then Pan Dan Chee came into the scene. They had not disarmed him, and with short-sword he set upon the ulsio.

It was quite a battle. That ulsio was the most ferocious and most determined beast I had ever seen, and it gave Pan Dan Chee the fight of his life. He had knocked off two of its six legs, an ear, and most of its teeth before the ferocity of its repeated attacks abated at all. It was almost cut to ribbons, yet it always forced the fighting. I could only stand and look on, which is not such a part in a fight as I like to take. At last, however, it was over; the ulsio was dead, and Pan Dan Chee looked at me and smiled.

He was looking around for something upon which he might wipe the blood from his blade. “Perhaps there is something in this other chest,” I suggested; and, walking to it, I lifted the lid.

The chest was about seven feet long, two and a half wide and two deep. In it lay the body of a man. His elaborate harness was encrusted with jewels. He wore a helmet entirely covered with diamonds, one of the few helmets I had ever seen upon Mars. The scabbards of his long-sword, his short-sword, and his dagger were similarly emblazoned.

He had been a very handsome man, and he was still a handsome corpse. So perfectly was he preserved that, in so far as appearances went, he might still have been alive but for the thin layer of dust overlying his features. When I blew this away he looked quite as alive as you or I.

“You bury your dead here?” I asked Pan Dan Chee, but he shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “This chap may have been here a million years.”

“Nonsense!” I exclaimed. “He would have dried up and blown away thousands of years ago.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Pan Dan Chee. “There were lots of things that those old fellows knew that are lost arts today. Embalming, I know, was one of them. There is the legend of Lee Um Lo, the most famous embalmer of all time. It recounts that his work was so perfect that not even the corpse, himself, knew that he was dead; and upon several occasions they arose and walked out during the funeral services. The end of Lee Um Lo came when the wife of a great jeddak failed to realize that she was dead, and walked right in on the jeddak and his new wife. The next day Lee Um Lo lost his head.”

“It is a good story,” I said, laughing; “but I hope this chap realizes that he is dead; because I am about to disarm him. Little could he have dreamed a million years ago that one day he was going to rearm The Warlord of Barsoom.”

Pan Dan Chee helped me raise the corpse and remove its harness; and we were both rather startled by the soft, pliable texture of the flesh and its normal warmth.

“Do you suppose we could be mistaken?” I asked. “Could it be that he is not dead?”

Pan Dan Chee shrugged. “The knowledge and the arts of the ancients are beyond the ken of modern man,” he said.

“That doesn’t help a bit,” I said. “Do you think this chap can be alive?”

“His face was covered with dust,” said Pan Dan Chee, “and no one has been in these pits for thousands and thousands of years. If he isn’t dead, he should be.”

I quite agreed, and buckled the gorgeous harness about me without more ado. I drew the swords and the dagger and examined them. They were as bright and fine as the day they had received their first polish, and their edges were keen. Once again, I felt like a whole man, so much is a sword a part of me.

As we stepped out into the corridor I saw a light far away. It was gone almost in the instant. “Did you see that?” I asked Pan Dan Chee.

“I saw it,” he said, and his voice was troubled. “There should be no light here, for there are no people.”

We stood straining our eyes along the corridor for a repetition of the light. There was none, but from afar there echoed down that black corridor a hollow laugh.

chapter VI

PAN DAN CHEE looked at me. “What,” he asked, “could that have been?”

“It sounded very much like a laugh to me,” I replied.

Pan Dan Chee nodded. “Yes,” he agreed, “but how can there be a laugh where there is no one to laugh?” Pan Dan Chee was perplexed.

“Perhaps the ulsios of Horz have learned to laugh,” I suggested with a smile.

Pan Dan Chee ignored my flippancy. “We saw a light and we heard a laugh,” he said thoughtfully. “What does that convey to you?”

“The same thing that it conveys to you,” I said: “that there is some one down here in the pits of Horz beside us.”

“I do not see how that can be possible,” he said.

“Let’s investigate,” I suggested.

With drawn swords we advanced; for we did not know the nature nor the temper of the owner of that laugh, and there was always the chance that an ulsio might leap from one of the dungeons and attack us.

The corridor ran straight for some distance, and then commenced to curve. There were many branches and intersections, but we kept to what we believed to be the main corridor. We saw no more lights, heard no more laughter. There was not a sound in all that vast labyrinth of passageways other than the subdued clanking of our metal, the occasional shuffling of our sandalled feet, and the soft whisperings of our leather harnesses.

“It is useless to search farther,” said Pan Dan Chee at last. “We might as well start back.”

Now I had no intention of going back to my death. I reasoned that the light and the laugh indicated the presence of man in these pits. If the inhabitants of Horz knew nothing of them; then they must enter the pits from outside the citadel, indicating an avenue of escape open to me. Therefore, I did not wish to retrace our steps; so I suggested that we rest for a while and discuss our future plans.

“We can rest,” said Pan Dan Chee, “but there is nothing to discuss.

Our plans have all been made for us by Ho Ran Kim.”

We entered a cell which contained no grim reminders of past tragedy; and, after wedging one of our torches in a niche in the wall, we sat down on the hard stone floor.

“Perhaps your plans have been made for you by Ho Ran Kim,” I said, “but I make my own plans.”

“And they are—?” he asked.

“I am not going back to be murdered. I am going to find a way out of these pits.”

Pan Dan Chee shook his head sorrowfully. “I am sorry,” he said, “but you are going back to meet your fate with me.”

“What makes you think that?” I asked.

“Because I shall have to take you back. You well know that I cannot let a stranger escape from Horz.”

“That means that we shall have to fight to the death, Pan Dan Chee,” I said; “and I do not wish to kill one at whose side I have fought and whom I have learned to admire.”

“I feel the same way, John Carter,” said Pan Dan Chee. “I do not wish to kill you; but you must see my position—if you do not come with me willingly, I shall have to kill you.”

I tried to argue him out of his foolish stand, but he was adamant. I was positive that Pan Dan Chee liked me; and I shrank from the idea of killing him, as I knew that I should. He was an excellent swordsman, but what chance would he have against the master swordsman of two worlds? I am sorry if that should sound like boasting; for I abhor boasting—I only spoke what is a fact. I am, unquestionably, the best swordsman that has ever lived.

“Well,” I said, “we don’t have to kill each other at once. Let’s enjoy each other’s company for a while longer.”

Pan Dan Chee smiled. “That will suit me perfectly,” he said.

“How about a game of Jetan?” I asked. “It will help to pass the time pleasantly.”

“How can we play Jetan without a board or the pieces?” he asked.

I opened the leather pocket pouch such as all Martians carry, and took out a tiny, folding Jetan board with all the pieces—a present from Dejah Thoris, my incomparable mate. Pan Dan Chee was intrigued by it, and it is a marvellously beautiful piece of work. The greatest artist of Helium had designed the pieces, which had been carved under his guidance by two of our greatest sculptors.

Each of the pieces, such as Warriors, Padwars, Dwars, Panthans, and Chiefs, were carved in the likeness of well-known Martian fighting men; and one of the Princesses was a beautifully executed miniature carving of Tara of Helium, and the other Princess, Llana of Gathol.

I am inordinately proud of this Jetan set; and because the figures are so tiny, I always carry a small but powerful reading glass, not alone that I may enjoy them but that others may. I offered it now to Pan Dan Chee, who examined the figures minutely.

“Extraordinary,” he said. “I have never seen anything more beautiful.” He had examined one figure much longer than he had the others, and he held it in his hand now as though loath to relinquish it. “What an exquisite imagination the artist must have had who created this figure, for he could have had no model for such gorgeous beauty; since nothing like it exists on Barsoom.”

“Every one of those figures was carved from life,” I told him.

“Perhaps the others,” he said, “but not this one. No such beautiful woman ever lived.”

“Which one is it?” I asked, and he handed it to me. “This,” I said, “is Llana of Gathol, the daughter of Tara of Helium, who is my daughter. She really lives, and this is a most excellent likeness of her. Of course it cannot do her justice since it cannot reflect her animation nor the charm of her personality.”

He took the little figurine back and held it for a long time under the glass; then he replaced it in the box. “Shall we play?” I asked.

He shook his head. “It would be sacrilege,” he said, “to play at a game with the figure of a goddess.”

I packed the pieces back in the tiny box, which was also the playing board, and returned it to my pouch. Pan Dan Chee sat silent. The light of the single torch cast our shadows deep and dark upon the floor.

These torches of Horz were a revelation to me. They are most ingenious. Cylindrical, they have a central core which glows brightly with a cold light when exposed to the air. By turning back a hinged cap and pushing the central core up with a thumb button, it becomes exposed to the air and glows brightly. The farther up it is pushed and the more of it that is exposed, the more intense the light. Pan Dan Chee told me that they were invented ages ago, and that the lighting results in so little loss of matter that they are practically eternal. The art of producing the central core was lost in far antiquity, and no scientist since has been able to analyze its composition.

It was a long time before Pan Dan Chee spoke again; then he arose. He looked tired and sad. “Come,” he said, “let’s have it over with,” and he drew his sword.

“Why should we fight?” I asked. “We are friends. If I go away, I pledge my honor that I will not lead others to Horz. Let me go, then, in peace. I do not wish to kill you. Or, better still, you come away with me. There is much to see in the world outside of Horz and much to adventure.”

“Don’t tempt me,” he begged, “for I want to come. For the first time in my life I want to leave Horz, but I may not. Come! John Carter. On guard! One of us must die, unless you return willingly with me.”

“In which case both of us will die,” I reminded him. “It is very silly, Pan Dan Chee.”

“On guard!” was his only reply.

There was nothing for me to do but draw and defend myself. Never have I drawn with less relish.

chapter VII

PAN DAN CHEE would not take the offensive, and he offered very little in the way of defense. I could have run him through at any time that I chose from the very instant that I drew my sword. Almost immediately I realized that he was offering me my freedom at the expense of his own life, but I would not take his life.

Finally I backed away and dropped my point. “I am no butcher, Pan Dan Chee,” I said. “Come! put up a fight.”

He shook his head. “I cannot kill you,” he said, quite simply.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I am a fool,” he said. “The same blood flows in your veins and hers. I could not spill that blood. I could not bring unhappiness to her.”

“What do you mean?” I demanded. “What are you talking about?”

“I am talking about Llana of Gathol,” he said, “the most beautiful woman in the world, the woman I shall never see but for whom I gladly offer my life.”

Now, Martian fighting men are proverbially chivalrous to a fault, but this was carrying it much further than I had ever seen it carried before.

“Very well,” I said; “and as I don’t intend killing you there is no use going on with this silly duel.”

I returned my sword to its scabbard, and Pan Dan Chee did likewise.

“What shall we do?” he asked. “I cannot let you escape; but, on the other hand, I cannot prevent it. I am a traitor to my country. I shall, therefore, have to destroy myself.”

I had a plan. I would accompany Pan Dan Chee back almost to the entrance to the pits, and there I would overpower, bind, and gag him; then I would make my escape, or at least I would try to find another exit from the pits. Pan Dan Chee would be discovered, and could face his doom without the stigma of treason being attached to his name.

“You need not kill yourself,” I told him. “I will accompany you to the entrance to the pits; but I warn you that should I discover an opportunity to escape, I shall do so.”

“That is fair enough,” he said. “It is very generous of you. You have made it possible for me to die honorably and content.”

“Do you wish to die?” I asked.

“Certainly not,” he assured me. “I wish to live. If I live, I may some day find my way to Gathol.”

“Why not come with me, then?” I demanded. “Together we may be able to find our way out of the pits. My flier lies but a short distance from the citadel, and it is only about four thousand haads from Horz to Gathol.”

He shook his head. “The temptation is great,” he said, “but until I have exhausted every resource and failed to return to Ho Ran Kim before noon tomorrow I may do nothing else but try.”

“Why by noon tomorrow?” I asked.

“It is a very ancient Orovaran law,” he replied, “which limits the duration of a death sentence to noon of the day one is condemned to die. Ho Ran Kim decreed that we should die tomorrow. If we do not, we are not in honor bound to return to him.”

We set off a little dejectedly for the doorway through which we were expected to pass to our doom. Of course, I had no intention of doing so; but I was dejected because of Pan Dan Chee. I had come to like him immensely. He was a man of high honor and a courageous fighter.

We walked on and on, until I became convinced that if we had followed the right corridor we should long since have arrived at the entrance. I suggested as much to Pan Dan Chee, and he agreed with me; then we retraced our steps and tried another corridor. We kept this up until we were all but exhausted, but we failed to find the right corridor.

“I am afraid we are lost,” said Pan Dan Chee.

“I am quite sure of it,” I agreed, with a smile. If we were sufficiently well lost, we might not find the entrance before the next noon; in which event Pan Dan Chee would be free to go where he pleased, and I had a pretty good idea of where he pleased to go.

Now, I am no matchmaker; nor neither do I believe in standing in the way to prevent the meeting of a man and a maid. I believe in letting nature take her course. If Pan Dan Chee thought he was in love with Llana of Gathol and wished to go to Gathol and try to win her, I would only have discouraged the idea had he been a man of low origin or of a dishonorable nature. He was neither. The race to which he belonged is the oldest of the cultured races of Barsoom, and Pan Dan Chee had proved himself a man of honor.

I had no reason to believe that his suit would meet with any success. Llana of Gathol was still very young, but even so the swords of some of the greatest houses of Barsoom had been lain at her feet. Like nearly all Martian women of high degree she knew her mind. Like so many of them, she might be abducted by some impetuous suitor; and she would either love him or slip a dagger between his ribs, but she would never mate with a man she did not love. I was more fearful for Pan Dan Chee than I was for Llana of Gathol.

We retraced our steps and tried another corridor, yet still no entrance. We lay down and rested; then we tried again. The result was the same.

“It must be nearly morning,” said Pan Dan Chee.

“It is,” I said, consulting my chronometer. “It is almost noon.”

Of course I didn’t use the term noon; but rather the Barsoomian equivalent, 25 xats past the 3rd zode, which is 12 noon Earth time.

“We must hurry!” exclaimed Pan Dan Chee.

A hollow laugh sounded behind us; and, turning quickly, we saw a light in the distance. It disappeared immediately.

“Why should we hurry?” I demanded. “We have done the best we could. That we did not find our way back to the citadel and death is no fault of ours.”

Pan Dan Chee nodded. “And no matter how much we may hurry, there is little likelihood that we shall ever find the entrance.”

Of course this was wishful thinking, but it was also quite accurate thinking. We never did find the entrance to the citadel.

“This is the second time we have heard that laugh and seen that light,” said Pan Dan Chee. “I think we should investigate it. Perhaps he who makes the light and voices the laugh may be able to direct us to the entrance.”

“I have no objection to investigating,” I said, “but I doubt that we shall find a friend if we find the author.”

“It is most mystifying,” said Pan Dan Chee. “All my life I have believed, as all other inhabitants of Horz have believed, that the pits of Horz were deserted. A long time ago, perhaps ages, some venturesome men entered the pits to investigate them. These incursions occurred at intervals, and none of those who entered the pits ever returned. It was assumed that they became lost, and starved to death. Perhaps they, too, heard the laughter and saw the lights!”

“Perhaps,” I said.

chapter VIII

PAN DAN CHEE and I lost all sense of time, so long were we in the pits of Horz without food or water. It could not have been more than two days, as we still had strength; and more than two days without water will sap the strength of the best of men. Twice more we saw the light and heard the laughter. That laugh! I can hear it yet. I tried to think that it was human. I didn’t want to go mad.

Pan Dan Chee said, “Let’s find it and drink its blood!”

“No, Pan Dan Chee,” I counselled. “We are men, not beasts.”

“You are right,” he said. “I was losing control.”

“Let’s use our heads,” I said. “He knows always where we are, because always he can see the light of our torch. Suppose we extinguish it, and creep forward silently. If he has curiosity, he will investigate. We shall listen attentively, and we shall hear his footfalls.” I had it all worked out beautifully, and Pan Dan Chee agreed that it was a perfect plan. I think he still had in mind the drinking of the creature’s blood, when we should find it. I was approaching a point when I might have taken a drink myself. God! If you have never suffered from hunger and thirst, don’t judge others too harshly.

We extinguished the torch. We each had one, but there was no use in keeping both lighted. The light of one could have been raised to a brilliancy that would have blinded. We crept silently forward in the direction that we had last seen the light. Our swords were drawn. Three times already we had been set upon by the huge ulsios of these ancient pits of Horz, but at these times we had had the advantage of the light of our torch. I could not but wonder how we would come out if one of them attacked us now.

The darkness was total, and there was no sound. We clung to our weapons so that they would not clank against our metal. We lifted our sandalled feet high and placed them gently on the stone flooring. There was no scuffing. There was no sound. We scarcely breathed.

Presently a light appeared before us. We halted, waiting, listening. I saw a figure. Perhaps it was human, perhaps not. I touched Pan Dan Chee lightly on the arm, and moved forward. He came with me. We made no sound—absolutely no sound. I think that we each held his breath.

The light grew brighter. Now I could see a head and shoulder protruding from a doorway at the side of the corridor. The thing had the contour of humanity at least. I could imagine that it was concerned over our sudden disappearance. It was wondering what had become of us. It withdrew within the doorway where it had stood, but the light persisted. We could see it shining from the interior of the cell or room into which the THING had withdrawn.

We crept closer. Here might lie the answer to our quest for water and for food. If the THING were human, it would require both; and if it had them, we should have them.

Silently we approached the doorway from which the light streamed out into the corridor. Our swords were drawn. I was in the lead. I felt that if the THING had any warning of our approach, it would disappear. That must not happen. We must see IT. We must seize IT, and we must force IT to give us water—food and water!

I reached the doorway, and as I stepped into the opening I had a momentary glimpse of a strange figure; and then all was plunged into darkness and a hollow laugh reverberated through the Stygian blackness of the pits of Horz.

In my right hand I held the long-sword of that long dead Orovaran from whose body I had filched it. In my left hand I held the amazing torch of the Horzians. When the light in the chamber was extinguished, I pushed up the thumb button of my torch; and the apartment before me was flooded with light.

I saw a large chamber filled with many chests. There was a simple couch, a bench, a table, bookshelves filled with books, an ancient Martian stove, a reservoir of water, and the strangest figure of a man my eyes had ever rested upon.

I rushed at him and held my sword against his heart, for I did not wish him to escape. He cowered and screamed, beseeching his life.

“We want water,” I said; “water and food. Give us these and offer us no harm, and you will be safe.”

“Help yourselves,” he said. “There is water and food here, but tell me who you are and how you got here to the pits of ancient Horz, dead Horz—dead for countless ages. I have been waiting for ages for some one to come, and now you have come. You are welcome. We shall be great friends. You shall stay here with me forever, as all the countless others have. I shall have company in the lonely pits of Horz.” Then he laughed maniacally.

It was evident that the creature was quite mad. He not only looked it, he acted it. Sometimes his speech was inarticulate gibber; often it was broken by meaningless and inopportune laughter—the hollow laugh that we had heard before.

His appearance was most repulsive. He was naked except for the harness which supported a sword and a dagger, and the skin of his malformed body was a ghastly white—the color of a corpse. His flabby mouth hung open, revealing a few yellow, snaggled fangs. His eyes were wide and round, the whites showing entirely around the irises. He had no nose; it appeared to have been eaten away by disease.

I kept my eye on him constantly while Pan Dan Chee drank; then he watched him while I slaked my thirst, and all the while the creature kept up a running fire of senseless chatter. He would take a word like calot, for instance, and keep repeating it over and over just as though he were carrying on a conversation. You could detect an interrogatory sentence by his inflection, as also the declarative, imperative, and exclamatory. All the time, he kept gesturing like a Fourth of July orator.

At last he said, “You seem very stupid, but eventually you may understand. And now about food: You prefer your ulsio raw, I presume; or shall I cook it?”

“Ulsio!” exclaimed Pan Dan Chee. “You don’t mean to say that you eat ulsio!”

“A great delicacy,” said the creature.

“Have you nothing else?” demanded Pan Dan Chee.

“There is a little of Ro Tan Bim left,” said the THING, “but he is getting a bit high even for an epicure like me.”

Pan Dan Chee looked at me. “I am not hungry,” I said. “Come! Let’s try to get out of here.” I turned to the old man. “Which corridor leads out into the city?” I asked.

“You must rest,” he said; “then I will show you. Lie down upon that couch and rest.”

I had always heard that it is best to humor the insane; and as I was asking a favor of this creature, it seemed the wise thing to do. Furthermore, both Pan Dan Chee and I were very tired; so we lay down on the couch and the old man drew up a bench and sat down beside us. He commenced to talk in a low, soothing voice.

“You are very tired,” he said, over and over again monotonously, his great eyes fixed first upon one of us and then upon the other. I felt my muscles relaxing. I saw Pan Dan Chee’s lids drooping. “Soon you will be asleep,” whispered the old man of the pits. “You will sleep and sleep and sleep, perhaps for ages as have these others. You will only awaken when I tell you to or when I die—and I shall never die. You robbed Hor Kai Lan of his harness and weapons.” He looked at me as he spoke. “Hor Kai Lan would be very angry were he to awaken and find that you have stolen his weapons, but Hor Kai Lan will not awaken. He has been asleep for so many ages that even I have forgotten. It is in my book, but what difference does it make? What difference does it make who wears the harness of Hor Kai Lan? No one will ever use his swords again; and, anyway, when Ro Tan Bim is gone, maybe I shall use Hor Kai Lan. Maybe I shall use you. Who knows?”

His voice was like a dreamy lullably. I felt myself sinking into pleasant slumber. I glanced at Pan Dan Chee. He was fast asleep. And then the import of the THING’S words reached my reasoning mind. By hypnosis we were being condemned to a living death! I sought to shake the lethargy from me. I brought to bear what remained to me of my will power. Always my mind has been stronger than that of any Martian against whose mind I have pitted it.

The horror of the situation lent me strength: the thought of lying here for countless ages collecting the dust of the pits of Horz, or of being eaten by this snaggled toothed maniac! I put every ounce of my will power into a final, terrific effort to break the bonds that held me. It was even more devastating than a physical effort. I broke out into violent perspiration. I felt myself trembling from head to feet. Would I succeed?

The old man evidently realized the battle I was making for freedom, as he redoubled his efforts to hold me. His voice and his eyes wrapped themselves about me with almost physical force. The THING was sweating now, so strenuous were its endeavors to enthrall my mind. Would it succeed?

chapter IX

I WAS WINNING! I knew that I was winning! And the THING must have known it, too; for I saw it slipping its dagger from the sheath at its side. If it couldn’t hold me in the semblance of death, it would hold me in actual death. I sought to wrench myself free from the last weakening tentacles of the THING’S malign mental forces before it could strike the fatal blow that would spell death for me and the equivalent of death for Pan Dan Chee.

The dagger hand rose above me. Those hideous eyes glared down into mine, lighted by the Hellish fires of insanity; and then, in that last instant, I won! I was free. I struck the dagger hand from me and leaped to my feet, the good long-sword of Hor Kai Lan already in my hand.

The THING cowered and screamed. It screamed for help where there was no help, and then it drew its sword. I would not defile the fine art of my swordsmanship by crossing blades with such as this. I recalled its boast that Pan Dan Chee and I would sleep until it awoke us or it died. That alone was enough to determine me—I would be no duelist, but an executioner and a liberator.

I cut once, and the foul head rolled to the stone floor of the pits of Horz. I looked at Pan Dan Chee. He was awakening. He rolled over and stretched; then he sat up and looked at me, questioningly. His eyes wandered to the torso and the head lying on the floor.

“What happened?” he asked.

Before I could reply, I was interrupted by a volley of sound coming from the chamber in which we were and from other chambers in the pits of Horz.

We looked quickly around us. Lids were being raised on innumerable chests, and cries were coming from others the lids of which were held down by the chests on top of them. Armed men were emerging—warriors in gorgeous harness. Women, rubbing their eyes and looking about them in bewilderment.

From the corridor others began to converge upon the chamber, guided by our light.

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded a large man, magnificently trapped. “Who brought me here? Who are you?” He looked around him, evidently bewildered, as though searching for some familiar face.

“Perhaps I can enlighten you?” I said. “We are in the pits of Horz. I have been here only a few hours, but if this dead thing on the floor spoke the truth some of you must have been here for ages. You have been held by the hypnotic power of this mad creature. His death has freed you.”

The man looked down at the staring head upon the floor. “Lum Tar O!” he exclaimed. “He sent for me—asked me to come and see him on an important matter. And you have killed him. You must account to me—tomorrow. Now I must return to my guests.”

There was a layer of dust on the man’s face and body. By that I knew that he must have been here a long time, and presently my surmise was substantiated in a most dramatic manner.

The awakened men and women were forcing their way from the chests in which they had been kept. Some of those in the lower tiers were having difficulty in dislodging the chests piled on top of them. There was a great clattering and tumult as empty chests toppled to the floor. There was a babel of conversation. There were bewilderment and confusion.

A dusty nobleman crawled from one of the chests. Instantly he and the large man who had just spoken recognized one another. “What is the matter with you?” demanded the latter. “You are all covered with dust. Why did you come down? Come! I must get back to my guests.”

The other shook his head in evident bewilderment. “Your guests, Kam Han Tor!” he exclaimed. “Did you expect your guests to wait twenty years for you to return.”

“Twenty years! What do you mean?”

“I was your guest twenty years ago. You left in the middle of the banquet and never returned.”

“Twenty years? You are mad!” exclaimed Kam Han Tor. He looked at me and then at the grinning head upon the floor, and he commenced to weaken. I could see it.

The other man was feeling his own face and looking at the dust he wiped from it. “You, too, are covered with dust,” he said to Kam Han Tor.

Kam Han Tor looked down at his body and harness; then he wiped his face and looked at his fingers. “Twenty years!” he exclaimed, and then he looked down at the head of Lum Tar O. “You vile beast!” he exclaimed. “I was your friend, and you did this to me!” He turned then to me. “Forget what I said. I did not understand. Whoever you may be, permit me to assure you that my sword is always in your service.”

I bowed in acknowledgment.

“Twenty years!” repeated Kam Han Tor, as though he still could not believe it. “My great ship! It was to have sailed from the harbor of Horz the day following my banquet—the greatest ship that ever had been built. Now it is old, perhaps obsolete; and I have never seen it. Tell me—did it sail well? Is it still a proud ship?”

“I saw it as it sailed out upon Throxeus,” said the other. “It was a proud ship indeed, but it never returned from that first voyage; nor was any word ever heard of it. It must have been lost with all hands.”

Kam Han Tor shook his head sadly, and then he straightened up and squared his shoulders. “I shall build another,” he said, “an even greater ship, to sail the mightiest of Barsoom’s five seas.”

Now I commenced to understand what I had suspected but could not believe. It was absolutely astounding. I was looking at and conversing with men who had lived hundreds of thousands of years ago, when Throxeus and the other four oceans of ancient Mars had covered what are now the vast desert wastes of dead sea bottom; when a great merchant marine carried on the commerce of the fair-skinned, blond race that had supposedly been extinct for countless ages.

I stepped closer to Kam Han Tor and laid a hand upon his shoulder. The men and women who had been released from Lum Tar O’s malicious spell had gathered around us, listening. “I am sorry to disillusion you, Kam Han Tor,” I said; “but you will build no ship, nor will any ship ever again sail Throxeus.”

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “Who is to stop Kam Han Tor, brother of the jeddak, from building ships and sailing them upon Throxeus?”

“There is no Throxeus, my friend,” I said.

“No Throxeus? You are mad!”

“You have been here in the pits of Horz for countless ages,” I explained, “and during that time the five great oceans of Barsoom have dried up. There are no oceans. There is no commerce. The race to which you belonged is extinct.”

“Man, you are mad!” he cried.

“Do you know how to get out of these pits?” I asked—“out into the city proper—not up through the—” I was going to say citadel but I recalled that there had been no citadel when these people had been lured to the pits.

“You mean not up through my palace?” asked Kam Han Tor.

“Yes,” I said, “not up through your palace, but out toward the quays; then I can show you that there is no longer a Throxeus.”

“Certainly I know the way,” he said. “Were these pits not built according to my plans!”

“Come, then,” I said.

A man was standing looking down on the head of Lum Tar O. “If what this man says is true,” he said to Kam Han Tor, “Lum Tar O must have lived many ages ago. How then could he have survived all these ages? How have we survived?”

“You were existing in a state of suspended animation,” I said; “but as for Lum Tar O—that is a mystery.”

“Perhaps not such a mystery after all,” replied the man. “I knew Lum Tar O well. He was a weakling and a coward with the psychological reactions of the weakling and the coward. He hated all who were brave and strong, and these he wished to harm. His only friend was Lee Um Lo, the most famous embalmer the world had ever known; and when Lum Tar O died, Lee Um Lo embalmed his body. Evidently he did such a magnificent job that Lum Tar O’s corpse never realized that Lum Tar O was dead, and went right on functioning as in life. That would account for the great span of years that the thing has existed—not a human being; not a live creature, at all; just a corpse the malign brain of which still functioned.”

As the man finished speaking there was a commotion at the entrance to the chamber. A large man, almost naked, rushed in. He was very angry. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “What am I doing here? What are you all doing here? Who stole my harness and my weapons?”

It was then that I recognized him—Hor Kai Lan, whose metal I wore. He was very much excited, and I couldn’t blame him much. He forced his way through the crowd, and the moment he laid eyes upon me he recognized his belongings.

“Thief!” he cried. “Give me back my harness and my weapons!”

“I’m sorry,” I said; “but unless you will furnish me with others, I shall have to keep these.”

“Calot!” he fairly screamed. “Do you realize to whom you are speaking? I am Hor Kai Lan, brother of the jeddak.”

Kam Han Tor looked at him in amazement. “You have been dead over five hundred years, Hor Kai Lan,” he exclaimed, “and so has your brother. My brother succeeded the last jeddak in the year 27M382J4.”

“You have all been dead for ages,” said Pan Dan Chee. “Even that calendar is a thing of the dead past.”

I thought Hor Kai Lan was going to burst a blood vessel then. “Who are you?” he screamed. “I place you under arrest. I place you all under arrest. Ho! the guard!”

Kam Han Tor tried to pacify him, and at least succeeded in getting him to agree to accompany us to the quays to settle the question of the existence of Throxeus, which would definitely prove or disprove the unhappy truths I had been forced to explain to them.

As we started out, led by Kam Han Tor, I noticed the lid of a chest moving slightly. It was raised little by little, and I could see two eyes peering out through the crack made by the lifting of the lid; then suddenly a girl’s voice cried, “John Carter, Prince of Helium! May my first ancestor be blessed!”

chapter X

HAD MY FIRST ancestor suddenly materialized before my eyes, I could not have been more surprised than I was to hear my name from the interior of one of those chests in the pits of Horz.

As I started to investigate, the lid of the chest was thrown aside; and a girl stepped out before me. This was more surprising than my first ancestor would have been, for the girl was Llana of Gathol!

“Llana!” I cried; “what are you doing here?”

“I might ask you the same question, my revered progenitor,” she shot back, with that lack of respect for my great age which has always characterized those closest to me in bonds of blood and affection.

Pan Dan Chee came forward rather open-mouthed and goggle-eyed. “Llana of Gathol!” he whispered as one might voice the name of a goddess. The roomful of anachronisms looked on more or less apathetically.

“Who is this person?” demanded Llana of Gathol.

“My friend, Pan Dan Chee of Horz,” I explained.

Pan Dan Chee unbuckled his sword and laid it at her feet, an act which is rather difficult to explain by Earthly standards of conduct. It is not exactly an avowal of love or a proposal of marriage. It is, in a way, something even more sacred. It means that as long as life lasts that sword is at the service of him at whose feet it has been laid. A warrior may lay his sword at the feet of a man or a woman. It means lifetime loyalty. Where the object of that loyalty is a woman, the man may have something else in mind. I am sure that Pan Dan Chee did.

“Your friend acts with amazing celerity,” said Llana of Gathol; but she stooped and picked up the sword and handed it back to Pan Dan Chee hilt first! which meant that she was pleased and accepted his offer of fealty. Had she simply refused it, she would have left the sword lying where it had been placed. Had she wished to spurn his offer, she would have returned his sword to him point first. That would have been the final and deadly insult. I was glad that Llana of Gathol had returned Pan Dan Chee’s sword hilt first, as I rather liked Pan Dan Chee. I was particularly glad that she had not returned it point first; as that would have meant that I, as the closest male relative of Llana of Gathol available, would have had to fight Pan Dan Chee; and I certainly didn’t want to kill him.

“Well,” interrupted Kam Han Tor, “this is all very interesting and touching; but can’t we postpone it until we have gone down to the quays.”

Pan Dan Chee bridled, and laid a hand on the hilt of his sword. I forestalled any unseemly action on his part by suggesting that Kam Han Tor was wholly right and that our private affairs could wait until the matter of the ocean, so vital to all these other people, had been settled. Pan Dan Chee agreed; so we started again for the quay of ancient Horz.

Llana of Gathol walked at my side. “Now you may tell me,” I said, “how you came to be in the pits of Horz.”

“It has been many years,” she began, “since you were in the kingdom of Okar in the frozen north. Talu, the rebel prince, whom you placed upon the throne of Okar, visited Helium once immediately thereafter. Since then, as far as I have ever heard, there has been no intercourse between Okar and the rest of Barsoom.”

“What has all that to do with your being in the pits of Horz?” I demanded.

“Wait!” she admonished. “I am leading up to that. The general belief has been that the region surrounding the North Pole is but sparsely inhabited and by a race of black-bearded yellow men only.”

“Correct,” I said.

“Not correct,” she contradicted. “There is a nation of red men occupying a considerable area, but at some distance from Okar. I am under the impression that when you were there the Okarians themselves had never heard of these people.

“Recently there came to the court of my father, Gahan of Gathol, a strange red man. He was like us, yet unlike. He came in an ancient ship, one which my father said must have been several hundred years old—obsolete in every respect. It was manned by a hundred warriors, whose harness and metal were unknown to us. They appeared fierce and warlike, but they came in peace and were received in peace.

“Their leader, whose name was Hin Abtol, was a pompous braggart. He was an uncultured boor; but, as our guest, he was accorded every courtesy. He said that he was Jeddak of Jeddaks of the North. My father said that he had thought that Talu held that title.

“‘He did,’ replied Hin Abtol, ‘until I conquered his country and made him my vassal. Now I am Jeddak of Jeddaks of the North. My country is cold and bleak outside our glazed cities. I would come south, looking for other lands in which my people may settle and increase.’

“My father told him that all the arable lands were settled and belonged to other nations which had held them for centuries.

“Hin Abtol merely shrugged superciliously. ‘When I find what I wish,’ he said, ‘I shall conquer its people. I, Hin Abtol, take what I wish from the lesser peoples of Barsoom. From what I have heard, they are all weak and effete; not hardy and warlike as are we Panars. We breed fighting men, in addition to which we have countless mercenaries. I could conquer all of Barsoom, if I chose.’

“Naturally, that sort of talk disgusted my father; but he kept his temper, for Hin Abtol was his guest. I suppose that Hin Abtol thought that my father feared him, his kind often believing that politeness is a sign of weakness. I know he once said to my father, ‘You are fortunate that Hin Abtol is your friend. Other nations may fall before my armies, but you shall be allowed to keep your throne. Perhaps I shall demand a little tribute from you, but you will be safe. Hin Abtol will protect you.’

“I do not know how my father controlled his temper. I was furious. A dozen times I insulted the fellow, but he was too much of an egotistical boor to realize that he was being insulted; then came the last straw. He told Gahan of Gathol that he had decided to honor him by taking me, Llana of Gathol, as his wife. He had already bragged that he had seven!

“‘That,’ said my father, ‘is a matter that I cannot discuss with you. The daughter of Gahan of Gathol will choose her own mate.’

“Hin Abtol laughed. ‘Hin Abtol,’ he said, ‘chooses his wives—they have nothing to say about it.’

“Well, I had stood about all I could of the fellow; and so I decided to go to Helium and visit you and Dejah Thoris. My father decided that I should go in a small flier manned by twenty-five of his most trusted men, all members of my personal Guard.

“When Hin Abtol heard that I was leaving, he said that he would have to leave also—that he was returning to his own country but that he would come back for me. ‘And I hope we have no trouble about it,’ he said, ‘for it would be too bad for Gathol if she made an enemy of Hin Abtol the Panar, Jeddak of Jeddaks of the North.’

“He left the day before I set out, and I did not change my plans because of his going. As a matter of fact, I had been planning on this visit for some time.

“My ship had covered scarce a hundred haads on the journey toward Helium, when we saw a ship rise from the edge of a sorapus forest ahead of us. It came slowly toward us, and presently I recognized its ancient lines. It was the ship of Hin Abtol the Panar, so-called Jeddak of Jeddaks of the North.

“When we were close enough it hailed us, and its captain told us that something had gone wrong with their compass and they were lost. He asked to come alongside that he might examine our charts and get his bearings. He hoped, he said, that we might repair his compass for him.

“Under the circumstances there was nothing to do but accede to his request, as one does not leave a disabled ship without offering aid. As I did not wish to see Hin Abtol, I went below to my cabin.

“I felt the two ships touch as that of the Panar came alongside, and an instant later I heard shouts and curses and the sounds of battle on the upper deck.

“I rushed up the ladder, and the sight that met my eyes filled me with rage. Nearly a hundred warriors swarmed over our deck from Hin Abtol’s ancient tub. I have never seen greater brutality displayed by even the green men. The beasts ignored the commonest ethics of civilized warfare. Outnumbering us four to one, we had not a chance; but the men of Gathol put up a most noble fight, taking bloody toll of their attackers; so that Hin Abtol must have lost fully fifty men before the last of my brave Guard was slaughtered.

“The Panars threw my wounded overboard with the dead, not even vouchsafing them the coup de grace. Of all my crew, not one was left alive.

“Then Hin Abtol swaggered aboard. ‘I told you,’ he said, ‘that Hin Abtol chooses his wives. It would have been better for you and for Gathol had you believed me.’

“‘It would have been better for you,’ I replied, ‘had you never heard of Llana of Gathol. You may rest assured that her death will be avenged.’

“‘I do not intend to kill you,’ he said.

“‘I shall kill myself,’ I told him, ‘before I shall mate with such an ulsio as you.’

“That made him angry, and he struck me. ‘A coward as well as an ulsio,’ I said.

“He did not strike me again, but he ordered me below. In my cabin I realized that the ship was again under way, and looking from the port I saw that it was heading north—north toward the frozen land of the Panars.

chapter XI

“EARLY THE following morning, a warrior came to my cabin. ‘Hin Abtol commands that you come at once to the control room,’ he said.

“‘What does he want of me?’ I demanded.

“‘His navigator does not understand this ship or the instruments,’ the fellow explained. ‘He would ask you some questions.’

“I thought quickly. Perhaps I might frustrate Hin Abtol’s plans if I could have a few minutes with the controls and the instruments, which I knew as well as we know the face of a loved one; so I followed the warrior above.

“Hin Abtol was in the control room with three of his officers. His face was a black scowl as I entered. ‘We are off our course,’ he snapped, ‘and during the night we have lost touch with our own ship. You will instruct my officers as to these silly instruments that have confused them.’ With that, he left the control room.

“I looked around the horizon in every direction. The other ship was nowhere in sight. My plan was instantly formed. Had the other ship been able to see us, it could not have succeeded. I knew that if this ship on which I was prisoner ever reached Panar I would have to take my own life to escape a fate worse than death. On the ground I might also meet death, but I would have a better chance to escape.

“‘What is wrong?’ I asked one of the officers.

“‘Everything,’ he replied. ‘What is this?’

“‘A directional compass,’ I explained; ‘but what have you done to it? It is a wreck.’

“‘Hin Abtol could not understand what it was for, which made him very angry; so he started taking it apart to see what was inside.’

“‘He did a good job,’ I said, ‘—of taking it apart. Now he, or another of you, should put it together again.’

“‘We don’t know how,’ said the fellow. ‘Do you?’

“‘Of course not.’

“‘Then what are we to do?’

“‘Here is an ordinary compass,’ I told him. ‘Fly north by this, but first let me see what other harm has been done.’

“I pretended to examine all the other instruments and controls, and while I was doing so, I opened the buoyancy tank valves; and then jammed them so that they couldn’t be closed.

“‘Everything is all right now,’ I said. ‘Just keep on north by this compass. You won’t need the directional compass.’ I might have added that in a very short time they wouldn’t need any compass as far as navigating this ship was concerned. Then I went down to my cabin.

“I knew that something would happen pretty soon, and sure enough it did. I could see from my porthole that we were losing altitude—just dropping slowly lower and lower—and directly another warrior came to my cabin and said that I was wanted in the control room again.

“Once more Hin Abtol was there. ‘We are sinking,’ he told me—a fact that was too obvious to need mention.

“‘I have noticed that for some time,’ I said.

“‘Well, do something about it!’ he snapped. ‘You know all about this ship.’

“‘I should think that a man who is thinking of conquering all of Barsoom ought to be able to fly a ship without the help of a woman,’ I said.

“He flushed at that, and then he drew his sword. ‘You will tell us what is wrong,’ he growled, ‘or I’ll split you open from your crown to your belly.’

“‘Always the chivalrous gentleman,’ I sneered; ‘but, even without your threat, I’ll tell you what is wrong.’

“‘Well, what is it?’ he demanded.

“‘In fiddling around with these controls, either you or some equally stupid brute has opened the buoyancy tank valves. All you have to do is close them. We won’t sink any lower then, but we’ll never go any higher, either. I hope there are no mountains or very high hills between here and Panar.’

“‘Where are the valves?’ he asked.

“I showed him.

“They tried to close them; but I had made such a good job of jamming them that they couldn’t, and we kept right on dropping down toward the ocher vegetation of a dead sea bottom.

“Hin Abtol was frantic. So were his officers. Here they were, thousands of haads from home—twenty-five men who had spent the greater parts of their lives in the glazed, hot-house cities of the North Polar lands, with no knowledge, or very little, of the outside world or what nature of men, beasts, or other menaces might dispute their way toward home. I could scarcely refrain from laughing.

“As we lost altitude, I saw the towers of a city in the distance to the north of us; so did Hin Abtol. ‘A city,’ he said. ‘We are fortunate. There we can find mechanics to repair our ship.’

“‘Yes,’ I thought; ‘if you had come a million years ago, you would have found mechanics. They would have known nothing about repairing a flier, for fliers had not been invented then; but they could have built you a stanch ship wherein you could have sailed the five seas of ancient Barsoom,’ but I said nothing. I would let Hin Abtol find out for himself.

“I had never been to Horz; but I knew that those towers rising in the distance could mark only that long dead city, and I wished the pleasure of witnessing Hin Abtol’s disappointment after he had made the long and useless trek.”

“You are a vindictive little rascal,” I said.

“I’m afraid I am,” admitted Llana of Gathol; “but, in this instance, can you blame me?”

I had to admit that I could not. “Go on,” I urged. “Tell me what happened next.”

“Will we never reach the end of these abominable pits!” exclaimed Kam Han Tor.

“You should know,” said Pan Dan Chee; “you have said that they were built according to your plans.”

“You are insolent,” snapped Kam Han Tor. “You shall be punished.”

“You have been dead a million years,” said Pan Dan Chee. “You should lie down.”

Kam Han Tor laid a hand upon the hilt of his long-sword. He was very angry; and I could not blame him, but this was no time to indulge in the pleasure of a duel.

“Hold!” I said. “We have more important things to think of now than personal quarrels. Pan Dan Chee is in the wrong. He will apologize.”

Pan Dan Chee looked at me in surprise and disapproval, but he pushed his sword back into its scabbard. “What John Carter, Prince of Helium, Warlord of Barsoom, commands me to do, I do,” he said. “To Kam Han Tor I offer my apology.”

Well, Kam Han Tor graciously accepted it, and I urged Llana of Gathol to go on with her story.

“The ship dropped gently to the ground without incurring further damage,” she continued. “Hin Abtol was undecided at first as whether to take all his men with him to the city or leave some to guard the ship. Finally he concluded that it might be better for them all to remain together in the event they should meet with a hostile reception at the gates of the city. You would have thought, from the way he spoke, that twenty-five Panars could take any city on Barsoom.

“‘I shall wait for you here,’ I said. ‘There is no reason why I should accompany you to the city.’

“‘And when I came back, you would be gone,’ he said. ‘You are a shrewd wench, but I am just a little bit shrewder. You will come with us.’

“So I had to tramp all the way to Horz with them, and it was a very long and tiresome tramp. As we approached the city, Hin Abtol remarked that it was surprising that we saw no signs of life—no smoke, no movement along the avenue which we could see paralleling the plain upon which the city faced, the plain that had once been a mighty ocean.

“It was not until we had entered the city that he realized that it was dead and deserted—but not entirely deserted, as we were soon to discover.

“We had advanced but a short distance up the main avenue when a dozen green warriors emerged from a building and fell upon the Panars. It might have been a good battle, John Carter, had you and two of the warriors of your guard been pitted against the green men; but these Panars are no warriors unless the odds are all on their side. Of course they outnumbered the green men, but the great size and strength and the savage ferocity of the latter gave them the advantage over such weak foemen.

“I saw but little of the fight. The contestants paid no attention to me. They were too engrossed with one another; and as I saw the head of a ramp close by, I dodged into it. The last I saw of the engagement revealed Hin Abtol running at the top of his speed back toward the plain with his men trailing behind him and the green men bringing up the rear. For the sublimation of speed, I accord all honors to the Panars. They may not be able to fight, but they can run.”

chapter XII

“KNOWING THAT the green men would return for their thoats and that I must, therefore, hide, I descended the ramp,” Llana went on. “It led into the pits beneath the city. I intended going in only far enough to avoid discovery from above and to have a head start should the green men come down the ramp in search of me; as I knew they might—they would not quickly forego an opportunity to capture a red woman for torture or slavery.

“I had gone down to the end of the ramp and a short distance along a corridor, when I saw a dim light far ahead. I thought this worth investigating, as I did not wish to be taken unexpectedly from behind and, perhaps, caught between two enemies; so I followed the corridor in the direction of the light, which I presently discovered was retreating. However, I continued to follow it, until presently it stopped in a room filled with chests.

“Looking in, I saw a creature of most horrid mein—”

“Lum Tar O,” I said. “The creature I killed.”

“Yes,” said Llana. “I watched him for a moment, not knowing what to do. A lighted torch illuminated the chamber. He carried another in his left hand. Presently he became alert. He seemed to be listening intently; then he crept from the room.”

“That must have been when he first heard Pan Dan Chee and me,” I suggested.

“I presume so,” said Llana of Gathol. “Anyway, I was left alone in the room. If I went back the way I had come, I might run into the arms of a green man. If I followed the horrid creature I had just seen, I would doubtless be in just as bad a fix. If I only had a place to hide until it would be safe to come out of the pits the way I had entered!

“The chests looked inviting. One of them would provide an excellent hiding place. It was just by the merest chance that the first one I opened was empty. I crept into it and lowered the lid above me. The rest you know.”

“And now you are coming out of the pits,” I said, as we started up a ramp at the top of which I could see daylight.

“In a few moments,” said Kam Han Tor, “we shall be looking upon the broad waters of Throxeus.”

I shook my head. “Do not be too disappointed,” I said.

“Are you and your friend in league to perpetrate a hoax upon me?” demanded Kan Han Tor. “Only yesterday I saw the ships of the fleet lying at anchor off the quay. Do you think me a fool, that you tell me there is no longer any ocean where an ocean was yesterday, where it has been since the creation of Barsoom? Oceans do not disappear overnight, my friend.”

There was a murmur of approval from those of the fine company of nobles and their women who were within earshot. They were loath to believe what they did not wish to believe and what, I realized, must have seemed an insult to their intelligence.

Put yourself in their place. Perhaps you live in San Francisco. You go to bed one night. When you awaken, a total stranger tells you that the Pacific Ocean has dried up and that you may walk to Honolulu or Guam or the Philippines. I’m quite sure that you wouldn’t believe him.

As we came up into the broad avenue that led to the ancient sea front of Horz, that assembly of gorgeously trapped men and women looked about them in dumfounded astonishment upon the crumbling ruins of their once proud city.

“Where are the people?” demanded one. “Why is the Avenue of Jeddaks deserted?”

“And the palace of the jeddak!” exclaimed another. “There are no guards.”

“There is no one!” gasped a woman.

No one commented, as they pushed on eagerly toward the quay. Before they got there they were already straining their eyes out across a barren desert of dead sea bottom where once the waters of Throxeus had rolled.

In silence they continued on to the Avenue of Quays. They simply could not believe the testimony of their own eyes. I cannot recall ever having felt sorrier for any of my fellow men than I did at that moment for these poor people.

“It is gone,” said Kam Han Tor in a scarcely audible whisper.

A woman sobbed. A warrior drew his dagger and plunged it into his own heart.

“And all our people are gone,” said Kam Han Tor. “Our very world is gone.”

They stood there looking out across that desert waste; behind them a dead city that, in their last yesterday, had teemed with life and youth and energy.

And then a strange thing happened. Before my eyes, Kam Han Tor commenced to shrink and crumble. He literally disintegrated, he and the leather of his harness. His weapons clattered to the pavement and lay there in a little pile of dust that had been Kam Han Tor, the brother of a jeddak.

Llana of Gathol pressed close to me and seized my arm. “It is horrible!” she whispered. “Look! Look at the others!”

I looked about me. Singly, in groups of two or three, the men and women of ancient Horz were returning to the dust from which they had sprung—“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust!”

“For all the ages that they have lain in the pits of Horz,” said Pan Dan Chee, “this disintegration has been going slowly on. Only Lum Tar O’s obscene powers gave them a semblance of life. With that removed final dissolution came quickly.”

“That must be the explanation,” I said. “It is well that it is so, for these people never could have found happiness in the Barsoom of today—a dying world, so unlike the glorious world of Barsoom in the full flush of her prime, with her five oceans, her great cities, her happy, prosperous peoples, who, if history speaks the truth, had finally overthrown all the war lords and war mongers and established peace from pole to pole.”

“No,” said Llana of Gathol, “they could never have been happy again. Did you notice what handsome people they were? and the color of their skins was the same as yours, John Carter. But for their blond hair they might have been from your own Earth.”

“There are many blond people on Earth,” I told her. “Maybe, after all the races of Earth have intermarried for many ages, we shall develop a race of red men, as has Barsoom. Who knows?”

Pan Dan Chee was standing looking adoringly at Llana of Gathol. He was so obvious that it was almost painful, and I could see that it annoyed Llana even while it pleased her.

“Come,” I said. “Nothing is to be gained by standing here. My flier is in a courtyard nearby. It will carry three. You will come with me, Pan Dan Chee? I can assure you a welcome in Helium and a post of some nature in the army of the jeddak.”

Pan Dan Chee shook his head. “I must go back to the Citadel,” he said.

“To Ho Ran Kim and death,” I reminded him.

“Yes, to Ho Ran Kim and death,” he said.

“Don’t be a fool, Pan Dan Chee,” I said. “You have acquitted yourself honorably. You cannot kill me, and I know you would not kill Llana of Gathol. We shall go away, carrying the secret of the forgotten people of Horz with us, no matter what you do; but you must know that neither of us would use our knowledge to bring harm to your people. Why then go back to your death uselessly? Come with us.”

He looked straight into the eyes of Llana of Gathol. “Is it your wish that I come with you?” he asked.

“If the alternative means your death,” she replied; “then it is my wish that you come with us.”

A wry smile twisted Pan Dan Chee’s lip, but evidently he saw a ray of hope in her noncommittal answer, for he said to me, “I thank you, John Carter. I will go with you. My sword is yours, always.”

chapter XIII

I HAD NO DIFFICULTY in locating the courtyard where I had landed and left my flier. As we approached it, I saw a number of dead men lying in the avenue. They were sprawled in the grotesque postures of death. Some of them were split wide open from their crowns to their bellies. “The work of green men,” I said.

“These were the men of Hin Abtol,” said Llana of Gathol.

We counted seventeen corpses before we reached the entrance to the courtyard. When I looked in, I stopped, appalled—my flier was not there; but five more dead Panars lay near where it had stood.

“It is gone,” I said.

“Hin Abtol,” said Llana of Gathol. “The coward abandoned his men and fled in your flier. Only two of his warriors succeeded in accompanying him.”

“Perhaps he would have been a fool to remain,” I said. “He would only have met the same death that they met.”

“In like circumstances, John Carter would have been a fool, then,” she shot back.

Perhaps I would, for the truth of the matter is that I like to fight. I suppose it is all wrong, but I cannot help it. Fighting has been my profession during all the life that I can recall. I fought all during the Civil War in the Confederate Army. I fought in other wars before that. I will not bore you with my autobiography. Suffice it to say that I have always been fighting. I do not know how old I am. I recall no childhood. I have always appeared to be about thirty years old. I still do. I do not know from whence I came, nor if I were born of woman as are other men. I have, so far as I know, simply always been. Perhaps I am the materialization of some long dead warrior of another age. Who knows? That might explain my ability to cross the cold, dark void of space which separates Earth from Mars. I do not know.

Pan Dan Chee broke the spell of my reverie. “What now?” he asked.

“A long walk,” I said. “It is fully four thousand haads from here to Gathol, the nearest friendly city.” That would be the equivalent of fifteen hundred miles—a very long walk.

“And only this desert from which to look for subsistence?” asked Pan Dan Chee.

“There will be hills,” I told him. “There will be deep little ravines where moisture lingers and things grow which we can eat; but there may be green men, and there will certainly be banths and other beasts of prey. Are you afraid, Pan Dan Chee?”

“Yes,” he said, “but only for Llana of Gathol. She is a woman—it is no adventure for a woman. Perhaps she could not survive it.”

Llana of Gathol laughed. “You do not know the women of Helium,” she said, “and still less one in whose veins flows the blood of Dejah Thoris and John Carter. Perhaps you will learn before we have reached Gathol.” She stooped and stripped the harness and weapons of a dead Panar from his corpse and buckled them upon herself. The act was more eloquent than words.

“Now we are three good sword arms,” said Pan Dan Chee with a laugh, but we knew that he was not laughing at Llana of Gathol but from admiration of her.

And so we set out, the three of us, on that long trek toward far Gathol—Llana of Gathol and I, of one blood and two worlds, and Pan Dan Chee of still another blood and of an extinct world. We might have seemed ill assorted, but no three people could have been more in harmony with each other—at least at first.

For five days we saw no living thing. We subsisted entirely upon the milk of the mantalia plant, which grows apparently without water, distilling its plentiful supply of milk from the products of the soil, the slight moisture in the air, and the rays of the sun. A single plant of this species will give eight or ten quarts of milk a day. They are scattered across the dead sea bottoms as though by a beneficent Providence, giving both food and drink to man and beast.

My companions might still have died of thirst or starvation had I not been with them, for neither knew that the quite ordinary looking plants which we occasionally passed carried in their stems and branches this life-giving fluid.

We rested in the middle of the day and slept during the middle portion of the nights, taking turns standing guard—a duty which Llana of Gathol insisted on sharing with us.

When we lay down to rest on the sixth night, Llana had the first watch; and as I had the second, I prepared to sleep at once. Pan Dan Chee sat up and talked with Llana.

As I dozed off, I heard him say, “May I call you my princess?”

That, on Barsoom, is the equivalent of a proposal of marriage on Earth. I tried to shut my ears and go to sleep, but I could not but hear her reply.

“You have not fought for me yet,” she said, “and no man may presume to claim a woman of Helium until he has proved his metal.”

“I have had no opportunity to fight for you,” he said.

“Then wait until you have,” she said, shortly; “and now good-night.”

I thought she was a little too short with him. Pan Dan Chee is a nice fellow, and I was sure that he would give a good account of himself when the opportunity arose. She didn’t have to treat him as though he were scum. But then, women have their own ways. As a rule they are unpleasant ways, but they seem the proper ways to win men; so I suppose they must be all right.

Pan Dan Chee walked off a few paces and lay down on the other side of Llana of Gathol. We always managed to keep her between us at all times for her greater protection.

I was awakened later on by a shout and a hideous roar. I leaped to my feet to see Llana of Gathol down on the ground with a huge banth on top of her, and at that instant Pan Dan Chee leaped full upon the back of the mighty carnivore.

It all happened so quickly that I can scarcely visualize it all. I saw Pan Dan Chee dragging at the great beast in an effort to pull it from Llana’s body, and at the same he was plunging his dagger into its side. The banth was roaring hideously as it tried to fight off Pan Dan Chee and at the same time retain its hold upon Llana.

I sprang close in with my short-sword, but it was difficult to find an opening which did not endanger either Llana or Pan Dan Chee. It must have been a very amusing sight; as the four of us were threshing around on the ground, all mixed up, and the banth was roaring and Pan Dan Chee was cursing like a trooper when he wasn’t trying to tell Llana of Gathol how much he loved her.

But at last I got an opening, and drove my short-sword into the heart of the banth. With a final scream and a convulsive shudder, the beast rolled over and lay still.

When I tried to lift Llana from the ground, she leaped to her feet. “Pan Dan Chee!” she cried. “Is he all right? Was he hurt?”

“Of course I’m all right,” said Pan Dan Chee; “but you? How badly are you hurt?”

“I am not hurt at all. You kept the brute so busy it didn’t have a chance to maul me.”

“Thanks be to my ancestors!” exclaimed Pan Dan Chee fervently. Suddenly he turned on her. “Now,” he said, “I have fought for you. What is your answer?”

Llana of Gathol shrugged her pretty shoulders. “You have not fought a man,” she said, “—just a little banth.”

Well, I never did understand women.