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But as the body of my antagonist sank an inert mass to
the floor a cry of warning broke from one of the female prisoners.

"Turn! Turn! Behind you!" she shrieked, and as I wheeled
at the first note of her shrill cry I found myself facing a
second man of the same race as he who lay at my feet.

The fellow had crept stealthily from a dark corridor and
was almost upon me with raised sword ere I saw him. Tars
Tarkas was nowhere in sight and the secret panel in the wall,
through which I had come, was closed.

How I wished that he were by my side now! I had fought
almost continuously for many hours; I had passed through such
experiences and adventures as must sap the vitality of man,
and with all this I had not eaten for nearly twenty-four hours,
nor slept.

I was fagged out, and for the first time in years felt a
question as to my ability to cope with an antagonist; but
there was naught else for it than to engage my man, and
that as quickly and ferociously as lay in me, for my only
salvation was to rush him off his feet by the impetuosity of
my attack--I could not hope to win a long-drawn-out battle.

But the fellow was evidently of another mind, for he backed
and parried and parried and sidestepped until I was almost
completely fagged from the exertion of attempting to finish him.

He was a more adroit swordsman, if possible, than my previous foe,
and I must admit that he led me a pretty chase and in the end
came near to making a sorry fool of me--and a dead one into the bargain.

I could feel myself growing weaker and weaker, until at
length objects commenced to blur before my eyes and I
staggered and blundered about more asleep than awake,
and then it was that he worked his pretty little coup
that came near to losing me my life.

He had backed me around so that I stood in front of the
corpse of his fellow, and then he rushed me suddenly so that
I was forced back upon it, and as my heel struck it the
impetus of my body flung me backward across the dead man.

My head struck the hard pavement with a resounding
whack, and to that alone I owe my life, for it cleared my
brain and the pain roused my temper, so that I was equal
for the moment to tearing my enemy to pieces with my bare
hands, and I verily believe that I should have attempted it had
not my right hand, in the act of raising my body from the
ground, come in contact with a bit of cold metal.

As the eyes of the layman so is the hand of the fighting man
when it comes in contact with an implement of his vocation,
and thus I did not need to look or reason to know that
the dead man's revolver, lying where it had fallen when I
struck it from his grasp, was at my disposal.

The fellow whose ruse had put me down was springing toward me,
the point of his gleaming blade directed straight at my heart,
and as he came there rang from his lips the cruel and mocking peal
of laughter that I had heard within the Chamber of Mystery.

And so he died, his thin lips curled in the snarl of his hateful
laugh, and a bullet from the revolver of his dead companion
bursting in his heart.

His body, borne by the impetus of his headlong rush, plunged upon me.
The hilt of his sword must have struck my head, for with the impact
of the corpse I lost consciousness.

CHAPTER IV

THUVIA

It was the sound of conflict that aroused me once more to
the realities of life. For a moment I could neither place my
surroundings nor locate the sounds which had aroused me.
And then from beyond the blank wall beside which I lay I
heard the shuffling of feet, the snarling of grim beasts, the
clank of metal accoutrements, and the heavy breathing of a man.

As I rose to my feet I glanced hurriedly about the chamber
in which I had just encountered such a warm reception. The
prisoners and the savage brutes rested in their chains by the
opposite wall eyeing me with varying expressions of curiosity,
sullen rage, surprise, and hope.

The latter emotion seemed plainly evident upon the handsome
and intelligent face of the young red Martian woman whose cry
of warning had been instrumental in saving my life.

She was the perfect type of that remarkably beautiful race
whose outward appearance is identical with the more god-like
races of Earth men, except that this higher race of Martians
is of a light reddish copper colour. As she was entirely
unadorned I could not even guess her station in life, though
it was evident that she was either a prisoner or slave in her
present environment.

It was several seconds before the sounds upon the opposite
side of the partition jolted my slowly returning faculties into
a realization of their probable import, and then of a sudden I
grasped the fact that they were caused by Tars Tarkas in
what was evidently a desperate struggle with wild beasts or
savage men.

With a cry of encouragement I threw my weight against the
secret door, but as well have assayed the down-hurling of the
cliffs themselves. Then I sought feverishly for the secret of the
revolving panel, but my search was fruitless, and I was about
to raise my longsword against the sullen gold when the young
woman prisoner called out to me.

"Save thy sword, O Mighty Warrior, for thou shalt need it
more where it will avail to some purpose--shatter it not
against senseless metal which yields better to the lightest finger
touch of one who knows its secret."

"Know you the secret of it then?" I asked.

"Yes; release me and I will give you entrance to the other
horror chamber, if you wish. The keys to my fetters are upon
the first dead of thy foemen. But why would you return
to face again the fierce banth, or whatever other form of
destruction they have loosed within that awful trap?"

"Because my friend fights there alone," I answered, as I
hastily sought and found the keys upon the carcass of the
dead custodian of this grim chamber of horrors.

There were many keys upon the oval ring, but the fair Martian maid
quickly selected that which sprung the great lock at her waist,
and freed she hurried toward the secret panel.

Again she sought out a key upon the ring. This time a slender,
needle-like affair which she inserted in an almost invisible hole
in the wall. Instantly the door swung upon its pivot, and the
contiguous section of the floor upon which I was standing
carried me with it into the chamber where Tars Tarkas fought.

The great Thark stood with his back against an angle of the
walls, while facing him in a semi-circle a half-dozen huge
monsters crouched waiting for an opening. Their blood-
streaked heads and shoulders testified to the cause of their
wariness as well as to the swordsmanship of the green warrior
whose glossy hide bore the same mute but eloquent witness to
the ferocity of the attacks that he had so far withstood.

Sharp talons and cruel fangs had torn leg, arm, and breast
literally to ribbons. So weak was he from continued exertion
and loss of blood that but for the supporting wall I doubt
that he even could have stood erect. But with the tenacity and
indomitable courage of his kind he still faced his cruel and
relentless foes--the personification of that ancient proverb of
his tribe: "Leave to a Thark his head and one hand and
he may yet conquer."

As he saw me enter, a grim smile touched those grim lips
of his, but whether the smile signified relief or merely
amusement at the sight of my own bloody and dishevelled
condition I do not know.

As I was about to spring into the conflict with my sharp
long-sword I felt a gentle hand upon my shoulder and turning
found, to my surprise, that the young woman had followed me
into the chamber.

"Wait," she whispered, "leave them to me," and pushing me advanced,
all defenceless and unarmed, upon the snarling banths.

When quite close to them she spoke a single Martian word
in low but peremptory tones. Like lightning the great beasts
wheeled upon her, and I looked to see her torn to pieces
before I could reach her side, but instead the creatures slunk
to her feet like puppies that expect a merited whipping.

Again she spoke to them, but in tones so low I could not
catch the words, and then she started toward the opposite side
of the chamber with the six mighty monsters trailing at heel.
One by one she sent them through the secret panel into the
room beyond, and when the last had passed from the chamber
where we stood in wide-eyed amazement she turned and smiled
at us and then herself passed through, leaving us alone.

For a moment neither of us spoke. Then Tars Tarkas said:

"I heard the fighting beyond the partition through which you
passed, but I did not fear for you, John Carter, until I heard
the report of a revolver shot. I knew that there lived no man
upon all Barsoom who could face you with naked steel and live,
but the shot stripped the last vestige of hope from me,
since you I knew to be without firearms. Tell me of it."

I did as he bade, and then together we sought the secret
panel through which I had just entered the apartment--the
one at the opposite end of the room from that through which
the girl had led her savage companions.

To our disappointment the panel eluded our every effort to
negotiate its secret lock. We felt that once beyond it we
might look with some little hope of success for a passage to
the outside world.

The fact that the prisoners within were securely chained
led us to believe that surely there must be an avenue of
escape from the terrible creatures which inhabited this
unspeakable place.

Again and again we turned from one door to another,
from the baffling golden panel at one end of the chamber to its
mate at the other--equally baffling.

When we had about given up all hope one of the panels
turned silently toward us, and the young woman who had led
away the banths stood once more beside us.

"Who are you?" she asked, "and what your mission, that
you have the temerity to attempt to escape from the Valley
Dor and the death you have chosen?"

"I have chosen no death, maiden," I replied. "I am not of
Barsoom, nor have I taken yet the voluntary pilgrimage upon
the River Iss. My friend here is Jeddak of all the Tharks,
and though he has not yet expressed a desire to return to
the living world, I am taking him with me from the living
lie that hath lured him to this frightful place.

"I am of another world. I am John Carter, Prince of the
House of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium. Perchance some
faint rumour of me may have leaked within the confines of
your hellish abode."

She smiled.

"Yes," she replied, "naught that passes in the world we have
left is unknown here. I have heard of you, many years ago.
The therns have ofttimes wondered whither you had flown,
since you had neither taken the pilgrimage, nor could
be found upon the face of Barsoom."

"Tell me," I said, "and who be you, and why a prisoner,
yet with power over the ferocious beasts of the place that
denotes familiarity and authority far beyond that which might
be expected of a prisoner or a slave?"

"Slave I am," she answered. "For fifteen years a slave in
this terrible place, and now that they have tired of me and
become fearful of the power which my knowledge of their ways
has given me I am but recently condemned to die the death."

She shuddered.

"What death?" I asked.

"The Holy Therns eat human flesh," she answered me; "but
only that which has died beneath the sucking lips of a plant
man--flesh from which the defiling blood of life has been
drawn. And to this cruel end I have been condemned. It
was to be within a few hours, had your advent not caused an
interruption of their plans."

"Was it then Holy Therns who felt the weight of John
Carter's hand?" I asked.

"Oh, no; those whom you laid low are lesser therns; but
of the same cruel and hateful race. The Holy Therns abide
upon the outer slopes of these grim hills, facing the broad
world from which they harvest their victims and their spoils.

"Labyrinthine passages connect these caves with the luxurious
palaces of the Holy Therns, and through them pass upon their
many duties the lesser therns, and hordes of slaves,
and prisoners, and fierce beasts; the grim inhabitants of
this sunless world.

"There be within this vast network of winding passages
and countless chambers men, women, and beasts who, born
within its dim and gruesome underworld, have never seen
the light of day--nor ever shall.

"They are kept to do the bidding of the race of therns; to
furnish at once their sport and their sustenance.

"Now and again some hapless pilgrim, drifting out upon
the silent sea from the cold Iss, escapes the plant men and
the great white apes that guard the Temple of Issus and falls
into the remorseless clutches of the therns; or, as was my
misfortune, is coveted by the Holy Thern who chances to be
upon watch in the balcony above the river where it issues
from the bowels of the mountains through the cliffs of gold
to empty into the Lost Sea of Korus.

"All who reach the Valley Dor are, by custom, the rightful
prey of the plant men and the apes, while their arms and
ornaments become the portion of the therns; but if one escapes
the terrible denizens of the valley for even a few hours
the therns may claim such a one as their own. And again
the Holy Thern on watch, should he see a victim he covets,
often tramples upon the rights of the unreasoning brutes of
the valley and takes his prize by foul means if he cannot
gain it by fair.

"It is said that occasionally some deluded victim of
Barsoomian superstition will so far escape the clutches of
the countless enemies that beset his path from the moment that
he emerges from the subterranean passage through which the
Iss flows for a thousand miles before it enters the Valley Dor
as to reach the very walls of the Temple of Issus; but what
fate awaits one there not even the Holy Therns may guess,
for who has passed within those gilded walls never has
returned to unfold the mysteries they have held since the
beginning of time.

"The Temple of Issus is to the therns what the Valley
Dor is imagined by the peoples of the outer world to be to
them; it is the ultimate haven of peace, refuge, and happiness
to which they pass after this life and wherein an eternity of
eternities is spent amidst the delights of the flesh which appeal
most strongly to this race of mental giants and moral pygmies."

"The Temple of Issus is, I take it, a heaven within a
heaven," I said. "Let us hope that there it will be meted to
the therns as they have meted it here unto others."

"Who knows?" the girl murmured.

"The therns, I judge from what you have said, are no
less mortal than we; and yet have I always heard them spoken
of with the utmost awe and reverence by the people of
Barsoom, as one might speak of the gods themselves."

"The therns are mortal," she replied. "They die from the
same causes as you or I might: those who do not live their
allotted span of life, one thousand years, when by the authority
of custom they may take their way in happiness through the
long tunnel that leads to Issus.

"Those who die before are supposed to spend the balance
of their allotted time in the image of a plant man, and it
is for this reason that the plant men are held sacred by the
therns, since they believe that each of these hideous creatures
was formerly a thern."

"And should a plant man die?" I asked.

"Should he die before the expiration of the thousand years
from the birth of the thern whose immortality abides within
him then the soul passes into a great white ape, but should
the ape die short of the exact hour that terminates the thousand
years the soul is for ever lost and passes for all eternity
into the carcass of the slimy and fearsome silian whose wriggling
thousands seethe the silent sea beneath the hurtling moons when
the sun has gone and strange shapes walk through the Valley Dor."

"We sent several Holy Therns to the silians to-day, then,"
said Tars Tarkas, laughing.

"And so will your death be the more terrible when it comes,"
said the maiden. "And come it will--you cannot escape."

"One has escaped, centuries ago," I reminded her, "and
what has been done may be done again."

"It is useless even to try," she answered hopelessly.

"But try we shall," I cried, and you shall go with us, if you wish."

"To be put to death by mine own people, and render
my memory a disgrace to my family and my nation? A
Prince of the House of Tardos Mors should know better
than to suggest such a thing."

Tars Tarkas listened in silence, but I could feel his eyes
riveted upon me and I knew that he awaited my answer as one might
listen to the reading of his sentence by the foreman of a jury.

What I advised the girl to do would seal our fate as well, since
if I bowed to the inevitable decree of age-old superstition we must
all remain and meet our fate in some horrible form within this awful
abode of horror and cruelty.

"We have the right to escape if we can," I answered.
"Our own moral senses will not be offended if we succeed,
for we know that the fabled life of love and peace in the
blessed Valley of Dor is a rank and wicked deception. We
know that the valley is not sacred; we know that the Holy
Therns are not holy; that they are a race of cruel and
heartless mortals, knowing no more of the real life to come
than we do.

"Not only is it our right to bend every effort to escape
--it is a solemn duty from which we should not shrink even
though we know that we should be reviled and tortured by
our own peoples when we returned to them.

"Only thus may we carry the truth to those without, and though
the likelihood of our narrative being given credence is,
I grant you, remote, so wedded are mortals to their stupid
infatuation for impossible superstitions, we should be
craven cowards indeed were we to shirk the plain duty
which confronts us.

"Again there is a chance that with the weight of the testimony
of several of us the truth of our statements may be accepted,
and at least a compromise effected which will result in the
dispatching of an expedition of investigation to this
hideous mockery of heaven."

Both the girl and the green warrior stood silent in thought for
some moments. The former it was who eventually broke the silence.

"Never had I considered the matter in that light before,"
she said. "Indeed would I give my life a thousand times if I
could but save a single soul from the awful life that I have
led in this cruel place. Yes, you are right, and I will go with
you as far as we can go; but I doubt that we ever shall escape."

I turned an inquiring glance toward the Thark.

"To the gates of Issus, or to the bottom of Korus," spoke the
green warrior; "to the snows to the north or to the snows
to the south, Tars Tarkas follows where John Carter leads.
I have spoken."

"Come, then," I cried, "we must make the start, for we
could not be further from escape than we now are in the
heart of this mountain and within the four walls of this
chamber of death."

"Come, then," said the girl, "but do not flatter yourself that you
can find no worse place than this within the territory of the therns."

So saying she swung the secret panel that separated us
from the apartment in which I had found her, and we stepped
through once more into the presence of the other prisoners.

There were in all ten red Martians, men and women, and
when we had briefly explained our plan they decided to join
forces with us, though it was evident that it was with some
considerable misgivings that they thus tempted fate by
opposing an ancient superstition, even though each knew
through cruel experience the fallacy of its entire fabric.

Thuvia, the girl whom I had first freed, soon had the
others at liberty. Tars Tarkas and I stripped the bodies of the
two therns of their weapons, which included swords, daggers,
and two revolvers of the curious and deadly type manufactured
by the red Martians.

We distributed the weapons as far as they would go among
our followers, giving the firearms to two of the women;
Thuvia being one so armed.

With the latter as our guide we set off rapidly but cautiously
through a maze of passages, crossing great chambers hewn from
the solid metal of the cliff, following winding corridors,
ascending steep inclines, and now and again concealing ourselves
in dark recesses at the sound of approaching footsteps.

Our destination, Thuvia said, was a distant storeroom
where arms and ammunition in plenty might be found.
From there she was to lead us to the summit of the cliffs,
from where it would require both wondrous wit and mighty
fighting to win our way through the very heart of the
stronghold of the Holy Therns to the world without.

"And even then, O Prince," she cried, "the arm of the
Holy Thern is long. It reaches to every nation of Barsoom.
His secret temples are hidden in the heart of every community.
Wherever we go should we escape we shall find that word of our
coming has preceded us, and death awaits us before we may
pollute the air with our blasphemies."

We had proceeded for possibly an hour without serious
interruption, and Thuvia had just whispered to me that we
were approaching our first destination, when on entering a
great chamber we came upon a man, evidently a thern.

He wore in addition to his leathern trappings and jewelled
ornaments a great circlet of gold about his brow in the exact
centre of which was set an immense stone, the exact counterpart
of that which I had seen upon the breast of the little old
man at the atmosphere plant nearly twenty years before.

It is the one priceless jewel of Barsoom. Only two are
known to exist, and these were worn as the insignia of their
rank and position by the two old men in whose charge was
placed the operation of the great engines which pump the
artificial atmosphere to all parts of Mars from the huge
atmosphere plant, the secret to whose mighty portals placed
in my possession the ability to save from immediate extinction
the life of a whole world.

The stone worn by the thern who confronted us was of
about the same size as that which I had seen before; an inch
in diameter I should say. It scintillated nine different and
distinct rays; the seven primary colours of our earthly prism
and the two rays which are unknown upon Earth, but whose
wondrous beauty is indescribable.

As the thern saw us his eyes narrowed to two nasty slits.

"Stop!" he cried. "What means this, Thuvia?"

For answer the girl raised her revolver and fired point-
blank at him. Without a sound he sank to the earth, dead.

"Beast!" she hissed. "After all these years I am at last revenged."

Then as she turned toward me, evidently with a word of explanation
on her lips, her eyes suddenly widened as they rested upon me,
and with a little exclamation she started toward me.

"O Prince," she cried, "Fate is indeed kind to us. The way
is still difficult, but through this vile thing upon the floor
we may yet win to the outer world. Notest thou not the
remarkable resemblance between this Holy Thern and thyself?"

The man was indeed of my precise stature, nor were his
eyes and features unlike mine; but his hair was a mass of
flowing yellow locks, like those of the two I had killed,
while mine is black and close cropped.

"What of the resemblance?" I asked the girl Thuvia. "Do
you wish me with my black, short hair to pose as a yellow-
haired priest of this infernal cult?"

She smiled, and for answer approached the body of the
man she had slain, and kneeling beside it removed the circlet
of gold from the forehead, and then to my utter amazement
lifted the entire scalp bodily from the corpse's head.

Rising, she advanced to my side and placing the yellow
wig over my black hair, crowned me with the golden circlet
set with the magnificent gem.

"Now don his harness, Prince," she said, "and you may pass
where you will in the realms of the therns, for Sator Throg
was a Holy Thern of the Tenth Cycle, and mighty among his kind."

As I stooped to the dead man to do her bidding I noted
that not a hair grew upon his head, which was quite as
bald as an egg.

"They are all thus from birth," explained Thuvia noting my
surprise. "The race from which they sprang were crowned
with a luxuriant growth of golden hair, but for many ages
the present race has been entirely bald. The wig, however,
has come to be a part of their apparel, and so important a part
do they consider it that it is cause for the deepest disgrace
were a thern to appear in public without it."

In another moment I stood garbed in the habiliments of a Holy Thern.

At Thuvia's suggestion two of the released prisoners bore
the body of the dead thern upon their shoulders with us as
we continued our journey toward the storeroom, which we
reached without further mishap.

Here the keys which Thuvia bore from the dead thern of
the prison vault were the means of giving us immediate
entrance to the chamber, and very quickly we were
thoroughly outfitted with arms and ammunition.

By this time I was so thoroughly fagged out that I could
go no further, so I threw myself upon the floor, bidding Tars
Tarkas to do likewise, and cautioning two of the released
prisoners to keep careful watch.

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