For ten days the hordes of Thark and their wild allies were feasted and

entertained, and, then, loaded with costly presents and escorted by ten

thousand soldiers of Helium commanded by Mors Kajak, they started on

the return journey to their own lands. The jed of lesser Helium with a

small party of nobles accompanied them all the way to Thark to cement

more closely the new bonds of peace and friendship.

Sola also accompanied Tars Tarkas, her father, who before all his

chieftains had acknowledged her as his daughter.

Three weeks later, Mors Kajak and his officers, accompanied by Tars

Tarkas and Sola, returned upon a battleship that had been dispatched to

Thark to fetch them in time for the ceremony which made Dejah Thoris

and John Carter one.

For nine years I served in the councils and fought in the armies of

Helium as a prince of the house of Tardos Mors. The people seemed

never to tire of heaping honors upon me, and no day passed that did not

bring some new proof of their love for my princess, the incomparable

Dejah Thoris.

In a golden incubator upon the roof of our palace lay a snow-white egg.

For nearly five years ten soldiers of the jeddak's Guard had constantly

stood over it, and not a day passed when I was in the city that Dejah

Thoris and I did not stand hand in hand before our little shrine

planning for the future, when the delicate shell should break.

Vivid in my memory is the picture of the last night as we sat there

talking in low tones of the strange romance which had woven our lives

together and of this wonder which was coming to augment our happiness

and fulfill our hopes.

In the distance we saw the bright-white light of an approaching

airship, but we attached no special significance to so common a sight.

Like a bolt of lightning it raced toward Helium until its very speed

bespoke the unusual.

Flashing the signals which proclaimed it a dispatch bearer for the

jeddak, it circled impatiently awaiting the tardy patrol boat which

must convoy it to the palace docks.

Ten minutes after it touched at the palace a message called me to the

council chamber, which I found filling with the members of that body.

On the raised platform of the throne was Tardos Mors, pacing back and

forth with tense-drawn face. When all were in their seats he turned

toward us.

"This morning," he said, "word reached the several governments of

Barsoom that the keeper of the atmosphere plant had made no wireless

report for two days, nor had almost ceaseless calls upon him from a

score of capitals elicited a sign of response.

"The ambassadors of the other nations asked us to take the matter in

hand and hasten the assistant keeper to the plant. All day a thousand

cruisers have been searching for him until just now one of them returns

bearing his dead body, which was found in the pits beneath his house

horribly mutilated by some assassin.




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