When consciousness returned, and, as I soon learned, I was down but a
moment, I sprang quickly to my feet searching for my sword, and there I
found it, buried to the hilt in the green breast of Zad, who lay stone
dead upon the ochre moss of the ancient sea bottom. As I regained my
full senses I found his weapon piercing my left breast, but only
through the flesh and muscles which cover my ribs, entering near the
center of my chest and coming out below the shoulder. As I had lunged
I had turned so that his sword merely passed beneath the muscles,
inflicting a painful but not dangerous wound.
Removing the blade from my body I also regained my own, and turning my
back upon his ugly carcass, I moved, sick, sore, and disgusted, toward
the chariots which bore my retinue and my belongings. A murmur of
Martian applause greeted me, but I cared not for it.
Bleeding and weak I reached my women, who, accustomed to such
happenings, dressed my wounds, applying the wonderful healing and
remedial agents which make only the most instantaneous of death blows
fatal. Give a Martian woman a chance and death must take a back seat.
They soon had me patched up so that, except for weakness from loss of
blood and a little soreness around the wound, I suffered no great
distress from this thrust which, under earthly treatment, undoubtedly
would have put me flat on my back for days.
As soon as they were through with me I hastened to the chariot of Dejah
Thoris, where I found my poor Sola with her chest swathed in bandages,
but apparently little the worse for her encounter with Sarkoja, whose
dagger it seemed had struck the edge of one of Sola's metal breast
ornaments and, thus deflected, had inflicted but a slight flesh wound.
As I approached I found Dejah Thoris lying prone upon her silks and
furs, her lithe form wracked with sobs. She did not notice my
presence, nor did she hear me speaking with Sola, who was standing a
short distance from the vehicle.
"Is she injured?" I asked of Sola, indicating Dejah Thoris by an
inclination of my head.
"No," she answered, "she thinks that you are dead."
"And that her grandmother's cat may now have no one to polish its
teeth?" I queried, smiling.
"I think you wrong her, John Carter," said Sola. "I do not understand
either her ways or yours, but I am sure the granddaughter of ten
thousand jeddaks would never grieve like this over any who held but the
highest claim upon her affections. They are a proud race, but they are
just, as are all Barsoomians, and you must have hurt or wronged her
grievously that she will not admit your existence living, though she
mourns you dead.