A Princess of Mars

In the same deathly silence I grasped Dejah Thoris by the hand, and

motioning Sola to follow we sped noiselessly from the chamber and to

the floor above. Unseen we reached a rear window and with the straps

and leather of my trappings I lowered, first Sola and then Dejah Thoris

to the ground below. Dropping lightly after them I drew them rapidly

around the court in the shadows of the buildings, and thus we returned

over the same course I had so recently followed from the distant

boundary of the city.

We finally came upon my thoats in the courtyard where I had left them,

and placing the trappings upon them we hastened through the building to

the avenue beyond. Mounting, Sola upon one beast, and Dejah Thoris

behind me upon the other, we rode from the city of Thark through the

hills to the south.

Instead of circling back around the city to the northwest and toward

the nearest waterway which lay so short a distance from us, we turned

to the northeast and struck out upon the mossy waste across which, for

two hundred dangerous and weary miles, lay another main artery leading

to Helium.

No word was spoken until we had left the city far behind, but I could

hear the quiet sobbing of Dejah Thoris as she clung to me with her dear

head resting against my shoulder.

"If we make it, my chieftain, the debt of Helium will be a mighty one;

greater than she can ever pay you; and should we not make it," she

continued, "the debt is no less, though Helium will never know, for you

have saved the last of our line from worse than death."

I did not answer, but instead reached to my side and pressed the little

fingers of her I loved where they clung to me for support, and then, in

unbroken silence, we sped over the yellow, moonlit moss; each of us

occupied with his own thoughts. For my part I could not be other than

joyful had I tried, with Dejah Thoris' warm body pressed close to mine,

and with all our unpassed danger my heart was singing as gaily as

though we were already entering the gates of Helium.

Our earlier plans had been so sadly upset that we now found ourselves

without food or drink, and I alone was armed. We therefore urged our

beasts to a speed that must tell on them sorely before we could hope to

sight the ending of the first stage of our journey.

We rode all night and all the following day with only a few short

rests. On the second night both we and our animals were completely

fagged, and so we lay down upon the moss and slept for some five or six

hours, taking up the journey once more before daylight. All the

following day we rode, and when, late in the afternoon we had sighted

no distant trees, the mark of the great waterways throughout all

Barsoom, the terrible truth flashed upon us--we were lost.