A Princess of Mars

Slowly I regained my composure and finally essayed again to attempt to

remove the keys from the dead body of my former jailer. But as I

reached out into the darkness to locate it I found to my horror that it

was gone. Then the truth flashed on me; the owners of those gleaming

eyes had dragged my prize away from me to be devoured in their

neighboring lair; as they had been waiting for days, for weeks, for

months, through all this awful eternity of my imprisonment to drag my

dead carcass to their feast.

For two days no food was brought me, but then a new messenger appeared

and my incarceration went on as before, but not again did I allow my

reason to be submerged by the horror of my position.

Shortly after this episode another prisoner was brought in and chained

near me. By the dim torch light I saw that he was a red Martian and I

could scarcely await the departure of his guards to address him. As

their retreating footsteps died away in the distance, I called out

softly the Martian word of greeting, kaor.

"Who are you who speaks out of the darkness?" he answered "John Carter, a friend of the red men of Helium."

"I am of Helium," he said, "but I do not recall your name."

And then I told him my story as I have written it here, omitting only

any reference to my love for Dejah Thoris. He was much excited by the

news of Helium's princess and seemed quite positive that she and Sola

could easily have reached a point of safety from where they left me.

He said that he knew the place well because the defile through which

the Warhoon warriors had passed when they discovered us was the only

one ever used by them when marching to the south.

"Dejah Thoris and Sola entered the hills not five miles from a great

waterway and are now probably quite safe," he assured me.

My fellow prisoner was Kantos Kan, a padwar (lieutenant) in the navy of

Helium. He had been a member of the ill-fated expedition which had

fallen into the hands of the Tharks at the time of Dejah Thoris'

capture, and he briefly related the events which followed the defeat of

the battleships.

Badly injured and only partially manned they had limped slowly toward

Helium, but while passing near the city of Zodanga, the capital of

Helium's hereditary enemies among the red men of Barsoom, they had been

attacked by a great body of war vessels and all but the craft to which

Kantos Kan belonged were either destroyed or captured. His vessel was

chased for days by three of the Zodangan war ships but finally escaped

during the darkness of a moonless night.