A Princess of Mars

Kantos Kan and I were now pitted against each other but as we

approached to the encounter I whispered to him to prolong the battle

until nearly dark in the hope that we might find some means of escape.

The horde evidently guessed that we had no hearts to fight each other

and so they howled in rage as neither of us placed a fatal thrust.

Just as I saw the sudden coming of dark I whispered to Kantos Kan to

thrust his sword between my left arm and my body. As he did so I

staggered back clasping the sword tightly with my arm and thus fell to

the ground with his weapon apparently protruding from my chest. Kantos

Kan perceived my coup and stepping quickly to my side he placed his

foot upon my neck and withdrawing his sword from my body gave me the

final death blow through the neck which is supposed to sever the

jugular vein, but in this instance the cold blade slipped harmlessly

into the sand of the arena. In the darkness which had now fallen none

could tell but that he had really finished me. I whispered to him to

go and claim his freedom and then look for me in the hills east of the

city, and so he left me.

When the amphitheater had cleared I crept stealthily to the top and as

the great excavation lay far from the plaza and in an untenanted

portion of the great dead city I had little trouble in reaching the

hills beyond.