"I am not of Barsoom,
nor have I taken yet the voluntary pilgrimage upon the River Iss.
My friend here is Jeddak of all the Tharks, and though he has not
yet expressed a desire to return to the living world, I am taking
him with me from the living lie that hath lured him to this frightful
place.
"I am of another world. I am John Carter, Prince of the House of
Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium. Perchance some faint rumour of me
may have leaked within the confines of your hellish abode."
She smiled.
"Yes," she replied, "naught that passes in the world we have left
is unknown here. I have heard of you, many years ago. The therns
have ofttimes wondered whither you had flown, since you had neither
taken the pilgrimage, nor could be found upon the face of Barsoom."
"Tell me," I said, "and who be you, and why a prisoner, yet with
power over the ferocious beasts of the place that denotes familiarity
and authority far beyond that which might be expected of a prisoner
or a slave?"
"Slave I am," she answered. "For fifteen years a slave in this
terrible place, and now that they have tired of me and become
fearful of the power which my knowledge of their ways has given me
I am but recently condemned to die the death."
She shuddered.
"What death?" I asked.
"The Holy Therns eat human flesh," she answered me; "but only that
which has died beneath the sucking lips of a plant man--flesh from
which the defiling blood of life has been drawn.
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