Straight for his flier
he would leap while those of his comrades who fought near by would
rush to cover his escape.
The therns on their side would hasten to rescue the girl, and in
an instant the two would be swallowed in the vortex of a maelstrom
of yelling devils, hacking and hewing at one another, like fiends
incarnate.
But always, it seemed, were the black pirates of Barsoom victorious,
and the girl, brought miraculously unharmed through the conflict,
borne away into the outer darkness upon the deck of a swift flier.
Fighting similar to that which surrounded us could be heard in
both directions as far as sound carried, and Thuvia told me that
the attacks of the black pirates were usually made simultaneously
along the entire ribbon-like domain of the therns, which circles
the Valley Dor on the outer slopes of the Mountains of Otz.
As the fighting receded from our position for a moment, Thuvia
turned toward me with a question.
"Do you understand now, O Prince," she said, "why a million warriors
guard the domains of the Holy Therns by day and by night?"
"The scene you are witnessing now is but a repetition of what I
have seen enacted a score of times during the fifteen years I have
been a prisoner here. From time immemorial the black pirates of
Barsoom have preyed upon the Holy Therns.
"Yet they never carry their expeditions to a point, as one might
readily believe it was in their power to do, where the extermination
of the race of therns is threatened.
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