"What?"
"That even Phaidor, daughter of the Master of Life and Death, is
mortal," I said smiling.
"There is immortality only in Issus," she replied. "And Issus is
for the race of therns alone. Thus am I immortal."
I caught a fleeting grin passing across the features of the black
as he heard her words. I did not then understand why he smiled.
Later I was to learn, and she, too, in a most horrible manner.
"If the other thing you have just learned," she continued, "has
led to as erroneous deductions as the first you are little richer
in knowledge than you were before."
"The other," I replied, "is that our dusky friend here does not hail
from the nearer moon--he was like to have died at a few thousand
feet above Barsoom. Had we continued the five thousand miles that
lie between Thuria and the planet he would have been but the frozen
memory of a man."
Phaidor looked at the black in evident astonishment.
"If you are not of Thuria, then where?" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders and turned his eyes elsewhere, but did
not reply.
The girl stamped her little foot in a peremptory manner.
"The daughter of Matai Shang is not accustomed to having her queries
remain unanswered," she said. "One of the lesser breed should feel
honoured that a member of the holy race that was born to inherit
life eternal should deign even to notice him.
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