"That will depend largely upon Issus. So long as she does not send
for you and reveal her face to you, you may live on for years in
as mild a form of bondage as I can arrange for you."
"Why should she send for me?" I asked.
"The men of the lower orders she often uses for various purposes of
amusement. Such a fighter as you, for example, would render fine
sport in the monthly rites of the temple. There are men pitted
against men, and against beasts for the edification of Issus and
the replenishment of her larder."
"She eats human flesh?" I asked. Not in horror, however, for since
my recently acquired knowledge of the Holy Therns I was prepared
for anything in this still less accessible heaven, where all was
evidently dictated by a single omnipotence; where ages of narrow
fanaticism and self-worship had eradicated all the broader humanitarian
instincts that the race might once have possessed.
They were a people drunk with power and success, looking upon the
other inhabitants of Mars as we look upon the beasts of the field
and the forest. Why then should they not eat of the flesh of the
lower orders whose lives and characters they no more understood
than do we the inmost thoughts and sensibilities of the cattle we
slaughter for our earthly tables.
"She eats only the flesh of the best bred of the Holy Therns and
the red Barsoomians.
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