You are a brave man, Xodar. It is your own affair if you wish to
be persecuted and humiliated; but were I you I should assert my
manhood and defy my enemies."
"I have been thinking very hard, John Carter," he said, "of all
the new ideas you gave me a few hours since. Little by little I
have been piecing together the things that you said which sounded
blasphemous to me then with the things that I have seen in my past
life and dared not even think about for fear of bringing down upon
me the wrath of Issus.
"I believe now that she is a fraud; no more divine than you or I.
More I am willing to concede--that the First Born are no holier
than the Holy Therns, nor the Holy Therns more holy than the red
men.
"The whole fabric of our religion is based on superstitious belief
in lies that have been foisted upon us for ages by those directly
above us, to whose personal profit and aggrandizement it was to
have us continue to believe as they wished us to believe.
"I am ready to cast off the ties that have bound me. I am ready to
defy Issus herself; but what will it avail us? Be the First Born
gods or mortals, they are a powerful race, and we are as fast in
their clutches as though we were already dead. There is no escape."
"I have escaped from bad plights in the past, my friend," I replied;
"nor while life is in me shall I despair of escaping from the Isle
of Shador and the Sea of Omean.
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