See, I have it here," and as she spoke she drew Tan
Gama's short-sword from beneath her sleeping silks and furs.
The warriors sprang to their feet.
"There is something amiss here," cried one.
"'Tis even what I myself thought when Tan Gama left us at the runway,"
said another. "Methought then that his voice sounded strangely."
"Come! let us hasten to the pits."
We waited to hear no more. Slinging my harness into a long single
strap, I lowered Tars Tarkas to the courtyard beneath, and an
instant later dropped to his side.
We had spoken scarcely a dozen words since I had felled Tan Gama
at the cell door and seen in the torch's light the expression of
utter bewilderment upon the great Thark's face.
"By this time," he had said, "I should have learned to wonder at
nothing which John Carter accomplishes." That was all. He did
not need to tell me that he appreciated the friendship which had
prompted me to risk my life to rescue him, nor did he need to say
that he was glad to see me.
This fierce green warrior had been the first to greet me that day,
now twenty years gone, which had witnessed my first advent upon
Mars. He had met me with levelled spear and cruel hatred in his
heart as he charged down upon me, bending low at the side of his
mighty thoat as I stood beside the incubator of his horde upon the
dead sea bottom beyond Korad.
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