I turned and saw that she had deliberately slipped to the ground
in the very path of the cruel demons who pursued us, thinking that
by lightening the burden of my mount it might thus be enabled to
bear me to the safety of the hills. Poor child! She should have
known John Carter better than that.
Turning my thoat, I urged him after her, hoping to reach her side
and bear her on again in our hopeless flight. Carthoris must have
glanced behind him at about the same time and taken in the situation,
for by the time I had reached Thuvia's side he was there also, and,
springing from his mount, he threw her upon its back and, turning
the animal's head toward the hills, gave the beast a sharp crack
across the rump with the flat of his sword. Then he attempted to
do the same with mine.
The brave boy's act of chivalrous self-sacrifice filled me with
pride, nor did I care that it had wrested from us our last frail
chance for escape. The Warhoons were now close upon us. Tars Tarkas
and Xodar had discovered our absence and were charging rapidly to
our support. Everything pointed toward a splendid ending of my
second journey to Barsoom. I hated to go out without having seen
my divine Princess, and held her in my arms once again; but if
it were not writ upon the book of Fate that such was to be, then
would I take the most that was coming to me, and in these last few
moments that were to be vouchsafed me before I passed over into that
unguessed future I could at least give such an account of myself
in my chosen vocation as would leave the Warhoons of the South food
for discourse for the next twenty generations.
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