Immediately Hor Vastus dispatched a dozen air scouts in as many
directions to search for her. It could not be possible that she
had gone far since we had last seen her. We others stepped to
the deck of the craft that had been sent to fetch us, and a moment
later were upon the Xavarian.
The first man to greet me was Kantos Kan himself. My old friend
had won to the highest place in the navy of Helium, but he was still
to me the same brave comrade who had shared with me the privations
of a Warhoon dungeon, the terrible atrocities of the Great Games,
and later the dangers of our search for Dejah Thoris within the
hostile city of Zodanga.
Then I had been an unknown wanderer upon a strange planet, and he
a simple padwar in the navy of Helium. To-day he commanded all
Helium's great terrors of the skies, and I was a Prince of the
House of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium.
He did not ask me where I had been. Like Hor Vastus, he too dreaded
the truth and would not be the one to wrest a statement from me.
That it must come some time he well knew, but until it came he
seemed satisfied to but know that I was with him once more. He
greeted Carthoris and Tars Tarkas with the keenest delight, but he
asked neither where he had been. He could scarcely keep his hands
off the boy.
"You do not know, John Carter," he said to me, "how we of Helium
love this son of yours.
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