And Thuvia, and Phaidor, daughter of
Matai Shang. They each love John Carter. Ha-ah! but it is droll.
Together for a year they will meditate within the Temple of the
Sun, but ere the year is quite gone there will be no more food for
them. Ho-oh! what divine entertainment," and she licked the froth
from her cruel lips. "There will be no more food--except each
other. Ha-ah! Ha-ah!"
The horror of the suggestion nearly paralysed me. To this awful
fate the creature within my power had condemned my Princess. I
trembled in the ferocity of my rage. As a terrier shakes a rat I
shook Issus, Goddess of Life Eternal.
"Countermand your orders!" I cried. "Recall the condemned.
Haste, or you die!"
"It is too late. Ha-ah! Ha-ah!" and then she commenced her
gibbering and shrieking again.
Almost of its own volition, my dagger flew up above that putrid
heart. But something stayed my hand, and I am now glad that it
did. It were a terrible thing to have struck down a woman with
one's own hand. But a fitter fate occurred to me for this false
deity.
"First Born," I cried, turning to those who stood within the
chamber, "you have seen to-day the impotency of Issus--the gods are
impotent. Issus is no god. She is a cruel and wicked old woman,
who has deceived and played upon you for ages. Take her. John
Carter, Prince of Helium, would not contaminate his hand with
her blood," and with that I pushed the raving beast, whom a short
half-hour before a whole world had worshipped as divine, from the
platform of her throne into the waiting clutches of her betrayed
and vengeful people.
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