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There we found several other guards, and with them the red Martian youth who occupied another cell upon Shador. The journey I had taken to the Temple of Issus on the preceding day was repeated. The guards kept the red boy and myself separated, so that we had no opportunity to continue the conversation that had been interrupted the previous night. The youth's face had haunted me.
During the trip from Shador I had had no opportunity to talk with my fellow-prisoner, but now that we were safely within the barred paddock our guards abated their watchfulness, with the result that I found myself able to approach the red Martian youth for whom I felt such a strange attraction. "What is the object of this assembly?" I asked him.
Take him away out of the sight of my divine eyes." Slowly and with high held head the proud Xodar turned and stalked from the chamber. Issus rose and turned to leave the room by another exit. Turning to me, she said: "You shall be returned to Shador for the present. Later Issus will see the manner of your fighting. Go." Then she disappeared, followed by her retinue.
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." "But we cannot escape even from the four walls of our prison," urged Xodar.
I found him in the prison of Shador, on the Sea of Omean, in the land of the First Born." "I know not any of these places, John Carter. Be they upon Barsoom?" "Upon and below, my friend; but wait until we shall have made good our escape, and you shall hear the strangest narrative that ever a Barsoomian of the outer world gave ear to.
"The woman pleases me," said the thin, wavering voice again after a few moments of silence. "She shall serve me the allotted time. The man you may return to the Isle of Shador which lies against the northern shore of the Sea of Omean.
"You may trust me to find a way out of the prison of Shador, and I think, once out, that we shall find no great difficulty in arming ourselves once more in a country which abounds so plentifully in armed men." "As you say," he replied with a smile and shrug. "I could not follow another leader who inspired greater confidence than you. Come, let us put your ruse to the test."
Not a muscle twitched, nor a tremor shook his giant frame as a soldier of the guard roughly stripped his gorgeous trappings from him. "Begone," screamed the infuriated little old woman. "Begone, but instead of the light of the gardens of Issus let you serve as a slave of this slave who conquered you in the prison on the Isle of Shador in the Sea of Omean.
"But how will you know that any craft is moored near Shador? The windows are far beyond our reach." "Not so, friend Xodar; look!" With a bound I sprang to the bars of the window opposite us, and took a quick survey of the scene without. Several small craft and two large battleships lay within a hundred yards of Shador.
"This information you ask," said Xodar, "will be all very valuable AFTER we get out, but nothing that you have asked has any bearing on that first and most important consideration." "We will get out all right," I replied, laughing. "Leave that to me." "When shall we make the attempt?" he asked. "The first night that finds a small craft moored near the shore of Shador," I replied.
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