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"At the end of that time, as you know, she shall be discarded, as is the law among us, but not, as is usual, to lead a quiet and honored life as high priestess of some hallowed shrine. Instead, Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, shall become the plaything of my lieutenants perhaps of thy most hated enemy, Thurid, the black dator."
Should Matai Shang die before I reached the deck my chances of ever reaching it would be slender indeed, for the black dator need but cut the rope above me to be freed from me forever, for the vessel had drifted across the brink of a chasm into whose yawning depths my body would drop to be crushed to a shapeless pulp should Thurid reach the rope now.
Thurid paid not the slightest attention to the screaming things that either menaced or pleaded with him as the mood directed them evidently he was familiar with the horrid sights that surrounded him. He continued up the river for perhaps a mile; and then, crossing over to the left bank, drew his craft up on a low ledge that lay almost on a level with the water.
Instead only a feeble glow emanated from small and scattered patches of phosphorescent rock in wall and roof. Directly before me the river ran into this smaller chamber through three separate arched openings. Thurid and the therns were nowhere to be seen into which of the dark holes had they disappeared?
Then, of a sudden, one of them, a woman, held her arms out toward me, and even at that great distance I could see that her lips moved it was Dejah Thoris, my ever beautiful and ever youthful Princess of Helium. With her were Thuvia of Ptarth, Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang, and Thurid, and the Father of Therns, and the three lesser therns that had accompanied them.
It was of the strangely beautiful modern Barsoomian style of architecture, its entire surface hand carved in bold relief with intricate and fanciful designs. Thirty feet above the courtyard and overlooking it was a broad balcony, and there, indeed, was Matai Shang, and with him were Thurid and Phaidor, Thuvia, and Dejah Thoris the last two heavily ironed.
I was beyond and overheard their conversation, and when I entered, the woman screamed and the man sprang upon me and would have killed me. "What know you of this man? He is a stranger to you, and I dare say that you will find him an enemy and a spy. Let him be put on trial, Salensus Oll, rather than your friend and guest, Thurid, Dator of the First Born." Salensus Oll looked puzzled.
I spoke no word as I tore his defiling fingers from that beautiful throat, nor did I utter a sound as I hurled him twenty feet from me. Foaming with rage, Thurid regained his feet and charged me like a mad bull. "Yellow man," he shrieked, "you knew not upon whom you had laid your vile hands, but ere I am done with you, you will know well what it means to offend the person of a First Born."
Groping with my hands along the face of the rocks to which the craft was moored, I discovered a narrow ledge which I knew must be the avenue taken by those who had come before me. That they could be none other than Thurid and his party I was convinced by the size and build of the boat I had found. Calling to Woola to follow me I stepped out upon the ledge.
That there was something radically wrong with the flier was evident from its lack of buoyancy, and the further fact that though Thurid had turned twice to the starting lever the boat still hung motionless in the air, except for a slight drifting with a low breeze from the north. Now Matai Shang was close to the gunwale. A long, claw-like hand was reaching up to grasp the metal rail.
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