United States or Gibraltar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As they halted at the foot of the marble steps, the proud gaze of Tara of Helium rested upon the enthroned figure of the man above her. He sat erect without stiffness a commanding presence trapped in the barbaric splendor that the Barsoomian chieftain loves.
It was not that I feared the results which would follow a general belief that I had returned from the Barsoomian heaven or hell, or whatever it was. Why was it, then! Why should I care what she thought? I looked down at her; her beautiful face upturned, and her wonderful eyes opening up the very depth of her soul; and as my eyes met hers I knew why, and I shuddered.
The craft even without a propellor would still answer the purpose his plan required of it provided the captors of Tara of Helium were a people without ships, and he had seen nothing to suggest that they had ships. The architecture of their towers and enclosures assured him that they had not. The sudden Barsoomian night had fallen. Cluros rode majestically the high heavens.
In a cylindrical bracelet of gold about my wrist was my Barsoomian chronometer a delicate instrument that records the tals and xats and zodes of Martian time, presenting them to view beneath a strong crystal much after the manner of an earthly odometer.
This good friend even accompanied us part way, and then, promising to aid us in any way that he found possible, bade us adieu. On parting he slipped upon my finger a curiously wrought ring set with a dead-black, lusterless stone, which appeared more like a bit of bituminous coal than the priceless Barsoomian gem which in reality it is.
It is the equivalent of an Earthly foot, measuring about 11.694 Earth inches. As has been my custom in the past, I have generally translated Barsoomian symbols of time, distance, etc., into their Earthly equivalent, as being more easily understood by Earth readers.
Then he turned to Carthoris, but ever his gaze wandered to the perfect lines of Thuvia's glorious figure, which the harness of a Barsoomian princess accentuated rather than concealed. "Who are you," he asked, "who knows not the etiquette of the court of the last of jeddaks?" "I am Carthoris, Prince of Helium," replied the Heliumite. "And this is Thuvia, Princess of Ptarth.
The fellow was a clever swordsman resourceful and extremely tricky. In fact, he seemed never to have heard that there existed such a thing as a code of honor, for he repeatedly outraged a dozen Barsoomian fighting customs that an honorable man would rather die than ignore.
"You must know that my fault was of ignorance of your Barsoomian customs. What I failed to do, through implicit belief that my petition would be presumptuous and unwelcome, I do now, Dejah Thoris; I ask you to be my wife, and by all the Virginian fighting blood that flows in my veins you shall be."
The language that he used was intelligible to the two below, yet there was a marked difference between it and their Barsoomian tongue. "Who are you?" he asked. "And what do you here before the gate of Lothar?" "We are friends," replied Carthoris. "This be the princess, Thuvia of Ptarth, who was captured by the Torquasian horde.
Word Of The Day