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Jav and Tario seemed to have forgotten all else beside the struggling bowmen that surged to and fro, filling the broad field between the forest and the city. The wood loomed close behind Thuvia and Carthoris. The latter cast a glance toward Jav. "Come!" he whispered to the girl. "Let them fight out their empty battle neither, evidently, has power to harm the other.
"It is but a banth," she said. "We have nothing to fear from it." Carthoris smiled. "I did not fear it," he replied, "for I, too, believed it to be only a banth, and I have my long-sword." Jav sat up and gazed at the spectacle before him the slender girl weaving her fingers in the tawny mane of the huge creature that he had thought divine, while Komal rubbed his hideous snout against her side.
"Why is it," she asked, "that you observe such careful nicety in the regulation of your creatures when Tario knows quite as well as you that they are but figments of your brain? Why not permit them simply to dissolve into thin air until you again require their futile service?" "You do not understand them," replied Jav. "While they exist they are real.
"So then I bethought the scheme to hurl our bowmen through the gates upon them. You have seen this day how well it works. For ages they have come down upon us at intervals, but always with the same results." "And all this is due to your intellect, Jav?" asked Carthoris. "I should think that you would be high in the councils of your people." "I am," replied Jav, proudly. "I am next to Tario."
Jav brushed closely past him, whispering: "Follow me he cannot harm her, except to kill; and that he can do whether you remain or not. We had best go now trust me."
I am no man's 'creature. Never before to-day did I lay eyes upon him you call Jav, nor upon your ridiculous city, of which even the greatest nations of Barsoom have never dreamed. "My charms are not for you, nor such as you. They are not for sale or barter, even though the price were a real throne.
"So this is your god!" laughed Thuvia. Jav looked bewildered. He scarce knew whether he dare chance offending Komal or not, for so strong is the power of superstition that even though we know that we have been reverencing a sham, yet still we hesitate to admit the validity of our new-found convictions. "Yes," he said, "this is Komal.
Let us hope that our theory is correct, and that their shafts are powerless against minds cognizant of their unreality. Otherwise we are doomed. "Explain, red man, to the woman the truths that I have explained to you, that she may meet the arrows with a stronger counter-suggestion of immunity." Carthoris did as Jav bid him; but they came to the great gates without sign of pursuit developing.
She seemed suddenly to have dissolved into the tenuous substance of a dream, and as he continued to gaze upon her, she faded slowly from his sight. For an instant he was dumbfounded, and then the whole truth flashed suddenly upon him. Jav had caused him to believe that Thuvia was accompanying him through the wood while, as a matter of fact, he had detained the girl for himself!
Then he hesitated, but Jav seized him by the wrist. "Come!" he whispered. "Or he will have the bowmen upon you, and this time there will be no escape. Did you not see how futile is your steel against thin air!" Carthoris turned unwillingly to follow. As the two left the room he turned to his companion. "If I may not kill thin air," he asked, "how, then, shall I fear that thin air may kill me?"
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