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Updated: June 6, 2025
At last, however, the panthan had hewn an opening through which his body could pass, and seizing a long-sword that he had brought close to the door for the purpose he crawled through into the next room. Flinging aside the arras he stood ready, sword in hand, to fight his way to the side of Tara of Helium but she was not there.
"Here is sufficient to buy them off twice over," he said, handing a portion of it to Turan. "But why do you do this for a stranger?" asked the panthan. "My mother was a captive princess here," replied A-Kor. "I but do for the Princess of Helium what my mother would have me do."
Turjun, the panthan, was the last to clamber over the rail of the Thuria, drawing the rope ladder in after him. A moment later the flier was rising rapidly, headed for the north. At the rail Kar Komak turned to speak to the warrior who had been detailed to accompany him.
She had realized, since he had left her in search of food, that there had grown between them a certain comradeship that she now missed. There had been that about him which seemed to have bridged the gulf between their stations in life. With him she had failed to consider that he was a panthan or that she was a princess they had been comrades.
"The Gods sent you," she whispered reverently. "The Gods sent me, Tara of Helium," he replied. "But I do not recognize you," she said. "I have tried to recall you, but I have failed. Your name, what may it be?" "It is not strange that so great a princess should not recall the face of every roving panthan of Barsoom," he replied with a smile. "But your name?" insisted the girl.
In the dim light Tara did not perceive the wry expression upon the half-averted face of her companion. "You thought little then of the Jed of Gathol?" he asked. "Then or now," she replied, and with a little laugh; "how it would pique his vanity to know, if he might, that a poor panthan had won a higher place in the regard of Tara of Helium," and she laid her fingers gently upon his knee.
All during the interview Carthoris watched, catlike, for some indication that Vas Kor recognized in the battered panthan the erstwhile gorgeous Prince of Helium; but the sleepless nights, the long days of marching and fighting, the wounds and the dried blood had evidently sufficed to obliterate the last remnant of his likeness to his former self; and then Vas Kor had seen him but twice in all his life.
There was a slightly puzzled expression on her face there was something tantalizingly familiar about that smile of his. She had met many a panthan they came and went, following the fighting of a world but she could not place this one. "From what country are you, Turan?" she asked suddenly. "Know you not, Tara of Helium," he countered, "that a panthan has no country?
"I prefer to die standing," she replied. "As you will," said Vas Kor, feeling the point of his blade with his left thumb. "In the name of Nutus, Jeddak of Dusar!" he cried, and ran quickly toward her. "In the name of Carthoris, Prince of Helium!" came in low tones from the doorway. Vas Kor turned to see the panthan he had recruited at his son's house leaping across the floor toward him.
Tara of Helium shook her head. "We will not desert you, panthan," she said. Gahan, ignoring her reply, spoke above her head to Ghek. "Take her to the craft moored within the enclosure," he commanded. "It is our only hope. Alone, I may win to its deck; but have I to wait upon you two at the last moment the chances are that none of us will escape. Do as I bid."
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