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Updated: June 25, 2025
"What is to be our fate?" asked the Heliumite. "Tell me, man! Shake off your terror long enough to tell me, so I may be prepared to sell my life and that of the Princess of Ptarth as dearly as possible." "Komal!" whispered Jav. "We are to be devoured by Komal!" "Your deity?" asked Carthoris. The Lotharian nodded his head. Then he pointed toward a low doorway at one end of the chamber.
How could she know that the shrug was but Carthoris' way of attempting, by physical effort, to cast blighting sorrow from his heart, or that the smile upon his lips was the fighting smile of his father with which the son gave outward evidence of the determination he had reached to submerge his own great love in his efforts to save Thuvia of Ptarth for another, because he believed that she loved this other!
"You shall mate with me, Thuvia of Ptarth," he growled, "or, by your first ancestor, you shall have your preference and mate with a white ape." The girl made no reply, nor could he draw her into conversation during the balance of the journey.
"Calot!" he snapped, and then his clenched fist landed beneath the other's chin, lifting him high into the air and depositing him in a crumpled heap within the centre of the pimalia bush beside the ersite bench. Her champion turned toward the girl. "Kaor, Thuvia of Ptarth!" he cried. "It seems that fate timed my visit well."
The sight that met his eyes set his heart to thumping in joy and relief Thuvia of Ptarth might yet be saved? For from below there poured a stream of giant bowmen, grim and terrible. Not the bowmen of Tario or Jav, but the bowmen of an odwar of bowmen savage fighting men, eager for the fray. The green warriors paused in momentary surprise and consternation, but only for a moment.
"But while they are exterminating the Dusarians, countless thousands of their own warriors must perish and all because of the stubbornness of a single woman who would not wed the prince who loves her. "Refuse, Thuvia of Ptarth, and there remains but a single alternative no man must ever know your fate.
And later, Jav, you shall suffer for your temerity. There be few of us left, but Komal must be fed. Go!" Carthoris could see that Jav trembled as he prostrated himself once more before his ruler, and then, rising, turned toward the Prince of Helium. "Come!" he said. "And leave the Princess of Ptarth here alone?" cried Carthoris.
Thus Thuvia of Ptarth found a way out of a dilemma, escaping the necessity of placing her father's royal guest under forcible restraint, and at the same time separating the two princes, who otherwise would have been at each other's throat the moment she and the guard had departed.
Thuvia of Ptarth caught her breath quickly, glancing at Carthoris. The device was that of Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol the man to whom the Princess of Ptarth was betrothed! How easy for the Heliumite to pass on, leaving his rival to the fate that could not for long be averted!
If the ship was of a friendly power, he could do no less than stop and direct his guns upon her enemies, though with the precious freight he carried he scarcely felt justified in landing, for he could offer but two swords in reinforcement scarce enough to warrant jeopardizing the safety of the Princess of Ptarth.
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