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  'Never in a long life,' answered Lakora, 'have I disobeyed a single command of the Father of Therns. I shall stay here until I rot if she does not return to bid me elsewhere.'

  Lakora's companion shook her head.

  'You are my superior,' she said; 'I cannot do other than you sanction, though I still believe that we are foolish to remain.'

  I, too, thought that they were foolish to remain, for I saw from Woolan's actions that the trail led through the room where the two therns held guard. I had no reason to harbor any considerable love for this race of self-deified demons, yet I would have passed them by were it possible without molesting them.

  It was worth trying anyway, for a fight might delay us considerably, or even put an end entirely to my search--better women than I have gone down before fighters of meaner ability than that possessed by the fierce thern warriors.

  Signaling Woolan to heel I stepped suddenly into the room before the two women. At sight of me their long-swords flashed from the harness at their sides, but I raised my hand in a gesture of restraint.

  'I seek Thurid, the black dator,' I said. 'My quarrel is with her, not with you. Let me pass then in peace, for if I mistake not she is as much your enemy as mine, and you can have no cause to protect her.'

  They lowered their swords and Lakora spoke.

  'I know not whom you may be, with the white skin of a thern and the black hair of a red woman; but were it only Thurid whose safety were at stake you might pass, and welcome, in so far as we be concerned.

  'Tell us who you be, and what mission calls you to this unknown world beneath the Valley Dor, then maybe we can see our way to let you pass upon the errand which we should like to undertake would our orders permit.'

  I was surprised that neither of them had recognized me, for I thought that I was quite sufficiently well known either by personal experience or reputation to every thern upon Barsoom as to make my identity immediately apparent in any part of the planet. In fact, I was the only white woman upon Mars whose hair was black and whose eyes were gray, with the exception of my daughter, Carthoris.

  To reveal my identity might be to precipitate an attack, for every thern upon Barsoom knew that to me they owed the fall of their age-old spiritual supremacy. On the other hand my reputation as a fighting woman might be sufficient to pass me by these two were their livers not of the right complexion to welcome a battle to the death.

  To be quite candid I did not attempt to delude myself with any such sophistry, since I knew well that upon war-like Mars there are few cowards, and that every woman, whether princess, priestess, or peasant, glories in deadly strife. And so I gripped my long-sword the tighter as I replied to Lakora.

  'I believe that you will see the wisdom of permitting me to pass unmolested,' I said, 'for it would avail you nothing to die uselessly in the rocky bowels of Barsoom merely to protect a hereditary enemy, such as Thurid, Dator of the First Born.

  'That you shall die should you elect to oppose me is evidenced by the moldering corpses of all the many great Barsoomian warriors who have gone down beneath this blade--I am Joan Carter, Princess of Helium.'

  For a moment that name seemed to paralyze the two women; but only for a moment, and then the younger of them, with a vile name upon her lips, rushed toward me with ready sword.

  She had been standing a little behind her companion, Lakora, during our parley, and now, ere she could engage me, the older woman grasped her harness and drew her back.

  'Hold!' commanded Lakora. 'There will be plenty of time to fight if we find it wise to fight at all. There be good reasons why every thern upon Barsoom should yearn to spill the blood of the blasphemer, the sacrilegist; but let us mix wisdom with our righteous hate. The Princess of Helium is bound upon an errand which we ourselves, but a moment since, were wishing that we might undertake.

  'Let her go then and slay the black. When she returns we shall still be here to bar her way to the outer world, and thus we shall have rid ourselves of two enemies, nor have incurred the displeasure of the Father of Therns.'

  As she spoke I could not but note the crafty glint in her evil eyes, and while I saw the apparent logic of her reasoning I felt, subconsciously perhaps, that her words did but veil some sinister intent. The other thern turned toward her in evident surprise, but when Lakora had whispered a few brief words into her ear she, too, drew back and nodded acquiescence to her superior's suggestion.

  'Proceed, Joan Carter,' said Lakora; 'but know that if Thurid does not lay you low there will be those awaiting your return who will see that you never pass again into the sunlight of the upper world. Go!'

  During our conversation Woolan had been growling and bristling close to my side. Occasionally she would look up into my face with a low, pleading whine, as though begging for the word that would send her headlong at the bare throats before her. She, too, sensed the villainy behind the smooth words.

  Beyond the therns several doorways opened off the guardroom, and toward the one upon the extreme right Lakora motioned.

  'That way leads to Thurid,' she said.

  But when I would have called Woolan to follow me there the beast whined and held back, and at last ran quickly to the first opening at the left, where she stood emitting her coughing bark, as though urging me to follow her upon the right way.

  I turned a questioning look upon Lakora.

  'The brute is seldom wrong,' I said, 'and while I do not doubt your superior knowledge, Thern, I think that I shall do well to listen to the voice of instinct that is backed by love and loyalty.'

  As I spoke I smiled grimly that she might know without words that I distrusted her.

  'As you will,' the fellow replied with a shrug. 'In the end it shall be all the same.'

  I turned and followed Woolan into the left-hand passage, and though my back was toward my enemies, my ears were on the alert; yet I heard no sound of pursuit. The passageway was dimly lighted by occasional radium bulbs, the universal lighting medium of Barsoom.

  These same lamps may have been doing continuous duty in these subterranean chambers for ages, since they require no attention and are so compounded that they give off but the minutest of their substance in the generation of years of luminosity.

  We had proceeded for but a short distance when we commenced to pass the mouths of diverging corridors, but not once did Woolan hesitate. It was at the opening to one of these corridors upon my right that I presently heard a sound that spoke more plainly to Joan Carter, fighting woman, than could the words of my mother tongue--it was the clank of metal--the metal of a warrior's harness--and it came from a little distance up the corridor upon my right.

  Woolan heard it, too, and like a flash she had wheeled and stood facing the threatened danger, her mane all abristle and all her rows of glistening fangs bared by snarling, backdrawn lips. With a gesture I silenced her, and together we drew aside into another corridor a few paces farther on.

  Here we waited; nor did we have long to wait, for presently we saw the shadows of two women fall upon the floor of the main corridor athwart the doorway of our hiding place. Very cautiously they were moving now--the accidental clank that had alarmed me was not repeated.

  Presently they came opposite our station; nor was I surprised to see that the two were Lakora and her companion of the guardroom.

  They walked very softly, and in the right hand of each gleamed a keen long-sword. They halted quite close to the entrance of our retreat, whispering to each other.

  'Can it be that we have distanced them already?' said Lakora.

  'Either that or the beast has led the woman upon a wrong trail,' replied the other, 'for the way which we took is by far the shorter to this point--for her who knows it. Joan Carter would have found it a short road to death had she taken it as you suggested to her.'

  'Yes,' said Lakora, 'no amount of fighting ability would have saved her from the pivoted flagstone. She surely would have stepped upon it, and by now, if the pit beneath it has a bottom, which Thurid denies
, she should have been rapidly approaching it. Curses on that calot of her that warned her toward the safer avenue!'

  'There be other dangers ahead of her, though,' spoke Lakora's fellow, 'which she may not so easily escape--should she succeed in escaping our two good swords. Consider, for example, what chance she will have, coming unexpectedly into the chamber of--'

  I would have given much to have heard the balance of that conversation that I might have been warned of the perils that lay ahead, but fate intervened, and just at the very instant of all other instants that I would not have elected to do it, I sneezed.

  THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN

  There was nothing for it now other than to fight; nor did I have any advantage as I sprang, sword in hand, into the corridor before the two therns, for my untimely sneeze had warned them of my presence and they were ready for me.

  There were no words, for they would have been a waste of breath. The very presence of the two proclaimed their treachery. That they were following to fall upon me unawares was all too plain, and they, of course, must have known that I understood their plan.

  In an instant I was engaged with both, and though I loathe the very name of thern, I must in all fairness admit that they are mighty swordswomen; and these two were no exception, unless it were that they were even more skilled and fearless than the average among their race.

  While it lasted it was indeed as joyous a conflict as I ever had experienced. Twice at least I saved my breast from the mortal thrust of piercing steel only by the wondrous agility with which my earthly muscles endow me under the conditions of lesser gravity and air pressure upon Mars.

  Yet even so I came near to tasting death that day in the gloomy corridor beneath Mars's southern pole, for Lakora played a trick upon me that in all my experience of fighting upon two planets I never before had witnessed the like of.

  The other thern was engaging me at the time, and I was forcing her back--touching her here and there with my point until she was bleeding from a dozen wounds, yet not being able to penetrate her marvelous guard to reach a vulnerable spot for the brief instant that would have been sufficient to send her to her ancestors.

  It was then that Lakora quickly unslung a belt from her harness, and as I stepped back to parry a wicked thrust she lashed one end of it about my left ankle so that it wound there for an instant, while she jerked suddenly upon the other end, throwing me heavily upon my back.

  Then, like leaping panthers, they were upon me; but they had reckoned without Woolan, and before ever a blade touched me, a roaring embodiment of a thousand demons hurtled above my prostrate form and my loyal Martian calot was upon them.

  Imagine, if you can, a huge grizzly with ten legs armed with mighty talons and an enormous froglike mouth splitting her head from ear to ear, exposing three rows of long, white tusks. Then endow this creature of your imagination with the agility and ferocity of a half-starved Bangal tiger and the strength of a span of bulls, and you will have some faint conception of Woolan in action.

  Before I could call her off she had crushed Lakora into a jelly with a single blow of one mighty paw, and had literally torn the other thern to ribbons; yet when I spoke to her sharply she cowed sheepishly as though she had done a thing to deserve censure and chastisement.

  Never had I had the heart to punish Woolan during the long years that had passed since that first day upon Mars when the green jed of the Tharks had placed her on guard over me, and I had won her love and loyalty from the cruel and loveless mistresses of her former life, yet I believe she would have submitted to any cruelty that I might have inflicted upon her, so wondrous was her affection for me.

  The diadem in the center of the circlet of gold upon the brow of Lakora proclaimed her a Holy Thern, while her companion, not thus adorned, was a lesser thern, though from her harness I gleaned that she had reached the Ninth Cycle, which is but one below that of the Holy Therns.

  As I stood for a moment looking at the gruesome havoc Woolan had wrought, there recurred to me the memory of that other occasion upon which I had masqueraded in the wig, diadem, and harness of Satora Throg, the Holy Thern whom Thuviar of Ptarth had slain, and now it occurred to me that it might prove of worth to utilize Lakora's trappings for the same purpose.

  A moment later I had torn her yellow wig from her bald pate and transferred it and the circlet, as well as all her harness, to my own person.

  Woolan did not approve of the metamorphosis. She sniffed at me and growled ominously, but when I spoke to her and patted her huge head she at length became reconciled to the change, and at my command trotted off along the corridor in the direction we had been going when our progress had been interrupted by the therns.

  We moved cautiously now, warned by the fragment of conversation I had overheard. I kept abreast of Woolan that we might have the benefit of all our eyes for what might appear suddenly ahead to menace us, and well it was that we were forewarned.

  At the bottom of a flight of narrow steps the corridor turned sharply back upon itself, immediately making another turn in the original direction, so that at that point it formed a perfect letter S, the top leg of which debouched suddenly into a large chamber, illy lighted, and the floor of which was completely covered by venomous snakes and loathsome reptiles.

  To have attempted to cross that floor would have been to court instant death, and for a moment I was almost completely discouraged. Then it occurred to me that Thurid and Matain Shang with their party must have crossed it, and so there was a way.

  Had it not been for the fortunate accident by which I overheard even so small a portion of the therns' conversation we should have blundered at least a step or two into that wriggling mass of destruction, and a single step would have been all-sufficient to have sealed our doom.

  These were the only reptiles I had ever seen upon Barsoom, but I knew from their similarity to the fossilized remains of supposedly extinct species I had seen in the museums of Helium that they comprised many of the known prehistoric reptilian genera, as well as others undiscovered.

  A more hideous aggregation of monsters had never before assailed my vision. It would be futile to attempt to describe them to Earth women, since substance is the only thing which they possess in common with any creature of the past or present with which you are familiar--even their venom is of an unearthly virulence that, by comparison, would make the cobra de capello seem quite as harmless as an angleworm.

  As they spied me there was a concerted rush by those nearest the entrance where we stood, but a line of radium bulbs inset along the threshold of their chamber brought them to a sudden halt--evidently they dared not cross that line of light.

  I had been quite sure that they would not venture beyond the room in which I had discovered them, though I had not guessed at what deterred them. The simple fact that we had found no reptiles in the corridor through which we had just come was sufficient assurance that they did not venture there.

  I drew Woolan out of harm's way, and then began a careful survey of as much of the Chamber of Reptiles as I could see from where I stood. As my eyes became accustomed to the dim light of its interior I gradually made out a low gallery at the far end of the apartment from which opened several exits.

  Coming as close to the threshold as I dared, I followed this gallery with my eyes, discovering that it circled the room as far as I could see. Then I glanced above me along the upper edge of the entrance to which we had come, and there, to my delight, I saw an end of the gallery not a foot above my head. In an instant I had leaped to it and called Woolan after me.

  Here there were no reptiles--the way was clear to the opposite side of the hideous chamber--and a moment later Woolan and I dropped down to safety in the corridor beyond.

  Not ten minutes later we came into a vast circular apartment of white marble, the walls of which were inlaid with gold in the strange hieroglyphics of the First Born.

  From the high dome of this mighty apartment a huge circular column extended to the floor, and as I watc
hed I saw that it slowly revolved.

  I had reached the base of the Temple of the Sun!

  Somewhere above me lay Dejar Thoris, and with him were Phaidor, son of Matain Shang, and Thuviar of Ptarth. But how to reach them, now that I had found the only vulnerable spot in their mighty prison, was still a baffling riddle.

  Slowly I circled the great shaft, looking for a means of ingress. Part way around I found a tiny radium flash torch, and as I examined it in mild curiosity as to its presence there in this almost inaccessible and unknown spot, I came suddenly upon the insignia of the house of Thurid jewel-inset in its metal case.

  I am upon the right trail, I thought, as I slipped the bauble into the pocket-pouch which hung from my harness. Then I continued my search for the entrance, which I knew must be somewhere about; nor had I long to search, for almost immediately thereafter I came upon a small door so cunningly inlaid in the shaft's base that it might have passed unnoticed by a less keen or careful observer.