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  'My way leads along the Kaolian road, away from the city of Kaol,' she continued. 'I have seen no one--Joan Carter least of all. Nor have you seen Torkar Bar, nor ever heard of her. You understand?'

  'Perfectly,' I replied.

  She laid her hand upon my shoulder.

  'This road leads directly into the city of Kaol,' she said. 'I wish you fortune,' and vaulting to the back of her thoat she trotted away without even a backward glance.

  It was after dark when Woolan and I spied through the mighty forest the great wall which surrounds the city of Kaol.

  We had traversed the entire way without mishap or adventure, and though the few we had met had eyed the great calot wonderingly, none had pierced the red pigment with which I had smoothly smeared every square inch of my body.

  But to traverse the surrounding country, and to enter the guarded city of Kula Tith, Jeddak of Kaol, were two very different things. No woman enters a Martian city without giving a very detailed and satisfactory account of herself, nor did I delude myself with the belief that I could for a moment impose upon the acumen of the officers of the guard to whom I should be taken the moment I applied at any one of the gates.

  My only hope seemed to lie in entering the city surreptitiously under cover of the darkness, and once in, trust to my own wits to hide myself in some crowded quarter where detection would be less liable to occur.

  With this idea in view I circled the great wall, keeping within the fringe of the forest, which is cut away for a short distance from the wall all about the city, that no enemy may utilize the trees as a means of ingress.

  Several times I attempted to scale the barrier at different points, but not even my earthly muscles could overcome that cleverly constructed rampart. To a height of thirty feet the face of the wall slanted outward, and then for almost an equal distance it was perpendicular, above which it slanted in again for some fifteen feet to the crest.

  And smooth! Polished glass could not be more so. Finally I had to admit that at last I had discovered a Barsoomian fortification which I could not negotiate.

  Discouraged, I withdrew into the forest beside a broad highway which entered the city from the east, and with Woolan beside me lay down to sleep.

  A HERO IN KAOL

  It was daylight when I was awakened by the sound of stealthy movement near by.

  As I opened my eyes Woolan, too, moved and, coming up to her haunches, stared through the intervening brush toward the road, each hair upon her neck stiffly erect.

  At first I could see nothing, but presently I caught a glimpse of a bit of smooth and glossy green moving among the scarlet and purple and yellow of the vegetation.

  Motioning Woolan to remain quietly where she was, I crept forward to investigate, and from behind the bole of a great tree I saw a long line of the hideous green warriors of the dead sea bottoms hiding in the dense jungle beside the road.

  As far as I could see, the silent line of destruction and death stretched away from the city of Kaol. There could be but one explanation. The green women were expecting an exodus of a body of red troops from the nearest city gate, and they were lying there in ambush to leap upon them.

  I owed no fealty to the Jeddak of Kaol, but she was of the same race of noble red women as my own prince, and I would not stand supinely by and see her warriors butchered by the cruel and heartless demons of the waste places of Barsoom.

  Cautiously I retraced my steps to where I had left Woolan, and warning her to silence, signaled her to follow me. Making a considerable detour to avoid the chance of falling into the hands of the green women, I came at last to the great wall.

  A hundred yards to my right was the gate from which the troops were evidently expected to issue, but to reach it I must pass the flank of the green warriors within easy sight of them, and, fearing that my plan to warn the Kaolians might thus be thwarted, I decided upon hastening toward the left, where another gate a mile away would give me ingress to the city.

  I knew that the word I brought would prove a splendid passport to Kaol, and I must admit that my caution was due more to my ardent desire to make my way into the city than to avoid a brush with the green women. As much as I enjoy a fight, I cannot always indulge myself, and just now I had more weighty matters to occupy my time than spilling the blood of strange warriors.

  Could I but win beyond the city's wall, there might be opportunity in the confusion and excitement which were sure to follow my announcement of an invading force of green warriors to find my way within the palace of the jeddak, where I was sure Matain Shang and her party would be quartered.

  But scarcely had I taken a hundred steps in the direction of the farther gate when the sound of marching troops, the clank of metal, and the squealing of thoats just within the city apprised me of the fact that the Kaolians were already moving toward the other gate.

  There was no time to be lost. In another moment the gate would be opened and the head of the column pass out upon the death-bordered highway.

  Turning back toward the fateful gate, I ran rapidly along the edge of the clearing, taking the ground in the mighty leaps that had first made me famous upon Barsoom. Thirty, fifty, a hundred feet at a bound are nothing for the muscles of an athletic Earth woman upon Mars.

  As I passed the flank of the waiting green women they saw my eyes turned upon them, and in an instant, knowing that all secrecy was at an end, those nearest me sprang to their feet in an effort to cut me off before I could reach the gate.

  At the same instant the mighty portal swung wide and the head of the Kaolian column emerged. A dozen green warriors had succeeded in reaching a point between me and the gate, but they had but little idea who it was they had elected to detain.

  I did not slacken my speed an iota as I dashed among them, and as they fell before my blade I could not but recall the happy memory of those other battles when Tara Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, mightiest of Martian green women, had stood shoulder to shoulder with me through long, hot Martian days, as together we hewed down our enemies until the pile of corpses about us rose higher than a tall woman's head.

  When several pressed me too closely, there before the carved gateway of Kaol, I leaped above their heads, and fashioning my tactics after those of the hideous plant women of Dor, struck down upon my enemies' heads as I passed above them.

  From the city the red warriors were rushing toward us, and from the jungle the savage horde of green women were coming to meet them. In a moment I was in the very center of as fierce and bloody a battle as I had ever passed through.

  These Kaolians are most noble fighters, nor are the green women of the equator one whit less warlike than their cold, cruel cousins of the temperate zone. There were many times when either side might have withdrawn without dishonor and thus ended hostilities, but from the mad abandon with which each invariably renewed hostilities I soon came to believe that what need not have been more than a trifling skirmish would end only with the complete extermination of one force or the other.

  With the joy of battle once roused within me, I took keen delight in the fray, and that my fighting was noted by the Kaolians was often evidenced by the shouts of applause directed at me.

  If I sometimes seem to take too great pride in my fighting ability, it must be remembered that fighting is my vocation. If your vocation be shoeing horses, or painting pictures, and you can do one or the other better than your fellows, then you are a fool if you are not proud of your ability. And so I am very proud that upon two planets no greater fighter has ever lived than Joan Carter, Princess of Helium.

  And I outdid myself that day to impress the fact upon the natives of Kaol, for I wished to win a way into their hearts--and their city. Nor was I to be disappointed in my desire.

  All day we fought, until the road was red with blood and clogged with corpses. Back and forth along the slippery highway the tide of battle surged, but never once was the gateway to Kaol really in danger.

  There were breathing spells when I had a chance to c
onverse with the red women beside whom I fought, and once the jeddak, Kula Tith herself, laid her hand upon my shoulder and asked my name.

  'I am Dotar Sojat,' I replied, recalling a name given me by the Tharks many years before, from the surnames of the first two of their warriors I had killed, which is the custom among them.

  'You are a mighty warrior, Dotar Sojat,' she replied, 'and when this day is done I shall speak with you again in the great audience chamber.'

  And then the fight surged upon us once more and we were separated, but my heart's desire was attained, and it was with renewed vigor and a joyous soul that I laid about me with my long-sword until the last of the green women had had enough and had withdrawn toward their distant sea bottom.

  Not until the battle was over did I learn why the red troops had sallied forth that day. It seemed that Kula Tith was expecting a visit from a mighty jeddak of the north--a powerful and the only ally of the Kaolians, and it had been her wish to meet her guest a full day's journey from Kaol.

  But now the march of the welcoming host was delayed until the following morning, when the troops again set out from Kaol. I had not been bidden to the presence of Kula Tith after the battle, but she had sent an officer to find me and escort me to comfortable quarters in that part of the palace set aside for the officers of the royal guard.

  There, with Woolan, I had spent a comfortable night, and rose much refreshed after the arduous labors of the past few days. Woolan had fought with me through the battle of the previous day, true to the instincts and training of a Martian war dog, great numbers of which are often to be found with the savage green hordes of the dead sea bottoms.

  Neither of us had come through the conflict unscathed, but the marvelous, healing salves of Barsoom had sufficed, overnight, to make us as good as new.

  I breakfasted with a number of the Kaolian officers, whom I found as courteous and delightful hosts as even the nobles of Helium, who are renowned for their ease of manners and excellence of breeding. The meal was scarcely concluded when a messenger arrived from Kula Tith summoning me before her.

  As I entered the royal presence the jeddak rose, and stepping from the dais which supported her magnificent throne, came forward to meet me--a mark of distinction that is seldom accorded to other than a visiting ruler.

  'Kaor, Dotar Sojat!' she greeted me. 'I have summoned you to receive the grateful thanks of the people of Kaol, for had it not been for your heroic bravery in daring fate to warn us of the ambuscade we must surely have fallen into the well-laid trap. Tell me more of yourself--from what country you come, and what errand brings you to the court of Kula Tith.'

  'I am from Hastor,' I said, for in truth I had a small palace in that southern city which lies within the far-flung dominions of the Heliumetic nation.

  'My presence in the land of Kaol is partly due to accident, my flier being wrecked upon the southern fringe of your great forest. It was while seeking entrance to the city of Kaol that I discovered the green horde lying in wait for your troops.'

  If Kula Tith wondered what business brought me in a flier to the very edge of her domain she was good enough not to press me further for an explanation, which I should indeed have had difficulty in rendering.

  During my audience with the jeddak another party entered the chamber from behind me, so that I did not see their faces until Kula Tith stepped past me to greet them, commanding me to follow and be presented.

  As I turned toward them it was with difficulty that I controlled my features, for there, listening to Kula Tith's eulogistic words concerning me, stood my arch-enemies, Matain Shang and Thurid.

  'Holy Hekkador of the Holy Therns,' the jeddak was saying, 'shower thy blessings upon Dotar Sojat, the valorous stranger from distant Hastor, whose wondrous heroism and marvelous ferocity saved the day for Kaol yesterday.'

  Matain Shang stepped forward and laid her hand upon my shoulder. No slightest indication that she recognized me showed upon her countenance--my disguise was evidently complete.

  She spoke kindly to me and then presented me to Thurid. The black, too, was evidently entirely deceived. Then Kula Tith regaled them, much to my amusement, with details of my achievements upon the field of battle.

  The thing that seemed to have impressed her most was my remarkable agility, and time and again she described the wondrous way in which I had leaped completely over an antagonist, cleaving her skull wide open with my long-sword as I passed above her.

  I thought that I saw Thurid's eyes widen a bit during the narrative, and several times I surprised her gazing intently into my face through narrowed lids. Was she commencing to suspect? And then Kula Tith told of the savage calot that fought beside me, and after that I saw suspicion in the eyes of Matain Shang--or did I but imagine it?

  At the close of the audience Kula Tith announced that she would have me accompany her upon the way to meet her royal guest, and as I departed with an officer who was to procure proper trappings and a suitable mount for me, both Matain Shang and Thurid seemed most sincere in professing their pleasure at having had an opportunity to know me. It was with a sigh of relief that I quitted the chamber, convinced that nothing more than a guilty conscience had prompted my belief that either of my enemies suspected my true identity.

  A half-hour later I rode out of the city gate with the column that accompanied Kula Tith upon the way to meet her friend and ally. Though my eyes and ears had been wide open during my audience with the jeddak and my various passages through the palace, I had seen or heard nothing of Dejar Thoris or Thuviar of Ptarth. That they must be somewhere within the great rambling edifice I was positive, and I should have given much to have found a way to remain behind during Kula Tith's absence, that I might search for them.

  Toward noon we came in touch with the head of the column we had set out to meet.

  It was a gorgeous train that accompanied the visiting jeddak, and for miles it stretched along the wide, white road to Kaol. Mounted troops, their trappings of jewel and metal-incrusted leather glistening in the sunlight, formed the vanguard of the body, and then came a thousand gorgeous chariots drawn by huge zitidars.

  These low, commodious wagons moved two abreast, and on either side of them marched solid ranks of mounted warriors, for in the chariots were the men and children of the royal court. Upon the back of each monster zitidar rode a Martian youth, and the whole scene carried me back to my first days upon Barsoom, now twenty-two years in the past, when I had first beheld the gorgeous spectacle of a caravan of the green horde of Tharks.

  Never before today had I seen zitidars in the service of red women. These brutes are huge mastodonian animals that tower to an immense height even beside the giant green women and their giant thoats; but when compared to the relatively small red woman and her breed of thoats they assume Brobdingnagian proportions that are truly appalling.

  The beasts were hung with jeweled trappings and saddlepads of gay silk, embroidered in fanciful designs with strings of diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds, and the countless unnamed jewels of Mars, while from each chariot rose a dozen standards from which streamers, flags, and pennons fluttered in the breeze.

  Just in front of the chariots the visiting jeddak rode alone upon a pure white thoat--another unusual sight upon Barsoom--and after them came interminable ranks of mounted spearwomen, riflemen, and swordswomen. It was indeed a most imposing sight.

  Except for the clanking of accouterments and the occasional squeal of an angry thoat or the low guttural of a zitidar, the passage of the cavalcade was almost noiseless, for neither thoat nor zitidar is a hoofed animal, and the broad tires of the chariots are of an elastic composition, which gives forth no sound.

  Now and then the gay laughter of a man or the chatter of children could be heard, for the red Martians are a social, pleasure-loving people--in direct antithesis to the cold and morbid race of green women.

  The forms and ceremonials connected with the meeting of the two jeddaks consumed an hour, and then we turned and retraced o
ur way toward the city of Kaol, which the head of the column reached just before dark, though it must have been nearly morning before the rear guard passed through the gateway.

  Fortunately, I was well up toward the head of the column, and after the great banquet, which I attended with the officers of the royal guard, I was free to seek repose. There was so much activity and bustle about the palace all during the night with the constant arrival of the noble officers of the visiting jeddak's retinue that I dared not attempt to prosecute a search for Dejar Thoris, and so, as soon as it was seemly for me to do so, I returned to my quarters.

  As I passed along the corridors between the banquet hall and the apartments that had been allotted me, I had a sudden feeling that I was under surveillance, and, turning quickly in my tracks, caught a glimpse of a figure which darted into an open doorway the instant I wheeled about.

  Though I ran quickly back to the spot where the shadower had disappeared I could find no trace of her, yet in the brief glimpse that I had caught I could have sworn that I had seen a white face surmounted by a mass of yellow hair.