restlessly, always drawing closer. Should they discover me and start to squeal, which is the first and always ready sign of their easily aroused anger, I knew that I should have their riders upon me in no time, since because of his nervous and irritable nature the thoat is the watchdog as well as the beast of burden of the green Barsoomians.
For a moment the beast I had selected hesitated before me as though undecided whether to retreat or to charge, but he did neither; instead he came slowly up to me and as I backed through the gate into the vaulted corridor beyond, he followed me. This was better than I had expected for it permitted me to compel him to lie down, so that the girl and I were able to mount with ease.
Before us lay a long vaulted corridor at the far end of which I could discern a moonlit archway, through which we presently passed onto a broad avenue.
To the left lay the hills, and, turning this way, I urged the fleet animal along the ancient deserted thoroughfare between rows of stately ruins toward the west and-what?
Where the avenue turned to wind upward into the hills, I glanced back; nor could I refrain a feeling of exultation as I saw strung out behind us in the moonlight a file of great thoats, which I was confident would well know what to do with their new found liberty.
'Your captors will not pursue us far,' I said to the girl, indicating the thoats with a nod of my head.
'Our ancestors are with us tonight,' she said. 'Let us pray that they may never desert us.'
Now, for the first time, I had a fairly good look at my companion, for both Cluros and Thuria were in the heavens and it was quite light. If I revealed my surprise it is not to be wondered at for, in the darkness, having only my companion's voice for a guide, I had been perfectly confident that I had given aid to a female, but now as I looked at that short hair and boyish face I did not know what to think; nor did the harness that my companion wore aid me in justifying my first conclusion, since it was quite evidently the harness of a man.
'I thought you were a girl,' I blurted out.
A fine mouth spread into a smile that revealed strong, white teeth. 'I am,' she said.
'But your hair-your harness-even your figure belies your claim.'
She laughed gayly. That, I was to find later, was one of her chiefest charms-that she could laugh so easily, yet never to wound.
'My voice betrayed me,' she said. 'It is too bad.'
'Why is it too bad?' I asked.
'Because you would have felt better with a fighting man as a companion, whereas now you feel that you have only a burden.'
'A light one,' I replied, recalling how easily I had lifted her to the thoat's back. 'But tell me who you are and why you are masquerading as a boy.'
'I am a slave girl,' she said; 'just a slave girl who has run away from her master. Perhaps that will make a difference,' she added a little sadly. 'Perhaps you will be sorry that you have defended just a slave girl.'
'No,' I said, 'that makes no difference. I myself, am only a poor padwar, not rich enough to afford a slave. Perhaps you are the one to be sorry that you were not rescued by a rich man.'
She laughed. 'I ran away from the richest man in the world,' she said. 'At least I guess he must have been the richest man in the world, for who could be richer than Tul Axtar, Jeddak of Jahar?'
'You belong to Tul Axtar, Jeddak of Jahar?' I exclaimed.
'Yes,' she said. 'I was stolen when I was very young from a city called Tjanath and ever since I have lived in the palace of Tul Axtar. He has many women-thousands of them. Sometimes they live all their lives in his palace and never see him. I have seen him,' she shuddered; 'he is terrible. I was not unhappy there for I had never known my mother; she died when I was young, and my father was only a memory. You see I was very, very young, indeed, when the emissaries of Tul Axtar stole me from my home in Tjanath. I made friends with everyone about the palace of Tul Axtar. They all liked me, the slaves and the warriors and the chiefs, and because I was always boyish it amused them to train me in the use of arms and even to navigate the smaller fliers; but then came a day when my happiness was ended forever-Tul Axtar saw me. He saw me and he sent for me. I pretended that I was ill and did not go, and when night came I went to the quarters of a soldier whom I knew to be on guard and stole harness and I cut off my long hair and painted my face that I might look more like a man, and then I went to the hangars on the palace roof and by a ruse deceived the guards there and stole a one-man flier.
'I thought,' she continued, 'that if they searched for me at all they would search in the direction of Tjanath and so I flew in the opposite direction, toward the northeast, intending to make a great circle to the north, turning back toward Tjanath. After I passed over Xanator I discovered a large grove of mantalia growing out upon the dead sea bottom and I immediately descended to obtain some of the milk from these plants, as I had left the palace so hurriedly that I had no opportunity to supply myself with provisions. The mantalia grove was an unusually large one and as the plants grew to a height of from eight to twelve sofads, the grove offered excellent protection from observation. I had no difficulty in finding a landing place well within its confines. In order to prevent detection from above, I ran my plane in among the concealing foliage of two over-arching mantalias and then set about obtaining a supply of milk.
'As near objects never appear as attractive as those more distant, I wandered some little distance from my flier before I found the plants that seemed to offer a sufficiently copious supply of rich milk.
'A band of green warriors had also entered the grove to procure milk, and, as I was tapping the tree I had selected, one of them discovered me and a moment later I was captured. From their questions I became assured that they had not seen me enter the grove and that they knew nothing of the presence of my flier. They must have been in a portion of the grove very thickly overhung by foliage while I was approaching from above by making my landing; but be that as it may, they were ignorant of the presence of my flier and I determined to keep them in ignorance of it.
'When they had obtained as much milk as they required they returned to Xanator, bringing me with them. The rest you know.'
'This is Xanator?' I asked.
'Yes,' she replied.
'And what is your name?' I asked.
'Tavia,' she replied. 'And what is yours?'
'Tan Hadron of Hastor,' I replied.
'It is a nice name,' she said. There was a certain boyish frankness about the way she said it that convinced me that she would have been just as quick to tell me had she not liked my name. There was no suggestion of brainless flattery in her tone and I was to learn, as I became better acquainted with her, that honesty and candor were two of her marked characteristics, but at the moment I was giving such matters little thought since my mind was occupied with a portion of her narrative that had suggested to me an easy and swift method of escape from our predicament.
'Do you believe,' I asked, 'that you can find the mantalia grove where you hid your flier?'
'I am positive of it,' she replied.
'Will the craft carry two?' I asked.
'It is a one-man flier,' she replied, 'but it will carry both of us, though both its speed and altitude will be reduced.'
She told me that the grove lay to the southeast of Xanator and accordingly I turned the thoat's head toward the east. After we had passed well beyond the limits of the city we moved in a southerly direction down out of the hills onto the dead sea bottom.
Thuria was winging her swift flight through the heavens, casting strange and ever moving shadows upon the ocher moss that covered the ground, while far above cold Cluros took his slow and stately way. The light of the two moons clearly illuminated the landscape and I was sure that keen eyes could easily have detected us from the ruins of Xanator, although the swiftly moving shadows cast by Thuria were helpful to us since the shadows of every shrub and stunted tree produced a riot of movement upon the surface of the sea bottom in which our own moving shadow was less conspicuous, but the hope that I entertained most fondly was that all of the thoats, had followed our beast from the courtyard and that the green Martian warriors were left dismounted, in which event no pursuit could overtake us.
The great beast that was carrying us moved swiftly and silently so that it was not long before we saw in the
