now, and one which I so much doubt the credibility of myself that
I fear to hope that others will believe it. Suffice it, for the
present, that I am your friend, and, so far as our captors will
permit, your protector and your servant."

"Then you too are a prisoner? But why, then, those arms and the
regalia of a Tharkian chieftain? What is your name? Where your
country?"

"Yes, Dejah Thoris, I too am a prisoner; my name is John Carter,
and I claim Virginia, one of the United States of America, Earth,
as my home; but why I am permitted to wear arms I do not know,
nor was I aware that my regalia was that of a chieftain."

We were interrupted at this juncture by the approach of one of the
warriors, bearing arms, accouterments and ornaments, and in a flash
one of her questions was answered and a puzzle cleared up for me.
I saw that the body of my dead antagonist had been stripped, and I
read in the menacing yet respectful attitude of the warrior who had
brought me these trophies of the kill the same demeanor as that
evinced by the other who had brought me my original equipment, and
now for the first time I realized that my blow, on the occasion of
my first battle in the audience chamber had resulted in the death
of my adversary.

The reason for the whole attitude displayed toward me was now
apparent; I had won my spurs, so to speak, and in the crude justice,
which always marks Martian dealings, and which, among other things,
has caused me to call her the planet of paradoxes, I was accorded
the honors due a conqueror; the trappings and the position of the