"Are you of Helium?" he asked.

"I am a Prince of the House of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium," I
replied, "but I am not of Barsoom. I am of another world."

Xodar looked at me intently for a few moments.

"I can well believe that you are not of Barsoom," he said at
length. "None of this world could have bested eight of the First
Born single-handed. But how is it that you wear the golden hair
and the jewelled circlet of a Holy Thern?" He emphasized the word
holy with a touch of irony.

"I had forgotten them," I said. "They are the spoils of conquest,"
and with a sweep of my hand I removed the disguise from my head.

When the black's eyes fell on my close-cropped black hair they
opened in astonishment. Evidently he had looked for the bald pate
of a thern.

"You are indeed of another world," he said, a touch of awe in his
voice. "With the skin of a thern, the black hair of a First Born
and the muscles of a dozen Dators it was no disgrace even for Xodar
to acknowledge your supremacy. A thing he could never do were you
a Barsoomian," he added.

"You are travelling several laps ahead of me, my friend,"
I interrupted. "I glean that your name is Xodar, but whom, pray,
are the First Born, and what a Dator, and why, if you were conquered