to detach themselves from it and roam the face of Barsoom with the
other children of the First Parent.

"Now their bisexuality permits them to reproduce themselves after
the manner of true plants, but otherwise they have progressed
but little in all the ages of their existence. Their actions and
movements are largely matters of instinct and not guided to any great
extent by reason, since the brain of a plant man is but a trifle
larger than the end of your smallest finger. They live upon
vegetation and the blood of animals, and their brain is just large
enough to direct their movements in the direction of food, and to
translate the food sensations which are carried to it from their
eyes and ears. They have no sense of self-preservation and so are
entirely without fear in the face of danger. That is why they are
such terrible antagonists in combat."

I wondered why the black man took such pains to discourse thus at
length to enemies upon the genesis of life Barsoomian. It seemed
a strangely inopportune moment for a proud member of a proud race
to unbend in casual conversation with a captor. Especially in view
of the fact that the black still lay securely bound upon the deck.

It was the faintest straying of his eye beyond me for the barest
fraction of a second that explained his motive for thus dragging
out my interest in his truly absorbing story.

He lay a little forward of where I stood at the levers, and thus
he faced the stern of the vessel as he addressed me. It was at
the end of his description of the plant men that I caught his eye
fixed momentarily upon something behind me.