At length Tars Tarkas laughed softly, after the manner of his
strange kind when in the presence of the horrible or terrifying.
It is not an hysterical laugh, but rather the genuine expression
of the pleasure they derive from the things that move Earth men to
loathing or to tears.

Often and again have I seen them roll upon the ground in mad fits
of uncontrollable mirth when witnessing the death agonies of women
and little children beneath the torture of that hellish green
Martian fete--the Great Games.

I looked up at the Thark, a smile upon my own lips, for here in
truth was greater need for a smiling face than a trembling chin.

"What do you make of it all?" I asked. "Where in the deuce are
we?"

He looked at me in surprise.

"Where are we?" he repeated. "Do you tell me, John Carter, that
you know not where you be?"

"That I am upon Barsoom is all that I can guess, and but for you and
the great white apes I should not even guess that, for the sights
I have seen this day are as unlike the things of my beloved Barsoom
as I knew it ten long years ago as they are unlike the world of my
birth.

"No, Tars Tarkas, I know not where we be."