"There is naught that we can do but take things as they come,
and at least have the satisfaction of knowing that whoever slays
us eventually will have far greater numbers of their own dead to
count than they will get in return. White ape or plant man, green
Barsoomian or red man, whosoever it shall be that takes the last
toll from us will know that it is costly in lives to wipe out John
Carter, Prince of the House of Tardos Mors, and Tars Tarkas, Jeddak
of Thark, at the same time."

I could not help but laugh at him grim humour, and he joined in with
me in one of those rare laughs of real enjoyment which was one of
the attributes of this fierce Tharkian chief which marked him from
the others of his kind.

"But about yourself, John Carter," he cried at last. "If you have
not been here all these years where indeed have you been, and how
is it that I find you here to-day?"

"I have been back to Earth," I replied. "For ten long Earth years I
have been praying and hoping for the day that would carry me once
more to this grim old planet of yours, for which, with all its
cruel and terrible customs, I feel a bond of sympathy and love even
greater than for the world that gave me birth.

"For ten years have I been enduring a living death of uncertainty
and doubt as to whether Dejah Thoris lived, and now that for the
first time in all these years my prayers have been answered and my
doubt relieved I find myself, through a cruel whim of fate, hurled
into the one tiny spot of all Barsoom from which there is apparently