no escape, and if there were, at a price which would put out for
ever the last flickering hope which I may cling to of seeing my
princess again in this life--and you have seen to-day with what
pitiful futility man yearns toward a material hereafter.

"Only a bare half-hour before I saw you battling with the plant
men I was standing in the moonlight upon the banks of a broad river
that taps the eastern shore of Earth's most blessed land. I have
answered you, my friend. Do you believe?"

"I believe," replied Tars Tarkas, "though I cannot understand."

As we talked I had been searching the interior of the chamber with
my eyes. It was, perhaps, two hundred feet in length and half as
broad, with what appeared to be a doorway in the centre of the wall
directly opposite that through which we had entered.

The apartment was hewn from the material of the cliff, showing
mostly dull gold in the dim light which a single minute radium
illuminator in the centre of the roof diffused throughout its great
dimensions. Here and there polished surfaces of ruby, emerald,
and diamond patched the golden walls and ceiling. The floor was of
another material, very hard, and worn by much use to the smoothness
of glass. Aside from the two doors I could discern no sign of other
aperture, and as one we knew to be locked against us I approached
the other.

As I extended my hand to search for the controlling button, that
cruel and mocking laugh rang out once more, so close to me this
time that I involuntarily shrank back, tightening my grip upon the