last met his match.

His face became livid with rage as he found my guard impregnable,
while blood flowed from a dozen minor wounds upon his face and
body.

"Who are you, white man?" he hissed. "That you are no Barsoomian
from the outer world is evident from your colour. And you are not
of us."

His last statement was almost a question.

"What if I were from the Temple of Issus?" I hazarded on a wild
guess.

"Fate forfend!" he exclaimed, his face going white under the blood
that now nearly covered it.

I did not know how to follow up my lead, but I carefully laid the
idea away for future use should circumstances require it. His
answer indicated that for all he KNEW I might be from the Temple
of Issus and in it were men like unto myself, and either this man
feared the inmates of the temple or else he held their persons or
their power in such reverence that he trembled to think of the harm
and indignities he had heaped upon one of them.

But my present business with him was of a different nature than
that which requires any considerable abstract reasoning; it was to
get my sword between his ribs, and this I succeeded in doing within
the next few seconds, nor was I an instant too soon.