ABOVE the roof of the palace that housed the Jed of Gathol andhis entourage, the cruiser Vanator tore at her stout moorings.The groaning tackle bespoke the mad fury of the gale, while theworried faces of those members of the crew whose duties demandedtheir presence on the straining craft gave corroborative evidenceof the gravity of the situation. Only stout lashings preventedthese men from being swept from the deck, while those upon theroof below were constantly compelled to cling to rails andstanchions to save themselves from being carried away by each newburst of meteoric fury. Upon the prow of the Vanator was paintedthe device of Gathol, but no pennants were displayed in the upperworks since the storm had carried away several in rapidsuccession, just as it seemed to the watching men that it mustcarry away the ship itself. They could not believe that anytackle could withstand for long this Titanic force. To each ofthe twelve lashings clung a brawny warrior with drawnshort-sword. Had but a single mooring given to the power of thetempest eleven short-swords would have cut the others; since,partially moored, the ship was doomed, while free in the tempestit stood at least some slight chance for life.

"By the blood of Issus, I believe they will hold!" screamed onewarrior to another.

"And if they do not hold may the spirits of our ancestors rewardthe brave warriors upon the Vanator," replied another of thoseupon the roof of the palace, "for it will not be long from themoment her cables part before her crew dons the leather of thedead; but yet, Tanus, I believe they will hold. Give thanks atleast that we did not sail before the tempest fell, since noweach of us has a chance to live."

"Yes," replied Tanus, "I should hate to be abroad today upon thestoutest ship that sails the Barsoomian sky."

It was then that Gahan the Jed appeared upon the roof. With himwere the balance of his own party and a dozen warriors of Helium.The young chief turned to his followers.

"I sail at once upon the Vanator," he said, "in search of Tara ofHelium who is thought to have been carried away upon a one-manflier by the storm. I do not need to explain to you the slenderchances the Vanator has to withstand the fury of the tempest, norwill I order you to your deaths. Let those who wish remain behindwithout dishonor. The others will follow me," and he leaped forthe rope ladder that lashed wildly in the gale.

The first man to follow him was Tanus and when the last reachedthe deck of the cruiser there remained upon the palace roof onlythe twelve warriors of Helium, who, with naked swords, had takenthe posts of the Gatholians at the moorings.

Not a single warrior who had remained aboard the Vanator wouldleave her now.

"I expected no less," said Gahan, as with the help of thosealready on the deck he and the others found secure lashings. Thecommander of the Vanator shook his head. He loved his trim craft,the pride of her class in the little navy of Gathol. It was ofher he thought--not of himself. He saw her lying torn and twistedupon the ochre vegetation of some distant sea-bottom, to bepresently overrun and looted by some savage, green horde. Helooked at Gahan.

"Are you ready, San Tothis?" asked the jed.

"All is ready."

"Then cut away!"

Word was passed across the deck and over the side to theHeliumetic warriors below that at the third gun they were to cutaway. Twelve keen swords must strike simultaneously and withequal power, and each must sever completely and instantly threestrands of heavy cable that no loose end fouling a block bringimmediate disaster upon the Vanator.

Boom! The voice of the signal gun rolled down through thescreaming wind to the twelve warriors upon the roof. Boom! Twelveswords were raised above twelve brawny shoulders. Boom! Twelvekeen edges severed twelve complaining moorings, clean and as one.

The Vanator, her propellors whirling, shot forward with thestorm. The tempest struck her in the stern as with a mailed fistand stood the great ship upon her nose, and then it caught herand spun her as a child's top spins; and upon the palace roof thetwelve men looked on in silent helplessness and prayed for thesouls of the brave warriors who were going to their death. Andothers saw, from Helium's lofty landing stages and from athousand hangars upon a thousand roofs; but only for an instantdid the preparations stop that would send other brave men intothe frightful maelstrom of that apparently hopeless search, forsuch is the courage of the warriors of Barsoom.

But the Vanator did not fall to the ground, within sight of thecity at least, though as long as the watchers could see her neverfor an instant did she rest upon an even keel. Sometimes she layupon one side or the other, or again she hurtled along keel up,or rolled over and over, or stood upon her nose or her tail atthe caprice of the great force that carried her along. And thewatchers saw that this great ship was merely being blown awaywith the other bits of debris great and small that filled thesky. Never in the memory of man or the annals of recorded historyhad such a storm raged across the face of Barsoom.

And in another instant was the Vanator forgotten as the lofty,scarlet tower that had marked Lesser Helium for ages crashed toground, carrying death and demolition upon the city beneath.Panic reigned. A fire broke out in the ruins. The city's everyforce seemed crippled, and it was then that The Warlord orderedthe men that were about to set forth in search of Tara of Heliumto devote their energies to the salvation of the city, for he toohad witnessed the start of the Vanator and realized the futilityof wasting men who were needed sorely if Lesser Helium was to besaved from utter destruction.

Shortly after noon of the second day the storm commenced toabate, and before the sun went down, the little craft upon whichTara of Helium had hovered between life and death these manyhours drifted slowly before a gentle breeze above a landscape ofrolling hills that once had been lofty mountains upon a Martiancontinent. The girl was exhausted from loss of sleep, from lackof food and drink, and from the nervous reaction consequent tothe terrifying experiences through which she had passed. In thenear distance, just topping an intervening hill, she caught amomentary glimpse of what appeared to be a dome-capped tower.Quickly she dropped the flier until the hill shut it off from theview of the possible occupants of the structure she had seen. Thetower meant to her the habitation of man, suggesting the presenceof water and, perhaps, of food. If the tower was the desertedrelic of a bygone age she would scarcely find food there, butthere was still a chance that there might be water. If it wasinhabited, then must her approach be cautious, for only enemiesmight be expected to abide in so far distant a land. Tara ofHelium knew that she must be far from the twin cities of hergrandfather's empire, but had she guessed within even a thousandhaads of the reality, she had been stunned by realization of theutter hopelessness of her state.

Keeping the craft low, for the buoyancy tanks were still intact,the girl skimmed the ground until the gently-moving wind hadcarried her to the side of the last hill that intervened betweenher and the structure she had thought a man-built tower. Here shebrought the flier to the ground among some stunted trees, anddragging it beneath one where it might be somewhat hidden fromcraft passing above, she made it fast and set forth toreconnoiter. Like most women of her class she was armed only witha single slender blade, so that in such an emergency as nowconfronted her she must depend almost solely upon her clevernessin remaining undiscovered by enemies. With utmost caution shecrept warily toward the crest of the hill, taking advantage ofevery natural screen that the landscape afforded to conceal herapproach from possible observers ahead, while momentarily shecast quick glances rearward lest she be taken by surprise fromthat quarter.

She came at last to the summit, where, from the concealment of alow bush, she could see what lay beyond. Beneath her spread abeautiful valley surrounded by low hills. Dotting it werenumerous circular towers, dome-capped, and surrounding each towerwas a stone wall enclosing several acres of ground. The valleyappeared to be in a high state of cultivation. Upon the oppositeside of the hill and just beneath her was a tower and enclosure.It was the roof of the former that had first attracted herattention. In all respects it seemed identical in constructionwith those further out in the valley--a high, plastered wall ofmassive construction surrounding a similarly constructed tower,upon whose gray surface was painted in vivid colors a strangedevice. The towers were about forty sofads in diameter,approximately forty earth-feet, and sixty in height to the baseof the dome. To an Earth man they would have immediatelysuggested the silos in which dairy farmers store ensilage fortheir herds; but closer scrutiny, revealing an occasionalembrasured opening together with the strange construction of thedomes, would have altered such a conclusion. Tara of Helium sawthat the domes seemed to be faced with innumerable prisms ofglass, those that were exposed to the declining sun scintillatingso gorgeously as to remind her suddenly of the magnificenttrappings of Gahan of Gathol. As she thought of the man she shookher head angrily, and moved cautiously forward a foot or two thatshe might get a less obstructed view of the nearer tower and itsenclosure.

As Tara of Helium looked down into the enclosure surrounding thenearest tower, her brows contracted momentarily in frowningsurprise, and then her eyes went wide in an expression ofincredulity tinged with horror, for what she saw was a score ortwo of human bodies--naked and headless. For a long moment shewatched, breathless; unable to believe the evidence of her owneyes--that these grewsome things moved and had life! She saw themcrawling about on hands and knees over and across one another,searching about with their fingers. And she saw some of them attroughs, for which the others seemed to be searching, and thoseat the troughs were taking something from these receptacles andapparently putting it in a hole where their necks should havebeen. They were not far beneath her--she could see themdistinctly and she saw that there were the bodies of both men andwomen, and that they were beautifully proportioned, and thattheir skin was similar to hers, but of a slightly lighter red. Atfirst she had thought that she was looking upon a shambles andthat the bodies, but recently decapitated, were moving under theimpulse of muscular reaction; but presently she realized thatthis was their normal condition. The horror of them fascinatedher, so that she could scarce take her eyes from them. It wasevident from their groping hands that they were eyeless, andtheir sluggish movements suggested a rudimentary nervous systemand a correspondingly minute brain. The girl wondered how theysubsisted for she could not, even by the wildest stretch ofimagination, picture these imperfect creatures as intelligenttillers of the soil. Yet that the soil of the valley was tilledwas evident and that these things had food was equally so. Butwho tilled the soil? Who kept and fed these unhappy things, andfor what purpose? It was an enigma beyond her powers ofdeduction.

The sight of food aroused again a consciousness of her owngnawing hunger and the thirst that parched her throat. She couldsee both food and water within the enclosure; but would she dareenter even should she find means of ingress? She doubted it,since the very thought of possible contact with these grewsomecreatures sent a shudder through her frame.

Then her eyes wandered again out across the valley untilpresently they picked out what appeared to be a tiny streamwinding its way through the center of the farm lands--a strangesight upon Barsoom. Ah, if it were but water! Then might she hopewith a real hope, for the fields would give her sustenance whichshe could gain by night, while by day she hid among thesurrounding hills, and sometime, yes, sometime she knew, thesearchers would come, for John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom, wouldnever cease to search for his daughter until every square haad ofthe planet had been combed again and again. She knew him and sheknew the warriors of Helium and so she knew that could she butmanage to escape harm until they came, they would indeed come atlast.

She would have to wait until dark before she dare venture intothe valley, and in the meantime she thought it well to search outa place of safety nearby where she might be reasonably safe fromsavage beasts. It was possible that the district was free fromcarnivora, but one might never be sure in a strange land. As shewas about to withdraw be hind the brow of the hill her attentionwas again attracted to the enclosure below. Two figures hademerged from the tower. Their beautiful bodies seemed identicalwith those of the headless creatures among which they moved, butthe newcomers were not headless. Upon their shoulders were headsthat seemed human, yet which the girl intuitively sensed were nothuman. They were just a trifle too far away for her to see themdistinctly in the waning light of the dying day, but she knewthat they were too large, they were out of proportion to theperfectly proportioned bodies, and they were oblate in form. Shecould see that the men wore some manner of harness to which wereslung the customary long-sword and short-sword of the Barsoomianwarrior, and that about their short necks were massive leathercollars cut to fit closely over the shoulders and snugly to thelower part of the head. Their features were scarce discernible,but there was a suggestion of grotesqueness about them thatcarried to her a feeling of revulsion.

The two carried a long rope to which were fastened, at intervalsof about two sofads, what she later guessed were light manacles,for she saw the warriors passing among the poor creatures in theenclosure and about the right wrist of each they fastened one ofthe manacles. When all had been thus fastened to the rope one ofthe warriors commenced to pull and tug at the loose end as thoughattempting to drag the headless company toward the tower, whilethe other went among them with a long, light whip with which heflicked them upon the naked skin. Slowly, dully, the creaturesrose to their feet and between the tugging of the warrior infront and the lashing of him behind the hopeless band was finallyherded within the tower. Tara of Helium shuddered as she turnedaway. What manner of creatures were these?

Suddenly it was night. The Barsoomian day had ended, and then thebrief period of twilight that renders the transition fromdaylight to darkness almost as abrupt as the switching off of anelectric light, and Tara of Helium had found no sanctuary. Butperhaps there were no beasts to fear, or rather to avoid--Tara ofHelium liked not the word fear. She would have been glad,however, had there been a cabin, even a very tiny cabin, upon hersmall flier; but there was no cabin. The interior of the hull wascompletely taken up by the buoyancy tanks. Ah, she had it! Howstupid of her not to have thought of it before! She could moorthe craft to the tree beneath which it rested and let it rise thelength of the rope. Lashed to the deck rings she would then besafe from any roaming beast of prey that chanced along. In themorning she could drop to the ground again before the craft wasdiscovered.

As Tara of Helium crept over the brow of the hill down toward thevalley, her presence was hidden by the darkness of the night fromthe sight of any chance observer who might be loitering by awindow in the nearby tower. Cluros, the farther moon, was justrising above the horizon to commence his leisurely journeythrough the heavens. Eight zodes later he would set--a trifleover nineteen and a half Earth hours--and during that timeThuria, his vivacious mate, would have circled the planet twiceand be more than half way around on her third trip. She had butjust set. It would be more than three and a half hours before sheshot above the opposite horizon to hurtle, swift and low, acrossthe face of the dying planet. During this temporary absence ofthe mad moon Tara of Helium hoped to find both food and water,and gain again the safety of her flier's deck.

She groped her way through the darkness, giving the tower and itsenclosure as wide a berth as possible. Sometimes she stumbled,for in the long shadows cast by the rising Cluros objects weregrotesquely distorted though the light from the moon was stillnot sufficient to be of much assistance to her. Nor, as a matterof fact, did she want light. She could find the stream in thedark, by the simple expedient of going down hill until she walkedinto it and she had seen that bearing trees and many crops grewthroughout the valley, so that she would pass food in plenty ereshe reached the stream. If the moon showed her the way moreclearly and thus saved her from an occasional fall, he would,too, show her more clearly to the strange denizens of the towers,and that, of course, must not be. Could she have waited until thefollowing night conditions would have been better, since Cluroswould not appear in the heavens at all and so, during Thuria'sabsence, utter darkness would reign; but the pangs of thirst andthe gnawing of hunger could be endured no longer with food anddrink both in sight, and so she had decided to risk discoveryrather than suffer longer.

Safely past the nearest tower, she moved as rapidly as she feltconsistent with safety, choosing her way wherever possible sothat she might take advantage of the shadows of the trees thatgrew at intervals and at the same time discover those which borefruit. In this latter she met with almost immediate success, forthe very third tree beneath which she halted was heavy with ripefruit. Never, thought Tara of Helium, had aught so deliciousimpinged upon her palate, and yet it was naught else than thealmost tasteless usa, which is considered to be palatable onlyafter having been cooked and highly spiced. It grows easily withlittle irrigation and the trees bear abundantly. The fruit, whichranks high in food value, is one of the staple foods of the lesswell-to-do, and because of its cheapness and nutritive valueforms one of the principal rations of both armies and navies uponBarsoom, a use which has won for it a Martian sobriquet which,freely translated into English, would be, The Fighting Potato.The girl was wise enough to eat but sparingly, but she filled herpocket-pouch with the fruit before she continued upon her way.

Two towers she passed before she came at last to the stream, andhere again was she temperate, drinking but little and that veryslowly, contenting herself with rinsing her mouth frequently andbathing her face, her hands, and her feet; and even though thenight was cold, as Martian nights are, the sensation ofrefreshment more than compensated for the physical discomfort ofthe low temperature. Replacing her sandals she sought among thegrowing track near the stream for whatever edible berries ortubers might be planted there, and found a couple of varietiesthat could be eaten raw. With these she replaced some of the usain her pocket-pouch, not only to insure a variety but because shefound them more palatable. Occasionally she returned to thestream to drink, but each time moderately. Always were her eyesand ears alert for the first signs of danger, but she had neitherseen nor heard aught to disturb her. And presently the timeapproached when she felt she must return to her flier lest she becaught in the revealing light of low swinging Thuria. She dreadedleaving the water for she knew that she must become very thirstybefore she could hope to come again to the stream. If she onlyhad some little receptacle in which to carry water, even a smallamount would tide her over until the following night; but she hadnothing and so she must content herself as best she could withthe juices of the fruit and tubers she had gathered.

After a last drink at the stream, the longest and deepest she hadallowed herself, she rose to retrace her steps toward the hills;but even as she did so she became suddenly tense withapprehension. What was that? She could have sworn that she sawsomething move in the shadows beneath a tree not far away. For along minute the girl did not move--she scarce breathed. Her eyesremained fixed upon the dense shadows below the tree, her earsstrained through the silence of the night. A low moaning camedown from the hills where her flier was hidden. She knew itwell--the weird note of the hunting banth. And the greatcarnivore lay directly in her path. But he was not so close asthis other thing, hiding there in the shadows just a little wayoff. What was it? It was the strain of uncertainty that weighedheaviest upon her. Had she known the nature of the creaturelurking there half its meanace would have vanished. She castquickly about her in search of some haven of refuge should thething prove dangerous.

Again arose the moaning from the hills, but this time closer.Almost immediately it was answered from the opposite side of thevalley, behind her, and then from the distance to the right ofher, and twice upon her left. Her eyes had found a tree, quitenear. Slowly, and without taking her eyes from the shadows ofthat other tree, she moved toward the overhanging branches thatmight afford her sanctuary in the event of need, and at her firstmove a low growl rose from the spot she had been watching and sheheard the sudden moving of a big body. Simultaneously thecreature shot into the moonlight in full charge upon her, itstail erect, its tiny ears laid flat, its great mouth with itsmultiple rows of sharp and powerful fangs already yawning for itsprey, its ten legs carrying it forward in great leaps, and nowfrom the beast's throat issued the frightful roar with which itseeks to paralyze its prey. It was a banth--the great, maned lionof Barsoom. Tara of Helium saw it coming and leaped for the treetoward which she had been moving, and the banth realized herintention and redoubled his speed. As his hideous roar awakenedthe echoes in the hills, so too it awakened echoes in the valley;but these echoes came from the living throats of others of hiskind, until it seemed to the girl that Fate had thrown her intothe midst of a countless multitude of these savage beasts.

Almost incredbily swift is the speed of a charging banth, andfortunate it was that the girl had not been caught farther in theopen. As it was, her margin of safety was next to negligible, foras she swung nimbly to the lower branches the creature in pursuitof her crashed among the foliage almost upon her as it sprangupward to seize her. It was only a combination of good fortuneand agility that saved her. A stout branch deflected the rakingtalons of the carnivore, but so close was the call that a giantforearm brushed her flesh in the instant before she scrambled tothe higher branches.

Baffled, the banth gave vent to his rage and disappointment in aseries of frightful roars that caused the very ground to tremble,and to these were added the roarings and the growlings and themoanings of his fellows as they approached from every direction,in the hope of wresting from him whatever of his kill they couldtake by craft or prowess. And now he turned snarling upon them asthey circled the tree, while the girl, huddled in a crotch abovethem, looked down upon the gaunt, yellow monsters padding onnoiseless feet in a restless circle about her. She wondered nowat the strange freak of fate that had permitted her to come downthis far into the valley by night unharmed, but even more shewondered how she was to return to the hills. She knew that shewould not dare venture it by night and she guessed, too, that byday she might be confronted by even graver perils. To depend uponthis valley for sustenance she now saw to be beyond the pale ofpossibility because of the banths that would keep her from foodand water by night, while the dwellers in the towers woulddoubtless make it equally impossible for her to forage by day.There was but one solution of her difficulty and that was toreturn to her flier and pray that the wind would waft her to someless terrorful land; but when might she return to the flier? Thebanths gave little evidence of relinquishing hope of her, andevenif they wandered out of sight would she dare risk the attempt?She doubted it.

Hopeless indeed seemed her situation--hopeless it was.