The distance from the bottom of the funnel to the floor ofthe chamber beneath it could not have been great, for allthree of the victims of Tario's wrath alighted unscathed.

Carthoris, still clasping Thuvia tightly to his breast,came to the ground catlike, upon his feet, breaking theshock for the girl. Scarce had his feet touched the roughstone flagging of this new chamber than his sword flashedout ready for instant use. But though the room was lighted,there was no sign of enemy about.

Carthoris looked toward Jav. The man was pasty white with fear.

"What is to be our fate?" asked the Heliumite. "Tellme, man! Shake off your terror long enough to tell me,so I may be prepared to sell my life and that of thePrincess of Ptarth as dearly as possible."

"Komal!" whispered Jav. "We are to be devoured by Komal!"

"Your deity?" asked Carthoris.

The Lotharian nodded his head. Then he pointedtoward a low doorway at one end of the chamber.

"From thence will he come upon us. Lay aside yourpuny sword, fool. It will but enrage him the more andmake our sufferings the worse."

Carthoris smiled, gripping his long-sword the more firmly.

Presently Jav gave a horrified moan, at the same timepointing toward the door.

"He has come," he whimpered.

Carthoris and Thuvia looked in the direction the Lotharianhad indicated, expecting to see some strange and fearfulcreature in human form; but to their astonishment they sawthe broad head and great-maned shoulders of a huge banth,the largest that either ever had seen.

Slowly and with dignity the mighty beast advancedinto the room. Jav had fallen to the floor, and waswriggling his body in the same servile manner that hehad adopted toward Tario. He spoke to the fierce beastas he would have spoken to a human being, pleading withit for mercy.

Carthoris stepped between Thuvia and the banth, hissword ready to contest the beast's victory over them.Thuvia turned toward Jav.

"Is this Komal, your god?" she asked.

Jav nodded affirmatively. The girl smiled, and then,brushing past Carthoris, she stepped swiftly toward thegrowling carnivore.

In low, firm tones she spoke to it as she had spokento the banths of the Golden Cliffs and the scavengersbefore the walls of Lothar.

The beast ceased its growling. With lowered head andcatlike purr, it came slinking to the girl's feet.Thuvia turned toward Carthoris.

"It is but a banth," she said. "We have nothing tofear from it."

Carthoris smiled.

"I did not fear it," he replied, "for I, too, believedit to be only a banth, and I have my long-sword."

Jav sat up and gazed at the spectacle before him--theslender girl weaving her fingers in the tawny maneof the huge creature that he had thought divine, whileKomal rubbed his hideous snout against her side.

"So this is your god!" laughed Thuvia.

Jav looked bewildered. He scarce knew whether hedare chance offending Komal or not, for so strong is thepower of superstition that even though we know that wehave been reverencing a sham, yet still we hesitateto admit the validity of our new-found convictions.

"Yes," he said, "this is Komal. For ages the enemiesof Tario have been hurled to this pit to fill his maw,for Komal must be fed."

"Is there any way out of this chamber to the avenuesof the city?" asked Carthoris.

Jav shrugged.

"I do not know," he replied. "Never have I beenhere before, nor ever have I cared to do so."

"Come," suggested Thuvia, "let us explore.There must be a way out."

Together the three approached the doorway throughwhich Komal had entered the apartment that was to havewitnessed their deaths. Beyond was a low-roofed lair,with a small door at the far end.

This, to their delight, opened to the lifting of anordinary latch, letting them into a circular arena,surrounded by tiers of seats.

"Here is where Komal is fed in public," explainedJav. "Had Tario dared it would have been here thatour fates had been sealed; but he feared too much thykeen blade, red man, and so he hurled us all downwardto the pit. I did not know how closely connected werethe two chambers. Now we may easily reach the avenuesand the city gates. Only the bowmen may dispute theright of way, and, knowing their secret, I doubt thatthey have power to harm us."

Another door led to a flight of steps that rose fromthe arena level upward through the seats to an exit atthe back of the hall. Beyond this was a straight,broad corridor, running directly through the palaceto the gardens at the side.

No one appeared to question them as they advanced,mighty Komal pacing by the girl's side.

"Where are the people of the palace--the jeddak's retinue?"asked Carthoris. "Even in the city streets as we camethrough I scarce saw sign of a human being, yet all aboutare evidences of a mighty population."

Jav sighed.

"Poor Lothar," he said. "It is indeed a city of ghosts.There are scarce a thousand of us left, who once werenumbered in the millions. Our great city is peopled bythe creatures of our own imaginings. For our own needswe do not take the trouble to materialize these peoplesof our brain, yet they are apparent to us.

"Even now I see great throngs lining the avenue,hastening to and fro in the round of their duties. I see women and children laughing on the balconies--thesewe are forbidden to materialize; but yet I see them--theyare here. . . . But why not?" he mused. "No longer need Ifear Tario--he has done his worst, and failed. Why not indeed?

"Stay, friends," he continued. "Would you see Lotharin all her glory?"

Carthoris and Thuvia nodded their assent, more outof courtesy than because they fully grasped the importof his mutterings.

Jav gazed at them penetratingly for an instant, then,with a wave of his hand, cried: "Look!"

The sight that met them was awe-inspiring. Wherebefore there had been naught but deserted pavementsand scarlet swards, yawning windows and tenantlessdoors, now swarmed a countless multitude of happy,laughing people.

"It is the past," said Jav in a low voice. "They donot see us--they but live the old dead past of ancientLothar--the dead and crumbled Lothar of antiquity,which stood upon the shore of Throxus, mightiest ofthe five oceans.

"See those fine, upstanding men swinging along thebroad avenue? See the young girls and the women smileupon them? See the men greet them with love and respect?Those be seafarers coming up from their ships which lieat the quays at the city's edge.

"Brave men, they--ah, but the glory of Lothar has faded!See their weapons. They alone bore arms, for they crossedthe five seas to strange places where dangers were.With their passing passed the martial spirit of theLotharians, leaving, as the ages rolled by, a race ofspineless cowards.

"We hated war, and so we trained not our youth inwarlike ways. Thus followed our undoing, for when theseas dried and the green hordes encroached upon us wecould do naught but flee. But we remembered the seafaring bowmen of the days of our glory--it is thememory of these which we hurl upon our enemies."

As Jav ceased speaking, the picture faded, and once more,the three took up their way toward the distant gates,along deserted avenues.

Twice they sighted Lotharians of flesh and blood. Atsight of them and the huge banth which they must haverecognized as Komal, the citizens turned and fled.

"They will carry word of our flight to Tario," cried Jav,"and soon he will send his bowmen after us. Let us hopethat our theory is correct, and that their shafts arepowerless against minds cognizant of their unreality.Otherwise we are doomed.

"Explain, red man, to the woman the truths that Ihave explained to you, that she may meet the arrowswith a stronger counter-suggestion of immunity."

Carthoris did as Jav bid him; but they came to the greatgates without sign of pursuit developing. Here Jav set inmotion the mechanism that rolled the huge, wheel-likegate aside, and a moment later the three, accompaniedby the banth, stepped out into the plain before Lothar.

Scarce had they covered a hundred yards when thesound of many men shouting arose behind them. Asthey turned they saw a company of bowmen debouchingupon the plain from the gate through which they hadbut just passed.

Upon the wall above the gate were a number ofLotharians, among whom Jav recognized Tario. Thejeddak stood glaring at them, evidently concentrating allthe forces of his trained mind upon them. That he wasmaking a supreme effort to render his imaginary creaturesdeadly was apparent.

Jav turned white, and commenced to tremble. At thecrucial moment he appeared to lose the courage of hisconviction. The great banth turned back toward theadvancing bowmen and growled. Carthoris placed himselfbetween Thuvia and the enemy and, facing them,awaited the outcome of their charge.

Suddenly an inspiration came to Carthoris.

"Hurl your own bowmen against Tario's!" he cried to Jav."Let us see a materialized battle between two mentalities."

The suggestion seemed to hearten the Lotharian, andin another moment the three stood behind solid ranksof huge bowmen who hurled taunts and menaces at theadvancing company emerging from the walled city.

Jav was a new man the moment his battalions stoodbetween him and Tario. One could almost have swornthe man believed these creatures of his strange hypnoticpower to be real flesh and blood.

With hoarse battle cries they charged the bowmen of Tario.Barbed shafts flew thick and fast. Men fell, and theground was red with gore.

Carthoris and Thuvia had difficulty in reconciling thereality of it all with their knowledge of the truth.They saw utan after utan march from the gate in perfectstep to reinforce the outnumbered company which Tariohad first sent forth to arrest them.

They saw Jav's forces grow correspondingly until allabout them rolled a sea of fighting, cursing warriors,and the dead lay in heaps about the field.

Jav and Tario seemed to have forgotten all else besidethe struggling bowmen that surged to and fro, filling thebroad field between the forest and the city.

The wood loomed close behind Thuvia and Carthoris.The latter cast a glance toward Jav.

"Come!" he whispered to the girl. "Let them fight outtheir empty battle--neither, evidently, has power to harmthe other. They are like two controversialists hurlingwords at one another. While they are engaged we mayas well be devoting our energies to an attempt to findthe passage through the cliffs to the plain beyond."

As he spoke, Jav, turning from the battle for an instant,caught his words. He saw the girl move to accompany theHeliumite. A cunning look leaped to the Lotharian's eyes.

The thing that lay beyond that look had been deepin his heart since first he had laid eyes upon Thuviaof Ptarth. He had not recognized it, however, until nowthat she seemed about to pass out of his existence.

He centred his mind upon the Heliumite and the girlfor an instant.

Carthoris saw Thuvia of Ptarth step forward withoutstretched hand. He was surprised at this sudden softeningtoward him, and it was with a full heart that he let hisfingers close upon hers, as together they turned awayfrom forgotten Lothar, into the woods, and bent their stepstoward the distant mountains.

As the Lotharian had turned toward them, Thuvia had beensurprised to hear Carthoris suddenly voice a new plan.

"Remain here with Jav," she had heard him say, "whileI go to search for the passage through the cliffs."

She had dropped back in surprise and disappointment,for she knew that there was no reason why she should nothave accompanied him. Certainly she should have beensafer with him than left here alone with the Lotharian.

And Jav watched the two and smiled his cunning smile.

When Carthoris had disappeared within the wood, Thuviaseated herself apathetically upon the scarlet sward towatch the seemingly interminable struggles of the bowmen.

The long afternoon dragged its weary way toward darkness,and still the imaginary legions charged and retreated. The sun was about to set when Tario commenced to withdrawhis troops slowly toward the city.

His plan for cessation of hostilities through the nightevidently met with Jav's entire approval, for he causedhis forces to form themselves in orderly utans and marchjust within the edge of the wood, where they were soonbusily engaged in preparing their evening meal, andspreading down their sleeping silks and furs for the night.

Thuvia could scarce repress a smile as she noted thescrupulous care with which Jav's imaginary men attendedto each tiny detail of deportment as truly as if they hadbeen real flesh and blood.

Sentries were posted between the camp and the city.Officers clanked hither and thither issuing commandsand seeing to it that they were properly carried out.

Thuvia turned toward Jav.

"Why is it," she asked, "that you observe such carefulnicety in the regulation of your creatures when Tarioknows quite as well as you that they are but figmentsof your brain? Why not permit them simply to dissolveinto thin air until you again require their futile service?"

"You do not understand them," replied Jav. "While theyexist they are real. I do but call them into being now,and in a way direct their general actions. But thereafter,until I dissolve them, they are as actual as you or I.Their officers command them, under my guidance. I amthe general--that is all. And the psychological effect uponthe enemy is far greater than were I to treat them merelyas substanceless vagaries.

"Then, too," continued the Lotharian, "there is alwaysthe hope, which with us is little short of belief, that someday these materializations will merge into the real--thatthey will remain, some of them, after we have dissolvedtheir fellows, and that thus we shall have discovered ameans for perpetuating our dying race.

"Some there are who claim already to have accomplishedthe thing. It is generally supposed that theetherealists have quite a few among their number whoare permanent materializations. It is even said thatsuch is Tario, but that cannot be, for he existed beforewe had discovered the full possibilities of suggestion.

"There are others among us who insist that none of us is real.That we could not have existed all these ages without materialfood and water had we ourselves been material. Although I ama realist, I rather incline toward this belief myself.

"It seems well and sensibly based upon the belief thatour ancient forbears developed before their extinctionsuch wondrous mentalities that some of the stronger mindsamong them lived after the death of their bodies--thatwe are but the deathless minds of individuals long dead.

"It would appear possible, and yet in so far as I amconcerned I have all the attributes of corporeal existence.I eat, I sleep"--he paused, casting a meaning look uponthe girl--"I love!"

Thuvia could not mistake the palpable meaning of hiswords and expression. She turned away with a little shrugof disgust that was not lost upon the Lotharian.

He came close to her and seized her arm.

"Why not Jav?" he cried. "Who more honourablethan the second of the world's most ancient race?Your Heliumite? He has gone. He has deserted youto your fate to save himself. Come, be Jav's!"

Thuvia of Ptarth rose to her full height, her liftedshoulder turned toward the man, her haughty chin upraised,a scornful twist to her lips.

"You lie!" she said quietly, "the Heliumite knows lessof disloyalty than he knows of fear, and of fear he is asignorant as the unhatched young."

"Then where is he?" taunted the Lotharian. "I tell youhe has fled the valley. He has left you to your fate.But Jav will see that it is a pleasant one. To-morrow weshall return into Lothar at the head of my victorious army,and I shall be jeddak and you shall be my consort. Come!"And he attempted to crush her to his breast.

The girl struggled to free herself, striking at the manwith her metal armlets. Yet still he drew her toward him,until both were suddenly startled by a hideous growl thatrumbled from the dark wood close behind them.