If there be a fate that is sometimes cruel to me, there surelyis a kind and merciful Providence which watches over me.

As I toppled from the tower into the horrid abyss below Icounted myself already dead; and Thurid must have done likewise,for he evidently did not even trouble himself to look after me,but must have turned and mounted the waiting flier at once.

Ten feet only I fell, and then a loop of my tough, leathern harnesscaught upon one of the cylindrical stone projections in the tower'ssurface--and held. Even when I had ceased to fall I could not believethe miracle that had preserved me from instant death, and for a momentI hung there, cold sweat exuding from every pore of my body.

But when at last I had worked myself back to a firm positionI hesitated to ascend, since I could not know that Thurid was notstill awaiting me above.

Presently, however, there came to my ears the whirring of thepropellers of a flier, and as each moment the sound grew fainterI realized that the party had proceeded toward the south withoutassuring themselves as to my fate.

Cautiously I retraced my way to the roof, and I must admitthat it was with no pleasant sensation that I raised my eyes oncemore above its edge; but, to my relief, there was no one in sight,and a moment later I stood safely upon its broad surface.

To reach the hangar and drag forth the only other flier whichit contained was the work of but an instant; and just as the twothern warriors whom Matai Shang had left to prevent this verycontingency emerged upon the roof from the tower's interior,I rose above them with a taunting laugh.

Then I dived rapidly to the inner court where I had last seen Woola,and to my immense relief found the faithful beast still there.

The twelve great banths lay in the doorways of their lairs,eyeing him and growling ominously, but they had not disobeyedThuvia's injunction; and I thanked the fate that had made hertheir keeper within the Golden Cliffs, and endowed her with thekind and sympathetic nature that had won the loyalty and affectionof these fierce beasts for her.

Woola leaped in frantic joy when he discovered me; and as theflier touched the pavement of the court for a brief instant hebounded to the deck beside me, and in the bearlike manifestationof his exuberant happiness all but caused me to wreck the vesselagainst the courtyard's rocky wall.

Amid the angry shouting of thern guardsmen we rose high abovethe last fortress of the Holy Therns, and then raced straighttoward the northeast and Kaol, the destination which I had heardfrom the lips of Matai Shang.

Far ahead, a tiny speck in the distance, I made out anotherflier late in the afternoon. It could be none other than thatwhich bore my lost love and my enemies.

I had gained considerably on the craft by night; and then,knowing that they must have sighted me and would show no lightsafter dark, I set my destination compass upon her--that wonderfullittle Martian mechanism which, once attuned to the object ofdestination, points away toward it, irrespective of every changein its location.

All that night we raced through the Barsoomian void, passing overlow hills and dead sea bottoms; above long-deserted cities andpopulous centers of red Martian habitation upon the ribbon-likelines of cultivated land which border the globe-encirclingwaterways, which Earth men call the canals of Mars.

Dawn showed that I had gained appreciably upon the flier ahead of me.It was a larger craft than mine, and not so swift; but even so,it had covered an immense distance since the flight began.

The change in vegetation below showed me that we were rapidlynearing the equator. I was now near enough to my quarry to haveused my bow gun; but, though I could see that Dejah Thoris was noton deck, I feared to fire upon the craft which bore her.

Thurid was deterred by no such scruples; and though it must have beendifficult for him to believe that it was really I who followed them,he could not very well doubt the witness of his own eyes; and so hetrained their stern gun upon me with his own hands, and an instant lateran explosive radium projectile whizzed perilously close above my deck.

The black's next shot was more accurate, striking my flierfull upon the prow and exploding with the instant of contact,ripping wide open the bow buoyancy tanks and disabling the engine.

So quickly did my bow drop after the shot that I scarce hadtime to lash Woola to the deck and buckle my own harness to agunwale ring before the craft was hanging stern up and makingher last long drop to ground.

Her stern buoyancy tanks prevented her dropping with great rapidity;but Thurid was firing rapidly now in an attempt to burst these also,that I might be dashed to death in the swift fall that would instantlyfollow a successful shot.

Shot after shot tore past or into us, but by a miracle neitherWoola nor I was hit, nor were the after tanks punctured. This goodfortune could not last indefinitely, and, assured that Thurid wouldnot again leave me alive, I awaited the bursting of the next shellthat hit; and then, throwing my hands above my head, I let go my holdand crumpled, limp and inert, dangling in my harness like a corpse.

The ruse worked, and Thurid fired no more at us. Presently Iheard the diminishing sound of whirring propellers and realizedthat again I was safe.

Slowly the stricken flier sank to the ground, and when I had freedmyself and Woola from the entangling wreckage I found that we wereupon the verge of a natural forest--so rare a thing upon the bosomof dying Mars that, outside of the forest in the Valley Dor besidethe Lost Sea of Korus, I never before had seen its like upon the planet.

From books and travelers I had learned something of the little-knownland of Kaol, which lies along the equator almost halfway round theplanet to the east of Helium.

It comprises a sunken area of extreme tropical heat, and isinhabited by a nation of red men varying but little in manners,customs, and appearance from the balance of the red men of Barsoom.

I knew that they were among those of the outer world who stillclung tenaciously to the discredited religion of the Holy Therns,and that Matai Shang would find a ready welcome and safe refugeamong them; while John Carter could look for nothing betterthan an ignoble death at their hands.

The isolation of the Kaolians is rendered almost complete bythe fact that no waterway connects their land with that of anyother nation, nor have they any need of a waterway since the low,swampy land which comprises the entire area of their domainself-waters their abundant tropical crops.

For great distances in all directions rugged hills and aridstretches of dead sea bottom discourage intercourse with them,and since there is practically no such thing as foreign commerceupon warlike Barsoom, where each nation is sufficient to itself,really little has been known relative to the court of the Jeddak of Kaoland the numerous strange, but interesting, people over whom he rules.

Occasional hunting parties have traveled to this out-of-the-waycorner of the globe, but the hostility of the natives has usuallybrought disaster upon them, so that even the sport of hunting thestrange and savage creatures which haunt the jungle fastnessesof Kaol has of later years proved insufficient lure even to themost intrepid warriors.

It was upon the verge of the land of the Kaols that I now knewmyself to be, but in what direction to search for Dejah Thoris,or how far into the heart of the great forest I might have topenetrate I had not the faintest idea.

But not so Woola.

Scarcely had I disentangled him than he raised his head highin air and commenced circling about at the edge of the forest.Presently he halted, and, turning to see if I were following,set off straight into the maze of trees in the direction we hadbeen going before Thurid's shot had put an end to our flier.

As best I could, I stumbled after him down a steep declivitybeginning at the forest's edge.

Immense trees reared their mighty heads far above us, their broadfronds completely shutting off the slightest glimpse of the sky.It was easy to see why the Kaolians needed no navy; their cities,hidden in the midst of this towering forest, must be entirelyinvisible from above, nor could a landing be made by any but thesmallest fliers, and then only with the greatest risk of accident.

How Thurid and Matai Shang were to land I could not imagine,though later I was to learn that to the level of the foresttop there rises in each city of Kaol a slender watchtowerwhich guards the Kaolians by day and by night against the secretapproach of a hostile fleet. To one of these the hekkador of theHoly Therns had no difficulty in approaching, and by its means theparty was safely lowered to the ground.

As Woola and I approached the bottom of the declivity theground became soft and mushy, so that it was with the greatestdifficulty that we made any headway whatever.

Slender purple grasses topped with red and yellow fern-like frondsgrew rankly all about us to the height of several feet above my head.

Myriad creepers hung festooned in graceful loops from tree to tree,and among them were several varieties of the Martian "man-flower,"whose blooms have eyes and hands with which to see and seize theinsects which form their diet.

The repulsive calot tree was, too, much in evidence. It is acarnivorous plant of about the bigness of a large sage-brush suchas dots our western plains. Each branch ends in a set of strong jaws,which have been known to drag down and devour large and formidablebeasts of prey.

Both Woola and I had several narrow escapes from these greedy,arboreous monsters.

Occasional areas of firm sod gave us intervals of rest fromthe arduous labor of traversing this gorgeous, twilight swamp, andit was upon one of these that I finally decided to make camp forthe night which my chronometer warned me would soon be upon us.

Many varieties of fruit grew in abundance about us; and as Martiancalots are omnivorous, Woola had no difficulty in making a squaremeal after I had brought down the viands for him. Then, having eaten,too, I lay down with my back to that of my faithful hound, and droppedinto a deep and dreamless sleep.

The forest was shrouded in impenetrable darkness when a lowgrowl from Woola awakened me. All about us I could hear thestealthy movement of great, padded feet, and now and then thewicked gleam of green eyes upon us. Arising, I drew mylong-sword and waited.

Suddenly a deep-toned, horrid roar burst from some savagethroat almost at my side. What a fool I had been not to havefound safer lodgings for myself and Woola among the branchesof one of the countless trees that surrounded us!

By daylight it would have been comparatively easy to have hoistedWoola aloft in one manner or another, but now it was too late.There was nothing for it but to stand our ground and takeour medicine, though, from the hideous racket which now assailedour ears, and for which that first roar had seemed to be the signal,I judged that we must be in the midst of hundreds, perhaps thousands,of the fierce, man-eating denizens of the Kaolian jungle.

All the balance of the night they kept up their infernal din,but why they did not attack us I could not guess, nor am I sure tothis day, unless it is that none of them ever venture upon thepatches of scarlet sward which dot the swamp.

When morning broke they were still there, walking about as ina circle, but always just beyond the edge of the sward. A moreterrifying aggregation of fierce and blood-thirsty monsters itwould be difficult to imagine.

Singly and in pairs they commenced wandering off into thejungle shortly after sunrise, and when the last of them haddeparted Woola and I resumed our journey.

Occasionally we caught glimpses of horrid beasts all during the day;but, fortunately, we were never far from a sward island, and whenthey saw us their pursuit always ended at the verge of the solid sod.

Toward noon we stumbled upon a well-constructed road runningin the general direction we had been pursuing. Everything aboutthis highway marked it as the work of skilled engineers, and I wasconfident, from the indications of antiquity which it bore, as wellas from the very evident signs of its being still in everyday use,that it must lead to one of the principal cities of Kaol.

Just as we entered it from one side a huge monster emerged from thejungle upon the other, and at sight of us charged madly in our direction.

Imagine, if you can, a bald-faced hornet of your earthly experiencegrown to the size of a prize Hereford bull, and you will have somefaint conception of the ferocious appearance and awesome formidabilityof the winged monster that bore down upon me.

Frightful jaws in front and mighty, poisoned sting behind made myrelatively puny long-sword seem a pitiful weapon of defense indeed.Nor could I hope to escape the lightning-like movements or hidefrom those myriad facet eyes which covered three-fourths of thehideous head, permitting the creature to see in all directionsat one and the same time.

Even my powerful and ferocious Woola was as helpless as a kittenbefore that frightful thing. But to flee were useless, even hadit ever been to my liking to turn my back upon a danger; so I stoodmy ground, Woola snarling at my side, my only hope to die asI had always lived--fighting.

The creature was upon us now, and at the instant there seemedto me a single slight chance for victory. If I could but removethe terrible menace of certain death hidden in the poison sacsthat fed the sting the struggle would be less unequal.

At the thought I called to Woola to leap upon the creature'shead and hang there, and as his mighty jaws closed upon thatfiendish face, and glistening fangs buried themselves in the boneand cartilage and lower part of one of the huge eyes, I divedbeneath the great body as the creature rose, dragging Woola fromthe ground, that it might bring its sting beneath and pierce thebody of the thing hanging to its head.

To put myself in the path of that poison-laden lance was to courtinstant death, but it was the only way; and as the thing shotlightning-like toward me I swung my long-sword in a terrific cutthat severed the deadly member close to the gorgeously marked body.

Then, like a battering-ram, one of the powerful hind legs caughtme full in the chest and hurled me, half stunned and wholly winded,clear across the broad highway and into the underbrush of thejungle that fringes it.

Fortunately, I passed between the boles of trees; had I struckone of them I should have been badly injured, if not killed,so swiftly had I been catapulted by that enormous hind leg.

Dazed though I was, I stumbled to my feet and staggered back toWoola's assistance, to find his savage antagonist circling tenfeet above the ground, beating madly at the clinging calot withall six powerful legs.

Even during my sudden flight through the air I had not oncereleased my grip upon my long-sword, and now I ran beneath thetwo battling monsters, jabbing the winged terror repeatedlywith its sharp point.

The thing might easily have risen out of my reach, but evidentlyit knew as little concerning retreat in the face of danger aseither Woola or I, for it dropped quickly toward me, and beforeI could escape had grasped my shoulder between its powerful jaws.

Time and again the now useless stub of its giant sting struckfutilely against my body, but the blows alone were almost aseffective as the kick of a horse; so that when I say futilely,I refer only to the natural function of the disabled member--eventually the thing would have hammered me to a pulp.Nor was it far from accomplishing this when an interruptionoccurred that put an end forever to its hostilities.

From where I hung a few feet above the road I could see along thehighway a few hundred yards to where it turned toward the east,and just as I had about given up all hope of escaping the perilousposition in which I now was I saw a red warrior come into viewfrom around the bend.

He was mounted on a splendid thoat, one of the smaller speciesused by red men, and in his hand was a wondrous long, light lance.

His mount was walking sedately when I first perceived them, but theinstant that the red man's eyes fell upon us a word to the thoatbrought the animal at full charge down upon us. The long lance ofthe warrior dipped toward us, and as thoat and rider hurtled beneath,the point passed through the body of our antagonist.

With a convulsive shudder the thing stiffened, the jaws relaxed,dropping me to the ground, and then, careening once in mid air,the creature plunged headforemost to the road, full upon Woola,who still clung tenaciously to its gory head.

By the time I had regained my feet the red man had turned andridden back to us. Woola, finding his enemy inert and lifeless,released his hold at my command and wriggled from beneath the bodythat had covered him, and together we faced the warrior lookingdown upon us.

I started to thank the stranger for his timely assistance,but he cut me off peremptorily.

"Who are you," he asked, "who dare enter the land of Kaol andhunt in the royal forest of the jeddak?"

Then, as he noted my white skin through the coating of grimeand blood that covered me, his eyes went wide and in an alteredtone he whispered: "Can it be that you are a Holy Thern?"

I might have deceived the fellow for a time, as I had deceivedothers, but I had cast away the yellow wig and the holy diadem inthe presence of Matai Shang, and I knew that it would not be longere my new acquaintance discovered that I was no thern at all.

"I am not a thern," I replied, and then, flinging caution tothe winds, I said: "I am John Carter, Prince of Helium, whosename may not be entirely unknown to you."

If his eyes had gone wide when he thought that I was a Holy Thern,they fairly popped now that he knew that I was John Carter.I grasped my long-sword more firmly as I spoke the words which Iwas sure would precipitate an attack, but to my surprise theyprecipitated nothing of the kind.

"John Carter, Prince of Helium," he repeated slowly, as thoughhe could not quite grasp the truth of the statement. "John Carter,the mightiest warrior of Barsoom!"

And then he dismounted and placed his hand upon my shoulderafter the manner of most friendly greeting upon Mars.

"It is my duty, and it should be my pleasure, to kill you,John Carter," he said, "but always in my heart of hearts have Iadmired your prowess and believed in your sincerity the while Ihave questioned and disbelieved the therns and their religion.

"It would mean my instant death were my heresy to be suspectedin the court of Kulan Tith, but if I may serve you, Prince,you have but to command Torkar Bar, Dwar of the Kaolian Road."

Truth and honesty were writ large upon the warrior's noble countenance,so that I could not but have trusted him, enemy though he should have been.His title of Captain of the Kaolian Road explained his timely presencein the heart of the savage forest, for every highway upon Barsoom ispatrolled by doughty warriors of the noble class, nor is there anyservice more honorable than this lonely and dangerous duty in theless frequented sections of the domains of the red men of Barsoom.

"Torkar Bar has already placed a great debt of gratitude uponmy shoulders," I replied, pointing to the carcass of thecreature from whose heart he was dragging his long spear.

The red man smiled.

"It was fortunate that I came when I did," he said. "Onlythis poisoned spear pricking the very heart of a sith can kill itquickly enough to save its prey. In this section of Kaol we areall armed with a long sith spear, whose point is smeared with thepoison of the creature it is intended to kill; no other virus actsso quickly upon the beast as its own.

"Look," he continued, drawing his dagger and making anincision in the carcass a foot above the root of the sting, fromwhich he presently drew forth two sacs, each of which held fully agallon of the deadly liquid.

"Thus we maintain our supply, though were it not forcertain commercial uses to which the virus is put,it would scarcely be necessary to add to our present store,since the sith is almost extinct.

"Only occasionally do we now run upon one. Of old, however,Kaol was overrun with the frightful monsters that often came inherds of twenty or thirty, darting down from above into our citiesand carrying away women, children, and even warriors."

As he spoke I had been wondering just how much I might safely tellthis man of the mission which brought me to his land, but his nextwords anticipated the broaching of the subject on my part, andrendered me thankful that I had not spoken too soon.

"And now as to yourself, John Carter," he said, "I shall notask your business here, nor do I wish to hear it. I have eyes andears and ordinary intelligence, and yesterday morning I saw theparty that came to the city of Kaol from the north in a small flier.But one thing I ask of you, and that is: the word of John Carterthat he contemplates no overt act against either the nationof Kaol or its jeddak."

"You may have my word as to that, Torkar Bar," I replied.

"My way leads along the Kaolian road, away from the city of Kaol,"he continued. "I have seen no one--John Carter least of all.Nor have you seen Torkar Bar, nor ever heard of him. You understand?"

"Perfectly," I replied.

He laid his hand upon my shoulder.

"This road leads directly into the city of Kaol," he said."I wish you fortune," and vaulting to the back of his thoathe trotted away without even a backward glance.

It was after dark when Woola and I spied through the mightyforest the great wall which surrounds the city of Kaol.

We had traversed the entire way without mishap or adventure,and though the few we had met had eyed the great calot wonderingly,none had pierced the red pigment with which I had smoothly smearedevery square inch of my body.

But to traverse the surrounding country, and to enter the guardedcity of Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol, were two very different things.No man enters a Martian city without giving a very detailed andsatisfactory account of himself, nor did I delude myself withthe belief that I could for a moment impose upon the acumen ofthe officers of the guard to whom I should be taken the momentI applied at any one of the gates.

My only hope seemed to lie in entering the city surreptitiouslyunder cover of the darkness, and once in, trust to my own witsto hide myself in some crowded quarter where detection wouldbe less liable to occur.

With this idea in view I circled the great wall, keeping withinthe fringe of the forest, which is cut away for a short distancefrom the wall all about the city, that no enemy may utilize thetrees as a means of ingress.

Several times I attempted to scale the barrier at different points,but not even my earthly muscles could overcome that cleverlyconstructed rampart. To a height of thirty feet the face of thewall slanted outward, and then for almost an equal distance itwas perpendicular, above which it slanted in again for somefifteen feet to the crest.

And smooth! Polished glass could not be more so. Finally Ihad to admit that at last I had discovered a Barsoomianfortification which I could not negotiate.

Discouraged, I withdrew into the forest beside a broad highwaywhich entered the city from the east, and with Woola beside melay down to sleep.