As I entered and saluted, Lorquas Ptomel signaled me to advance,and, fixing his great, hideous eyes upon me, addressed me thus:

"You have been with us a few days, yet during that timeyou have by your prowess won a high position among us.Be that as it may, you are not one of us; you owe us noallegiance.

"Your position is a peculiar one," he continued; "you area prisoner and yet you give commands which must be obeyed;you are an alien and yet you are a Tharkian chieftain; youare a midget and yet you can kill a mighty warrior with oneblow of your fist. And now you are reported to have beenplotting to escape with another prisoner of another race; aprisoner who, from her own admission, half believes you arereturned from the valley of Dor. Either one of these accusations,if proved, would be sufficient grounds for your execution,but we are a just people and you shall have a trial on ourreturn to Thark, if Tal Hajus so commands.

"But," he continued, in his fierce guttural tones, "if yourun off with the red girl it is I who shall have to account toTal Hajus; it is I who shall have to face Tars Tarkas, andeither demonstrate my right to command, or the metal frommy dead carcass will go to a better man, for such is thecustom of the Tharks.

"I have no quarrel with Tars Tarkas; together we rulesupreme the greatest of the lesser communities among thegreen men; we do not wish to fight between ourselves; and soif you were dead, John Carter, I should be glad. Under twoconditions only, however, may you be killed by us withoutorders from Tal Hajus; in personal combat in self-defense,should you attack one of us, or were you apprehended in anattempt to escape.

"As a matter of justice I must warn you that we onlyawait one of these two excuses for ridding ourselves of sogreat a responsibility. The safe delivery of the red girl toTal Hajus is of the greatest importance. Not in a thousandyears have the Tharks made such a capture; she is thegranddaughter of the greatest of the red jeddaks, who is alsoour bitterest enemy. I have spoken. The red girl told us thatwe were without the softer sentiments of humanity, but weare a just and truthful race. You may go."

Turning, I left the audience chamber. So this was thebeginning of Sarkoja's persecution! I knew that none othercould be responsible for this report which had reached theears of Lorquas Ptomel so quickly, and now I recalled thoseportions of our conversation which had touched upon escapeand upon my origin.

Sarkoja was at this time Tars Tarkas' oldest and mosttrusted female. As such she was a mighty power behind thethrone, for no warrior had the confidence of Lorquas Ptomelto such an extent as did his ablest lieutenant, Tars Tarkas.

However, instead of putting thoughts of possible escapefrom my mind, my audience with Lorquas Ptomel only servedto center my every faculty on this subject. Now, more thanbefore, the absolute necessity for escape, in so far as DejahThoris was concerned, was impressed upon me, for I wasconvinced that some horrible fate awaited her at theheadquarters of Tal Hajus.

As described by Sola, this monster was the exaggeratedpersonification of all the ages of cruelty, ferocity, andbrutality from which he had descended. Cold, cunning,calculating; he was, also, in marked contrast to most of hisfellows, a slave to that brute passion which the waningdemands for procreation upon their dying planet has almoststilled in the Martian breast.

The thought that the divine Dejah Thoris might fall intothe clutches of such an abysmal atavism started the coldsweat upon me. Far better that we save friendly bullets forourselves at the last moment, as did those brave frontierwomen of my lost land, who took their own lives rather thanfall into the hands of the Indian braves.

As I wandered about the plaza lost in my gloomy forebodingsTars Tarkas approached me on his way from the audiencechamber. His demeanor toward me was unchanged, and hegreeted me as though we had not just parted a fewmoments before.

"Where are your quarters, John Carter?" he asked.

"I have selected none," I replied. "It seemed best that Iquartered either by myself or among the other warriors, andI was awaiting an opportunity to ask your advice. As youknow," and I smiled, "I am not yet familiar with all thecustoms of the Tharks."

"Come with me," he directed, and together we moved offacross the plaza to a building which I was glad to seeadjoined that occupied by Sola and her charges.

"My quarters are on the first floor of this building," hesaid, "and the second floor also is fully occupied by warriors,but the third floor and the floors above are vacant; you maytake your choice of these.

"I understand," he continued, "that you have given upyour woman to the red prisoner. Well, as you have said,your ways are not our ways, but you can fight well enoughto do about as you please, and so, if you wish to give yourwoman to a captive, it is your own affair; but as a chieftainyou should have those to serve you, and in accordance withour customs you may select any or all the females from theretinues of the chieftains whose metal you now wear."

I thanked him, but assured him that I could get alongvery nicely without assistance except in the matter ofpreparing food, and so he promised to send women to me forthis purpose and also for the care of my arms and themanufacture of my ammunition, which he said would benecessary. I suggested that they might also bring some ofthe sleeping silks and furs which belonged to me as spoils ofcombat, for the nights were cold and I had none of my own.

He promised to do so, and departed. Left alone, I ascendedthe winding corridor to the upper floors in search ofsuitable quarters. The beauties of the other buildings wererepeated in this, and, as usual, I was soon lost in a tour ofinvestigation and discovery.

I finally chose a front room on the third floor, becausethis brought me nearer to Dejah Thoris, whose apartmentwas on the second floor of the adjoining building, and itflashed upon me that I could rig up some means of communicationwhereby she might signal me in case she needed either myservices or my protection.

Adjoining my sleeping apartment were baths, dressingrooms, and other sleeping and living apartments, in all someten rooms on this floor. The windows of the back roomsoverlooked an enormous court, which formed the center ofthe square made by the buildings which faced the fourcontiguous streets, and which was now given over to thequartering of the various animals belonging to the warriorsoccupying the adjoining buildings.

While the court was entirely overgrown with the yellow,moss-like vegetation which blankets practically the entiresurface of Mars, yet numerous fountains, statuary, benches,and pergola-like contraptions bore witness to the beautywhich the court must have presented in bygone times, whengraced by the fair-haired, laughing people whom stern andunalterable cosmic laws had driven not only from their homes,but from all except the vague legends of their descendants.

One could easily picture the gorgeous foliage of the luxuriantMartian vegetation which once filled this scene with lifeand color; the graceful figures of the beautiful women, thestraight and handsome men; the happy frolicking children--all sunlight, happiness and peace. It was difficult to realizethat they had gone; down through ages of darkness, cruelty,and ignorance, until their hereditary instincts of culture andhumanitarianism had risen ascendant once more in the finalcomposite race which now is dominant upon Mars.

My thoughts were cut short by the advent of severalyoung females bearing loads of weapons, silks, furs, jewels,cooking utensils, and casks of food and drink, includingconsiderable loot from the air craft. All this, it seemed, hadbeen the property of the two chieftains I had slain, and now,by the customs of the Tharks, it had become mine. At mydirection they placed the stuff in one of the back rooms, andthen departed, only to return with a second load, whichthey advised me constituted the balance of my goods. On thesecond trip they were accompanied by ten or fifteen otherwomen and youths, who, it seemed, formed the retinues ofthe two chieftains.

They were not their families, nor their wives, nor theirservants; the relationship was peculiar, and so unlikeanything known to us that it is most difficult to describe.All property among the green Martians is owned in common bythe community, except the personal weapons, ornaments andsleeping silks and furs of the individuals. These alone canone claim undisputed right to, nor may he accumulate moreof these than are required for his actual needs. The surplushe holds merely as custodian, and it is passed on to theyounger members of the community as necessity demands.

The women and children of a man's retinue may be likenedto a military unit for which he is responsible in variousways, as in matters of instruction, discipline, sustenance, andthe exigencies of their continual roamings and their unendingstrife with other communities and with the red Martians.His women are in no sense wives. The green Martians use noword corresponding in meaning with this earthly word. Theirmating is a matter of community interest solely, and isdirected without reference to natural selection. The councilof chieftains of each community control the matter as surely asthe owner of a Kentucky racing stud directs the scientificbreeding of his stock for the improvement of the whole.

In theory it may sound well, as is often the case withtheories, but the results of ages of this unnatural practice,coupled with the community interest in the offspring beingheld paramount to that of the mother, is shown in the cold,cruel creatures, and their gloomy, loveless, mirthless existence.

It is true that the green Martians are absolutely virtuous,both men and women, with the exception of such degeneratesas Tal Hajus; but better far a finer balance of humancharacteristics even at the expense of a slight andoccasional loss of chastity.

Finding that I must assume responsibility for these creatures,whether I would or not, I made the best of it and directedthem to find quarters on the upper floors, leaving thethird floor to me. One of the girls I charged with the dutiesof my simple cuisine, and directed the others to take upthe various activities which had formerly constituted theirvocations. Thereafter I saw little of them, nor did I care to.