there was always the menace of the great white
apes, which, John Carter was wont to say, are the only creatures
that can arouse in the breasts of these fierce denizens of the dead
sea-bottoms even the remotest semblance of fear.

As the rider neared the plaza, he reined suddenly in. His slender,
tubular ears pointed rigidly forward. An unwonted sound had reached
them. Voices! And where there were voices, outside of Torquas,
there, too, were enemies. All the world of wide Barsoom contained
naught but enemies for the fierce Torquasians.

Thar Ban dismounted. Keeping in the shadows of the great monoliths
that line the Avenue of Quays of sleeping Aaanthor, he approached
the plaza. Directly behind him, as a hound at heel, came the
slate-grey thoat, his white belly shadowed by his barrel, his vivid
yellow feet merging into the yellow of the moss beneath them.

In the centre of the plaza Thar Ban saw the figure of a red woman.
A red warrior was conversing with her. Now the man turned and
retraced his steps toward the palace at the opposite side of the
plaza.

Thar Ban watched until he had disappeared within the yawning
portal. Here was a captive worth having! Seldom did a female of
their hereditary enemies fall to the lot of a green man. Thar Ban
licked his thin lips.

Thuvia of Ptarth watched the shadow behind the monolith at the
opening to the avenue opposite her. She hoped that it might be
but the figment of an overwrought imagination.

But no! Now, clearly and distinctly, she saw it move. It came
from behind the screening shelter of the ersite shaft.

The sudden light of the rising sun fell upon it. The girl trembled.
The THING was a huge green warrior!

Swiftly it sprang toward her. She screamed and tried to flee;
but she had scarce turned toward the palace when a giant hand fell
upon her arm, she was whirled about, and half dragged, half carried
toward a huge thoat that was slowly grazing out of the avenue's
mouth on to the ochre moss of the plaza.

At the same instant she turned her face upward toward the whirring
sound of something above her, and there she saw a swift flier
dropping toward her, the head and shoulders of a man leaning far
over the side; but the man's features were deeply shadowed, so that
she did not recognize them.

Now from behind her came the shouts of her red abductors. They
were racing madly after him who dared to steal what they already
had stolen.

As Thar Ban re