k they have been trying to keep us apart," she continued, "for
whenever you have been off duty one of the older women of Tars Tarkas'
retinue has always arranged to trump up some excuse to get Sola and me
out of sight. They have had me down in the pits below the buildings
helping them mix their awful radium powder, and make their terrible
projectiles. You know that these have to be manufactured by artificial
light, as exposure to sunlight always results in an explosion. You
have noticed that their bullets explode when they strike an object?
Well, the opaque, outer coating is broken by the impact, exposing a
glass cylinder, almost solid, in the forward end of which is a minute
particle of radium powder. The moment the sunlight, even though
diffused, strikes this powder it explodes with a violence which nothing
can withstand. If you ever witness a night battle you will note the
absence of these explosions, while the morning following the battle
will be filled at sunrise with the sharp detonations of exploding
missiles fired the preceding night. As a rule, however, non-exploding
projectiles are used at night." [I have used the word radium in
describing this powder because in the light of recent discoveries on
Earth I believe it to be a mixture of which radium is the base. In
Captain Carter's manuscript it is mentioned always by the name used in
the written language of Helium and is spelled in hieroglyphics which it
would be difficult and useless to reproduce.]

While I was much interested in Dejah Thoris' explanation of this
wonderful adjunct to Martian warfare, I was more concerned by the
immediate problem of their treatment of her. That they were keeping
her away from me was not a matter for surprise, but that they should
subject her to dangerous and arduous labor filled me with rage.

"Have they ever subjected you to cruelty and ignominy, Dejah Thoris?" I
asked, feeling the hot blood of my fighting ancestors leap in my veins
as I awaited her reply.

"Only in little ways, John Carter," she answered. "Nothing that can
harm me outside my pride. They know that I am the daughter of ten
thousand jeddaks, that I trace my ancestry straight back without a
break to the builder of the first great waterway, and they, who do not
even know their own mothers, are jealous of me. At heart they hate
their horrid fates, and so wreak their poor spite on me who stand for
everything they have not, and for all they most crave an