e. We had been discovered. With
shrieks of rage the demons sprang for us. With frenzied insistence I
continued to press the little button which should have sent us racing
out into space, but still the vessel refused to budge. Then it came to
me--the reason that she would not rise.

We had stumbled upon a two-man flier. Its ray tanks were charged only
with sufficient repulsive energy to lift two ordinary men. The Thark's
great weight was anchoring us to our doom.

The blacks were nearly upon us. There was not an instant to be lost in
hesitation or doubt.

I pressed the button far in and locked it. Then I set the lever at
high speed and as the blacks came yelling upon us I slipped from the
craft's deck and with drawn long-sword met the attack.

At the same moment a girl's shriek rang out behind me and an instant
later, as the blacks fell upon me. I heard far above my head, and
faintly, in Thuvia's voice: "My Prince, O my Prince; I would rather
remain and die with--" But the rest was lost in the noise of my
assailants.

I knew though that my ruse had worked and that temporarily at least
Thuvia and Tars Tarkas were safe, and the means of escape was theirs.

For a moment it seemed that I could not withstand the weight of numbers
that confronted me, but again, as on so many other occasions when I had
been called upon to face fearful odds upon this planet of warriors and
fierce beasts, I found that my earthly strength so far transcended that
of my opponents that the odds were not so greatly against me as they
appeared.

My seething blade wove a net of death about me. For an instant the
blacks pressed close to reach me with their shorter swords, but
presently they gave back, and the esteem in which they suddenly had
learned to hold my sword arm was writ large upon each countenance.

I knew though that it was but a question of minutes before their
greater numbers would wear me down, or get around my guard. I must go
down eventually to certain death before them. I shuddered at the
thought of it, dying thus in this terrible place where no word of my
end ever could reach my Dejah Thoris. Dying at the hands of nameless
black men in the gardens of the cruel therns.

Then my old-time spirit reasserted itself. The fighting blood of my
Virginian sires coursed hot through my veins. The fierce blood lust
and the joy of battle surged over me. The fighting smile that has
brought consternation to a thousand foemen