ith the idea
of exploring my prison, I started to look around.

Xodar sat, with bowed head, upon a low stone bench near the centre of
the room in which we were. He had not spoken since Issus had degraded
him.

The building was roofless, the walls rising to a height of about thirty
feet. Half-way up were a couple of small, heavily barred windows. The
prison was divided into several rooms by partitions twenty feet high.
There was no one in the room which we occupied, but two doors which led
to other rooms were opened. I entered one of these rooms, but found it
vacant. Thus I continued through several of the chambers until in the
last one I found a young red Martian boy sleeping upon the stone bench
which constituted the only furniture of any of the prison cells.

Evidently he was the only other prisoner. As he slept I leaned over
and looked at him. There was something strangely familiar about his
face, and yet I could not place him.

His features were very regular and, like the proportions of his
graceful limbs and body, beautiful in the extreme. He was very light
in colour for a red man, but in other respects he seemed a typical
specimen of this handsome race.

I did not awaken him, for sleep in prison is such a priceless boon that
I have seen men transformed into raging brutes when robbed by one of
their fellow-prisoners of a few precious moments of it.

Returning to my own cell, I found Xodar still sitting in the same
position in which I had left him.

"Man," I cried, "it will profit you nothing to mope thus. It were no
disgrace to be bested by John Carter. You have seen that in the ease
with which I accounted for Thurid. You knew it before when on the
cruiser's deck you saw me slay three of your comrades."

"I would that you had dispatched me at the same time," he said.

"Come, come!" I cried. "There is hope yet. Neither of us is dead. We
are great fighters. Why not win to freedom?"

He looked at me in amazement.

"You know not of what you speak," he replied. "Issus is omnipotent.
Issus is omniscient. She hears now the words you speak. She knows the
thoughts you think. It is sacrilege even to dream of breaking her
commands."

"Rot, Xodar," I ejaculated impatiently.

He sprang to his feet in horror.

"The curse of Issus will fall upon you," he cried. "In another instant
you will be smitten down, writhing to your death in horrible agony."

"Do you believe that, Xodar?" I asked.

"