he replied. "No one else could
have accomplished it but John Carter."

At the sound of that name the boy jumped to his feet.

"John Carter!" he cried. "John Carter! Why, man, John Carter, Prince
of Helium, has been dead for years. I am his son."

CHAPTER XIV

THE EYES IN THE DARK

My son! I could not believe my ears. Slowly I rose and faced the
handsome youth. Now that I looked at him closely I commenced to see
why his face and personality had attracted me so strongly. There was
much of his mother's incomparable beauty in his clear-cut features, but
it was strongly masculine beauty, and his grey eyes and the expression
of them were mine.

The boy stood facing me, half hope and half uncertainty in his look.

"Tell me of your mother," I said. "Tell me all you can of the years
that I have been robbed by a relentless fate of her dear companionship."

With a cry of pleasure he sprang toward me and threw his arms about my
neck, and for a brief moment as I held my boy close to me the tears
welled to my eyes and I was like to have choked after the manner of
some maudlin fool--but I do not regret it, nor am I ashamed. A long
life has taught me that a man may seem weak where women and children
are concerned and yet be anything but a weakling in the sterner avenues
of life.

"Your stature, your manner, the terrible ferocity of your
swordsmanship," said the boy, "are as my mother has described them to
me a thousand times--but even with such evidence I could scarce credit
the truth of what seemed so improbable to me, however much I desired it
to be true. Do you know what thing it was that convinced me more than
all the others?"

"What, my boy?" I asked.

"Your first words to me--they were of my mother. None else but the man
who loved her as she has told me my father did would have thought first
of her."

"For long years, my son, I can scarce recall a moment that the radiant
vision of your mother's face has not been ever before me. Tell me of
her."

"Those who have known her longest say that she has not changed, unless
it be to grow more beautiful--were that possible. Only, when she
thinks I am not about to see her, her face grows very sad, and, oh, so
wistful. She thinks ever of you, my father, and all Helium mourns with
her and for her. Her grandfather's people love her. They loved you
also, and fairly worship your memory as the saviour of Barsoom.

"Each year that brings its anniversary