ht.

Finally, I shook the thing, hoping to recall it for a moment to
rationality.

"Where is Dejah Thoris?" I cried again.

The awful creature in my grasp mumbled inarticulately for a moment,
then a sudden gleam of cunning shot into those hideous, close-set eyes.

"Dejah Thoris? Dejah Thoris?" and then that shrill, unearthly laugh
pierced our ears once more.

"Yes, Dejah Thoris--I know. And Thuvia, and Phaidor, daughter of Matai
Shang. They each love John Carter. Ha-ah! but it is droll. Together
for a year they will meditate within the Temple of the Sun, but ere the
year is quite gone there will be no more food for them. Ho-oh! what
divine entertainment," and she licked the froth from her cruel lips.
"There will be no more food--except each other. Ha-ah! Ha-ah!"

The horror of the suggestion nearly paralysed me. To this awful fate
the creature within my power had condemned my Princess. I trembled in
the ferocity of my rage. As a terrier shakes a rat I shook Issus,
Goddess of Life Eternal.

"Countermand your orders!" I cried. "Recall the condemned. Haste, or
you die!"

"It is too late. Ha-ah! Ha-ah!" and then she commenced her gibbering
and shrieking again.

Almost of its own volition, my dagger flew up above that putrid heart.
But something stayed my hand, and I am now glad that it did. It were a
terrible thing to have struck down a woman with one's own hand. But a
fitter fate occurred to me for this false deity.

"First Born," I cried, turning to those who stood within the chamber,
"you have seen to-day the impotency of Issus--the gods are impotent.
Issus is no god. She is a cruel and wicked old woman, who has deceived
and played upon you for ages. Take her. John Carter, Prince of
Helium, would not contaminate his hand with her blood," and with that I
pushed the raving beast, whom a short half-hour before a whole world
had worshipped as divine, from the platform of her throne into the
waiting clutches of her betrayed and vengeful people.

Spying Xodar among the officers of the red men, I called him to lead me
quickly to the Temple of the Sun, and, without waiting to learn what
fate the First Born would wreak upon their goddess, I rushed from the
chamber with Xodar, Carthoris, Hor Vastus, Kantos Kan, and a score of
other red nobles.

The black led us rapidly through the inner chambers of the temple,
until we stood within the central court--a great circular space paved
with a transpar