rl
spoke.

"Unconsciousness comes quickly at this altitude," she said quietly.
"Unless you are inviting death for us all you had best drop, and that
quickly."

There was no fear in her voice. It was as one might say: "You had
better carry an umbrella. It is going to rain."

I dropped the vessel quickly to a lower level. Nor was I a moment too
soon. The girl had swooned.

The black, too, was unconscious, while I, myself, retained my senses, I
think, only by sheer will. The one on whom all responsibility rests is
apt to endure the most.

We were swinging along low above the foothills of the Otz. It was
comparatively warm and there was plenty of air for our starved lungs,
so I was not surprised to see the black open his eyes, and a moment
later the girl also.

"It was a close call," she said.

"It has taught me two things though," I replied.

"What?"

"That even Phaidor, daughter of the Master of Life and Death, is
mortal," I said smiling.

"There is immortality only in Issus," she replied. "And Issus is for
the race of therns alone. Thus am I immortal."

I caught a fleeting grin passing across the features of the black as he
heard her words. I did not then understand why he smiled. Later I was
to learn, and she, too, in a most horrible manner.

"If the other thing you have just learned," she continued, "has led to
as erroneous deductions as the first you are little richer in knowledge
than you were before."

"The other," I replied, "is that our dusky friend here does not hail
from the nearer moon--he was like to have died at a few thousand feet
above Barsoom. Had we continued the five thousand miles that lie
between Thuria and the planet he would have been but the frozen memory
of a man."

Phaidor looked at the black in evident astonishment.

"If you are not of Thuria, then where?" she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders and turned his eyes elsewhere, but did not
reply.

The girl stamped her little foot in a peremptory manner.

"The daughter of Matai Shang is not accustomed to having her queries
remain unanswered," she said. "One of the lesser breed should feel
honoured that a member of the holy race that was born to inherit life
eternal should deign even to notice him."

Again the black smiled that wicked, knowing smile.

"Xodar, Dator of the First Born of Barsoom, is accustomed to give
commands, not to receive them," replied the black pirate. Then,
turning to me, "What are your in