Truth that he has indeed
returned from these sacred precincts in the face of our ancient
customs, and in violation of the sanctity of our ancient religion.

"He who be once dead may not live again. He who attempts it must be
made dead for ever. Judges, your duty lies plain before you--here can
be no testimony in contravention of truth. What reward shall be meted
to John Carter in accordance with the acts he has committed?"

"Death!" shouted one of the judges.

And then a man sprang to his feet in the audience, and raising his hand
on high, cried: "Justice! Justice! Justice!" It was Kantos Kan, and
as all eyes turned toward him he leaped past the Zodangan soldiery and
sprang upon the platform.

"What manner of justice be this?" he cried to Zat Arrras. "The
defendant has not been heard, nor has he had an opportunity to call
others in his behalf. In the name of the people of Helium I demand
fair and impartial treatment for the Prince of Helium."

A great cry arose from the audience then: "Justice! Justice!
Justice!" and Zat Arrras dared not deny them.

"Speak, then," he snarled, turning to me; "but blaspheme not against
the things that are sacred upon Barsoom."

"Men of Helium," I cried, turning to the spectators, and speaking over
the heads of my judges, "how can John Carter expect justice from the
men of Zodanga? He cannot nor does he ask it. It is to the men of
Helium that he states his case; nor does he appeal for mercy to any.
It is not in his own cause that he speaks now--it is in thine. In the
cause of your wives and daughters, and of wives and daughters yet
unborn. It is to save them from the unthinkably atrocious indignities
that I have seen heaped upon the fair women of Barsoom in the place men
call the Temple of Issus. It is to save them from the sucking embrace
of the plant men, from the fangs of the great white apes of Dor, from
the cruel lust of the Holy Therns, from all that the cold, dead Iss
carries them to from homes of love and life and happiness.

"Sits there no man here who does not know the history of John Carter.
How he came among you from another world and rose from a prisoner among
the green men, through torture and persecution, to a place high among
the highest of Barsoom. Nor ever did you know John Carter to lie in
his own behalf, or to say aught that might harm the people of Barsoom,
or to speak lightly of the strange religion which he respected without
understanding.

"