My only

sorrow now is that my mother must mourn me as she has for ten long

years mourned my father."

"Who was your father?" I asked.

He was about to reply when the outer door of our prison opened and

a burly guard entered and ordered him to his own quarters for the

night, locking the door after him as he passed through into the

further chamber.

"It is Issus' wish that you two be confined in the same room," said

the guard when he had returned to our cell. "This cowardly slave

of a slave is to serve you well," he said to me, indicating Xodar

with a wave of his hand. "If he does not, you are to beat him

into submission. It is Issus' wish that you heap upon him every

indignity and degradation of which you can conceive."

With these words he left us.

Xodar still sat with his face buried in his hands. I walked to

his side and placed my hand upon his shoulder.

"Xodar," I said, "you have heard the commands of Issus, but you

need not fear that I shall attempt to put them into execution.

You are a brave man, Xodar. It is your own affair if you wish to

be persecuted and humiliated; but were I you I should assert my

manhood and defy my enemies."

"I have been thinking very hard, John Carter," he said, "of all

the new ideas you gave me a few hours since. Little by little I

have been piecing together the things that you said which sounded

blasphemous to me then with the things that I have seen in my past

life and dared not even think about for fear of bringing down upon

me the wrath of Issus.

"I believe now that she is a fraud; no more divine than you or I.

More I am willing to concede--that the First Born are no holier

than the Holy Therns, nor the Holy Therns more holy than the red

men.

"The whole fabric of our religion is based on superstitious belief

in lies that have been foisted upon us for ages by those directly

above us, to whose personal profit and aggrandizement it was to

have us continue to believe as they wished us to believe.

"I am ready to cast off the ties that have bound me. I am ready to

defy Issus herself; but what will it avail us? Be the First Born

gods or mortals, they are a powerful race, and we are as fast in

their clutches as though we were already dead. There is no escape."

"I have escaped from bad plights in the past, my friend," I replied;

"nor while life is in me shall I despair of escaping from the Isle

of Shador and the Sea of Omean."

"But we cannot escape even from the four walls of our prison,"

urged Xodar. "Test this flint-like surface," he cried, smiting the

solid rock that confined us. "And look upon this polished surface;

none could cling to it to reach the top."

I smiled.

"That is the least of our troubles, Xodar," I replied. "I will

guarantee to scale the wall and take you with me, if you will help

with your knowledge of the customs here to appoint the best time

for the attempt, and guide me to the shaft that lets from the dome

of this abysmal sea to the light of God's pure air above."

"Night time is the best and offers the only slender chance we have,

for then men sleep, and only a dozing watch nods in the tops of

the battleships. No watch is kept upon the cruisers and smaller

craft. The watchers upon the larger vessels see to all about them.

It is night now."

"But," I exclaimed, "it is not dark! How can it be night, then?"

He smiled.

"You forget," he said, "that we are far below ground. The light

of the sun never penetrates here. There are no moons and no stars

reflected in the bosom of Omean. The phosphorescent light you

now see pervading this great subterranean vault emanates from the

rocks that form its dome; it is always thus upon Omean, just as

the billows are always as you see them--rolling, ever rolling over

a windless sea.

"At the appointed hour of night upon the world above, the men whose

duties hold them here sleep, but the light is ever the same."

"It will make escape more difficult," I said, and then I shrugged

my shoulders; for what, pray, is the pleasure of doing an easy

thing?

"Let us sleep on it to-night," said Xodar. "A plan may come with

our awakening."

So we threw ourselves upon the hard stone floor of our prison and

slept the sleep of tired men.

CHAPTER XI

WHEN HELL BROKE LOOSE

Early the next morning Xodar and I commenced work upon our plans

for escape. First I had him sketch upon the stone floor of our

cell as accurate a map of the south polar regions as was possible

with the crude instruments at our disposal--a buckle from my harness,

and the sharp edge of the wondrous gem I had taken from Sator Throg.

From this I computed the general direction of Helium and the distance

at which it lay from the opening which led to Omean.

Then I had him draw a map of Omean, indicating plainly the position

of Shador and of the opening in the dome which led to the outer

world.

These I studied until they were indelibly imprinted in my memory.

From Xodar I learned the duties and customs of the guards who

patrolled Shador. It seemed that during the hours set aside for

sleep only one man was on duty at a time. He paced a beat that

passed around the prison, at a distance of about a hundred feet

from the building.

The pace of the sentries, Xodar said, was very slow, requiring

nearly ten minutes to make a single round. This meant that for

practically five minutes at a time each side of the prison was

unguarded as the sentry pursued his snail like pace upon the opposite

side.

"This information you ask," said Xodar, "will be all very valuable

AFTER we get out, but nothing that you have asked has any bearing

on that first and most important consideration."

"We will get out all right," I replied, laughing. "Leave that to

me."

"When shall we make the attempt?" he asked.

"The first night that finds a small craft moored near the shore of

Shador," I replied.

"But how will you know that any craft is moored near Shador? The

windows are far beyond our reach."

"Not so, friend Xodar; look!"

With a bound I sprang to the bars of the window opposite us, and

took a quick survey of the scene without.

Several small craft and two large battleships lay within a hundred

yards of Shador.

"To-night," I thought, and was just about to voice my decision to

Xodar, when, without warning, the door of our prison opened and a

guard stepped in.

If the fellow saw me there our chances of escape might quickly go

glimmering, for I knew that they would put me in irons if they had

the slightest conception of the wonderful agility which my earthly

muscles gave me upon Mars.

The man had entered and was standing facing the centre of the room,

so that his back was toward me. Five feet above me was the top of

a partition wall separating our cell from the next.

There was my only chance to escape detection. If the fellow turned,

I was lost; nor could I have dropped to the floor undetected, since

he was no nearly below me that I would have struck him had I done

so.

"Where is the white man?" cried the guard of Xodar. "Issus commands

his presence." He started to turn to see if I were in another part

of the cell.

I scrambled up the iron grating of the window until I could catch

a good footing on the sill with one foot; then I let go my hold

and sprang for the partition top.

"What was that?" I heard the deep voice of the black bellow as

my metal grated against the stone wall as I slipped over. Then I

dropped lightly to the floor of the cell beyond.

"Where is the white slave?" again cried the guard.

"I know not," replied Xodar. "He was here even as you entered. I

am not his keeper--go find him."

The black grumbled something that I could not understand, and then

I heard him unlocking the door into one of the other cells on the

further side. Listening intently, I caught the sound as the door

closed behind him.