Come! The racks without your cages are

filled with blades."

Without waiting to note the outcome of his plea, he turned

and bounded toward me. From every cage that harboured red men a

thunderous shout went up in answer to his exhortation. The inner

guards went down beneath howling mobs, and the cages vomited forth

their inmates hot with the lust to kill.

The racks that stood without were stripped of the swords with

which the prisoners were to have been armed to enter their allotted

combats, and a swarm of determined warriors sped to our support.

The great apes, towering in all their fifteen feet of height, had

gone down before my sword while the charging guards were still some

distance away. Close behind them pursued the youth. At my back

were the young girls, and as it was in their service that I fought,

I remained standing there to meet my inevitable death, but with

the determination to give such an account of myself as would long

be remembered in the land of the First Born.

I noted the marvellous speed of the young red man as he raced after

the guards. Never had I seen such speed in any Martian. His leaps

and bounds were little short of those which my earthly muscles had

produced to create such awe and respect on the part of the green

Martians into whose hands I had fallen on that long-gone day that

had seen my first advent upon Mars.

The guards had not reached me when he fell upon them from the rear,

and as they turned, thinking from the fierceness of his onslaught

that a dozen were attacking them, I rushed them from my side.

In the rapid fighting that followed I had little chance to note

aught else than the movements of my immediate adversaries, but

now and again I caught a fleeting glimpse of a purring sword and a

lightly springing figure of sinewy steel that filled my heart with

a strange yearning and a mighty but unaccountable pride.

On the handsome face of the boy a grim smile played, and ever and

anon he threw a taunting challenge to the foes that faced him.

In this and other ways his manner of fighting was similar to that

which had always marked me on the field of combat.

Perhaps it was this vague likeness which made me love the boy, while

the awful havoc that his sword played amongst the blacks filled my

soul with a tremendous respect for him.

For my part, I was fighting as I had fought a thousand times

before--now sidestepping a wicked thrust, now stepping quickly in

to let my sword's point drink deep in a foeman's heart, before it

buried itself in the throat of his companion.

We were having a merry time of it, we two, when a great body of

Issus' own guards were ordered into the arena. On they came with

fierce cries, while from every side the armed prisoners swarmed

upon them.

For half an hour it was as though all hell had broken loose. In

the walled confines of the arena we fought in an inextricable

mass--howling, cursing, blood-streaked demons; and ever the sword

of the young red man flashed beside me.

Slowly and by repeated commands I had succeeded in drawing the

prisoners into a rough formation about us, so that at last we fought

formed into a rude circle in the centre of which were the doomed

maids.

Many had gone down on both sides, but by far the greater havoc

had been wrought in the ranks of the guards of Issus. I could see

messengers running swiftly through the audience, and as they passed

the nobles there unsheathed their swords and sprang into the arena.

They were going to annihilate us by force of numbers--that was

quite evidently their plan.

I caught a glimpse of Issus leaning far forward upon her throne,

her hideous countenance distorted in a horrid grimace of hate and

rage, in which I thought I could distinguish an expression of fear.

It was that face that inspired me to the thing that followed.

Quickly I ordered fifty of the prisoners to drop back behind us

and form a new circle about the maidens.

"Remain and protect them until I return," I commanded.

Then, turning to those who formed the outer line, I cried, "Down

with Issus! Follow me to the throne; we will reap vengeance where

vengeance is deserved."

The youth at my side was the first to take up the cry of "Down

with Issus!" and then at my back and from all sides rose a hoarse

shout, "To the throne! To the throne!"

As one man we moved, an irresistible fighting mass, over the bodies

of dead and dying foes toward the gorgeous throne of the Martian

deity. Hordes of the doughtiest fighting-men of the First Born

poured from the audience to check our progress. We mowed them down

before us as they had been paper men.

"To the seats, some of you!" I cried as we approached the arena's

barrier wall. "Ten of us can take the throne," for I had seen

that Issus' guards had for the most part entered the fray within

the arena.

On both sides of me the prisoners broke to left and right for the

seats, vaulting the low wall with dripping swords lusting for the

crowded victims who awaited them.

In another moment the entire amphitheatre was filled with the shrieks

of the dying and the wounded, mingled with the clash of arms and

triumphant shouts of the victors.

Side by side the young red man and I, with perhaps a dozen others,

fought our way to the foot of the throne. The remaining guards,

reinforced by the high dignitaries and nobles of the First Born,

closed in between us and Issus, who sat leaning far forward upon

her carved sorapus bench, now screaming high-pitched commands to

her following, now hurling blighting curses upon those who sought

to desecrate her godhood.

The frightened slaves about her trembled in wide-eyed expectancy,

knowing not whether to pray for our victory or our defeat. Several

among them, proud daughters no doubt of some of Barsoom's noblest

warriors, snatched swords from the hands of the fallen and fell

upon the guards of Issus, but they were soon cut down; glorious

martyrs to a hopeless cause.

The men with us fought well, but never since Tars Tarkas and I

fought out that long, hot afternoon shoulder to shoulder against

the hordes of Warhoon in the dead sea bottom before Thark, had I

seen two men fight to such good purpose and with such unconquerable

ferocity as the young red man and I fought that day before the

throne of Issus, Goddess of Death, and of Life Eternal.

Man by man those who stood between us and the carven sorapus wood

bench went down before our blades. Others swarmed in to fill the

breach, but inch by inch, foot by foot we won nearer and nearer to

our goal.

Presently a cry went up from a section of the stands near by--"Rise

slaves!" "Rise slaves!" it rose and fell until it swelled to a

mighty volume of sound that swept in great billows around the entire

amphitheatre.

For an instant, as though by common assent, we ceased our fighting

to look for the meaning of this new note nor did it take but a moment

to translate its significance. In all parts of the structure the

female slaves were falling upon their masters with whatever weapon

came first to hand. A dagger snatched from the harness of her

mistress was waved aloft by some fair slave, its shimmering blade

crimson with the lifeblood of its owner; swords plucked from

the bodies of the dead about them; heavy ornaments which could be

turned into bludgeons--such were the implements with which these

fair women wreaked the long-pent vengeance which at best could

but partially recompense them for the unspeakable cruelties and

indignities which their black masters had heaped upon them. And

those who could find no other weapons used their strong fingers

and their gleaming teeth.

It was at once a sight to make one shudder and to cheer; but in a

brief second we were engaged once more in our own battle with only

the unquenchable battle cry of the women to remind us that they

still fought--"Rise slaves!" "Rise slaves!"

Only a single thin rank of men now stood between us and Issus. Her

face was blue with terror. Foam flecked her lips. She seemed too

paralysed with fear to move. Only the youth and I fought now. The

others all had fallen, and I was like to have gone down too from

a nasty long-sword cut had not a hand reached out from behind my

adversary and clutched his elbow as the blade was falling upon me.

The youth sprang to my side and ran his sword through the fellow

before he could recover to deliver another blow.

I should have died even then but for that as my sword was tight

wedged in the breastbone of a Dator of the First Born. As the fellow

went down I snatched his sword from him and over his prostrate body

looked into the eyes of the one whose quick hand had saved me from

the first cut of his sword--it was Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang.

"Fly, my Prince!" she cried. "It is useless to fight them longer.

All within the arena are dead. All who charged the throne are

dead but you and this youth. Only among the seats are there left

any of your fighting-men, and they and the slave women are fast

being cut down. Listen! You can scarce hear the battle-cry of

the women now for nearly all are dead. For each one of you there

are ten thousand blacks within the domains of the First Born.