There you slept for

fourteen hours. It must now be nearly sundown again. Come, we

will go to some nearby window in the cliff and make sure."

So saying, she led the way through winding corridors until at

a sudden turn we came upon an opening which overlooked the Valley

Dor.

At our right the sun was setting, a huge red orb, below the western

range of Otz. A little below us stood the Holy Thern on watch upon

his balcony. His scarlet robe of office was pulled tightly about

him in anticipation of the cold that comes so suddenly with darkness

as the sun sets. So rare is the atmosphere of Mars that it absorbs

very little heat from the sun. During the daylight hours it is

always extremely hot; at night it is intensely cold. Nor does the

thin atmosphere refract the sun's rays or diffuse its light as upon

Earth. There is no twilight on Mars. When the great orb of day

disappears beneath the horizon the effect is precisely as that of

the extinguishing of a single lamp within a chamber. From brilliant

light you are plunged without warning into utter darkness. Then

the moons come; the mysterious, magic moons of Mars, hurtling like

monster meteors low across the face of the planet.

The declining sun lighted brilliantly the eastern banks of Korus,

the crimson sward, the gorgeous forest. Beneath the trees we saw

feeding many herds of plant men. The adults stood aloft upon their

toes and their mighty tails, their talons pruning every available

leaf and twig. It was then that I understood the careful trimming

of the trees which had led me to form the mistaken idea when first

I opened my eyes upon the grove that it was the playground of a

civilized people.

As we watched, our eyes wandered to the rolling Iss, which issued

from the base of the cliffs beneath us. Presently there emerged

from the mountain a canoe laden with lost souls from the outer world.

There were a dozen of them. All were of the highly civilized and

cultured race of red men who are dominant on Mars.

The eyes of the herald upon the balcony beneath us fell upon the

doomed party as soon as did ours. He raised his head and leaning

far out over the low rail that rimmed his dizzy perch, voiced the

shrill, weird wail that called the demons of this hellish place to

the attack.

For an instant the brutes stood with stiffly erected ears, then

they poured from the grove toward the river's bank, covering the

distance with great, ungainly leaps.

The party had landed and was standing on the sward as the awful

horde came in sight. There was a brief and futile effort of defence.

Then silence as the huge, repulsive shapes covered the bodies of

their victims and scores of sucking mouths fastened themselves to

the flesh of their prey.

I turned away in disgust.

"Their part is soon over," said Thuvia. "The great white apes get

the flesh when the plant men have drained the arteries. Look, they

are coming now."

As I turned my eyes in the direction the girl indicated, I saw a

dozen of the great white monsters running across the valley toward

the river bank. Then the sun went down and darkness that could

almost be felt engulfed us.

Thuvia lost no time in leading us toward the corridor which winds

back and forth up through the cliffs toward the surface thousands

of feet above the level on which we had been.

Twice great banths, wandering loose through the galleries, blocked

our progress, but in each instance Thuvia spoke a low word of

command and the snarling beasts slunk sullenly away.

"If you can dissolve all our obstacles as easily as you master

these fierce brutes I can see no difficulties in our way," I said

to the girl, smiling. "How do you do it?"

She laughed, and then shuddered.

"I do not quite know," she said. "When first I came here I angered

Sator Throg, because I repulsed him. He ordered me to be thrown

into one of the great pits in the inner gardens. It was filled

with banths. In my own country I had been accustomed to command.

Something in my voice, I do not know what, cowed the beasts as they

sprang to attack me.

"Instead of tearing me to pieces, as Sator Throg had desired, they

fawned at my feet. So greatly were Sator Throg and his friends

amused by the sight that they kept me to train and handle the

terrible creatures. I know them all by name. There are many of

them wandering through these lower regions.