Duhor was, at that time, at war with Helium and all her forces were far

afield in the south, with the exception of a small army that had been left

behind to guard the city. Jal Had, therefore, could not have selected a more

propitious time for an attack. Duhor fell, and while his troops were looting the

fair city Jal Had, with a picked force, sacked the palace of the Jeddak and

searched for the princess; but the princess had no mind to go back with him as

Princess of Amhor. From the moment that the vanguard of the Amhorian fleet was

seen in the sky she had known, with the others of the city, the purpose for

which they came, and so she used her head to defeat that purpose.

"There was in her retinue a cosmetologist whose duty it was to preserve the

lustrous beauty of the princess' hair and skin and prepare her for public

audiences, for fêtes and for the daily intercourse of the court. He was a master

of his art; he could render the ugly pleasant to look upon, he could make the

plain lovely, and he could make the lovely radiant. She called him quickly to

her and commanded him to make the radiant ugly, and when he had done with her

none might guess that she was the Princess of Duhor, so deftly had he wrought

with his pigments and his tiny brushes.

"When Jal Had could not find the princess within the palace, and no amount of

threat or torture could force a statement of her whereabouts from the loyal lips

of her people, the Amhorian ordered that every woman within the palace be seized

and taken to Amhor; there to be held as hostages until the Princess of Duhor

should be delivered to him in marriage. We were, therefore, all seized and

placed upon an Amhorian war ship which was sent back to Amhor ahead of the

balance of the fleet, which remained to complete the sacking of Duhor.

"When the ship, with its small convoy, had covered some four thousand of the

five thousand haads that separate Duhor from Amhor, it was sighted by a fleet

from Phundahl which immediately attacked. The convoying ships were destroyed or

driven off and that which carried us was captured. We were taken to Phundahl

where we were put upon the auction block and I fell to the bid of one of Ras

Thavas' agents. The rest you know."

"And what became of the princess?" I asked.

"Perhaps she died – her party was separated in Phundahl – but death could not

more definitely prevent her return to Duhor. The Princess of Duhor will never

again see her native country."

"But you may!" I cried, for I had suddenly hit upon a plan. "Where is Duhor?"

"You are going there?" she asked, laughingly.

"Yes!"

"You are mad, my friend," she said. "Duhor lies a full seven thousand, eight

hundred haads from Toonol, upon the opposite side of the snow-clad Artolian

Hills. You, a stranger and alone, could never reach it; for between lie the

Toonolian Marshes, wild hordes, savage beasts and warlike cities. You would but

die uselessly within the first dozen haads, even could you escape from the

island upon which stands the laboratory of Ras Thavas; and what motive is there

to prompt you to such a useless sacrifice?"

I could not tell her. I could not look upon that withered figure and into that

hideous and disfigured face and say: "it is because I love you, Valla Dia." But

that, alas, was my only reason. Gradually, as I had come to know her through the

slow revealment of the wondrous beauty of her mind and soul, there had crept

into my heart a knowledge of my love; and yet, explain it I cannot, I could not

speak the words to that frightful old hag. I had seen the gorgeous mundane

tabernacle that had housed the equally gorgeous spirit of the real Valla Dia –

that I could love; her heart and soul and mind I could love; but I could not

love the body of Xaxa. I was torn, too, by other emotions, induced by a great

doubt – could Valla Dia return my love. Habilitated in the corpse of Xaxa, with

no other suitor, nay, with no other friend she might, out of gratitude or

through sheer loneliness, be attracted to me; but once again were she Valla Dia

the beautiful and returned to the palace of her king, surrounded by the great

nobles of Duhor, would she have either eyes or heart for a lone and friendless

exile from another world? I doubted it – and yet that doubt did not deter me

from my determination to carry out, as far as Fate would permit, the mad scheme

that was revolving in my brain.

"You have not answered my question, Vad Varo," she interrupted my surging

thoughts. "Why would you do this thing?"

"To right the wrong that has been done you, Valla Dia," I said.

She sighed. "Do not attempt it, please," she begged. "You would but rob me of my

one friend, whose association is the only source of happiness remaining to me. I

appreciate your generosity and your loyalty, even though I may not understand

them; your unselfish desire to serve me at such suicidal risk touches me more

deeply than I can reveal, adding still further to the debt I owe you; but you

must not attempt it – you must not."

"If it troubles you, Valla Dia," I replied, "we will not speak of it again; but

know always that it is never from my thoughts. Some day I shall find a way, even

though the plan I now have fails me."

The days moved on and on, the gorgeous Martian nights, filled with her hurtling

moons, followed one upon another. Ras Thavas spent more and more time in

directing my work of brain transference. I had long since become an adept; and I

realized that the time was rapidly approaching when Ras Thavas would feel that

he could safely entrust to my hands and skill his life and future. He would be

wholly within my power and he knew that I knew it. I could slay him; I could

permit him to remain for ever in the preserving grip of his own anaesthetic; or

I could play any trick upon him that I chose, even to giving him the body of a

calot or a part of the brain of an ape; but he must take the chance and that I

knew, for he was failing rapidly. Already almost stone blind, it was only the

wonderful spectacles that he had himself invented that permitted him to see at

all; long deaf, he used artificial means for hearing; and now his heart was

showing symptoms of fatigue that he could not longer ignore.

One morning I was summoned to his sleeping apartment by a slave.