It will take

some time for me to find myself."

Though uninterested, I listened politely until he was through and then I changed

the subject "Have you located the missing woman?" I asked.

He shook his head, negatively.

"You must appreciate, Ras Thavas," I said, "that I fully realize that you must

have known that the removal or destruction of that woman would entirely

frustrate my entire plan. You are master here. Nothing that passes is without

your knowledge."

"You mean that I am responsible for the disappearance of the woman?" he

demanded.

"Certainly. It is obvious. I demand that she be restored."

He lost his temper. "Who are you to demand?" he shouted. "You are naught but a

slave. Cease your impudence or I shall erase you – erase you. It will be as

though you never had existed."

I laughed in his face. "Anger is the most futile attribute of the

sentimentalist," I reminded him. "You will not erase me, for I alone stand

between you and mortality."

"I can train another," he parried.

"But you could not trust him," I pointed out.

"But you bargained with me for my life when you had me in your power," he cried.

"For nothing that it would have harmed you to have granted willingly. I did not

ask anything for myself. Be that as it may, you will trust me again. You will

trust, for no other reason than that you will be forced to trust me. So why not

win my gratitude and my loyalty by returning the woman to me and carrying out in

spirit as well as in fact the terms of our agreement?"

He turned and looked steadily at me. "Vad Varo," he said, "I give you the word

of honor of a Barsoomian noble that I know absolutely nothing concerning the

whereabouts of 4296-E-2631-H."

"Perhaps Yamdor does," I persisted.

"Nor Yamdor. Of my knowledge no person in any way connected with me knows what

became of it. I have spoken the truth."

Well, the conversation was not as profitless as it might appear, for I was sure

that it had almost convinced Ras Thavas that I was equally as ignorant of the

fate of Valla Dia as was he. That it had not wholly convinced him was evidenced

by the fact that the espionage continued for a long time, a fact which

determined me to use Ras Thavas' own methods in my own defence. I had had

allotted to me a number of slaves, and these I had won over by kindness and

understanding until I knew that I had the full measure of their loyalty. They

had no reason to love Ras Thavas and every reason to hate him; on the other hand

they had no reason to hate me, and I saw to it that they had every reason to

love me.

The result was that I had no difficulty in enlisting the services of a couple of

them to spy upon Ras Thavas' spies, with the result that I was soon apprised

that my suspicions were well founded – I was being constantly watched every

minute that I was out of my apartments, but the spying did not come beyond my

outer chamber walls. That was why I had been successful in reaching the vault in

the manner that I had, the spies having assumed that I would leave my chamber

only by its natural exit, had been content to guard that and permit my windows

to go unwatched.

I think it was about two of our months that the spying continued and then my men

reported that it seemed to have ceased entirely. All that time I was fretting at

the delay, for I wanted to be about my plans which would have been absolutely

impossible for me to carry out if I were being watched. I had spent the interval

in studying the geography of the north-eastern Barsoomian hemisphere where my

activities were to be carried on, and also in scanning a great number of case

histories and inspecting the subjects to which they referred; but at last, with

the removal of the spies, it began to look as though I might soon commence to

put my plans in active operation.

Ras Thavas had for some time permitted me considerable freedom in independent

investigation and experiment, and this I determined to take advantage of in

every possible way that might forward my plans for the resurrection of Valla

Dia. My study of the histories of many of the cases had been with the

possibility in mind of discovering subjects that might be of assistance to me in

my venture. Among those that had occupied my careful attention were, quite

naturally, the cases with which I had been most familiar, namely:

378-J-493811-P, the red-man from whose vicious attack I had saved Ras Thavas

upon the day of my advent upon Mars; and he whose brain had been divided with an

ape.

The former, 378-J-493811-P, had been a native of Phundahl – a young warrior

attached to the court of Xaxa, Jeddara of Phundahl – and a victim of

assassination. His body had been purchased by a Phundahlian noble for the

purpose, as Ras Thavas had narrated, of winning the favor of a young beauty. I

felt that I might possibly enlist his services, but that would depend upon the

extent of his loyalty towards Xaxa, which I could only determine by reviving and

questioning him.

He whose brain had been divided with an ape had originated in Ptarth, which lay

at a considerable distance to the west of Phundahl and a little south and about

an equal distance from Duhor, which lay north and a little west of it. An

inhabitant of Ptarth, I reasoned, would know much of the entire country included

in the triangle formed by Phundahl, Ptarth and Duhor; the strength and ferocity

of the great ape would prove of value in crossing beast infested wastes; and I

felt that I could hold forth sufficient promise to the human half of the great

beast's brain, which really now dominated the creature, to win its support and

loyalty. The third subject that I had tentatively selected had been a notorious

Toonolian assassin, whose audacity, fearlessness and swordsmanship had won for

him a reputation that had spread far beyond the boundaries of his country.

Ras Thavas, himself a Toonolian, had given me something of the history of this

man whose grim calling is not without honor upon Barsoom, and which Gor Hajus

had raised still higher in the esteem of his countrymen through the fact that he

never struck down a woman or a good man and that he never struck from behind.