mall room in one of the
numerous towers of the palace. Here were couches, and Jav bid the
Heliumite be seated.

For several minutes the Lotharian eyed his prisoner, for such
Carthoris now realized himself to be.

"I am half convinced that you are real," he said at last.

Carthoris laughed.

"Of course I am real," he said. "What caused you to doubt it? Can
you not see me, feel me?"

"So may I see and feel the bowmen," replied Jav, "and yet we all
know that they, at least, are not real."

Carthoris showed by the expression of his face his puzzlement at
each new reference to the mysterious bowmen--the vanishing soldiery
of Lothar.

"What, then, may they be?" he asked.

"You really do not know?" asked Jav.

Carthoris shook his head negatively.

"I can almost believe that you have told us the truth and that you
are really from another part of Barsoom, or from another world. But
tell me, in your own country have you no bowmen to strike terror
to the hearts of the green hordesmen as they slay in company with
the fierce banths of war?"

"We have soldiers," replied Carthoris. "We of the red race are
all soldiers, but we have no bowmen to defend us, such as yours.
We defend ourselves."

"You go out and get killed by your enemies!" cried Jav incredulously.

"Certainly," replied Carthoris. "How do the Lotharians?"

"You have seen," replied the other. "We send out our deathless
archers--deathless because they are lifeless, existing only in the
imaginations of our enemies. It is really our giant minds that
defend us, sending out legions of imaginary warriors to materialize
before the mind's eye of the foe.

"They see them--they see their bows drawn back--they see their
slender arrows speed with unerring precision toward their hearts.
And they die--killed by the power of suggestion."

"But the archers that are slain?" exclaimed Carthoris. "You call
them deathless, and yet I saw their dead bodies piled high upon
the battlefield. How may that be?"

"It is but to lend reality to the scene," replied Jav. "We picture
many of our own defenders killed that the Torquasians may not guess
that there are really no flesh and blood creatures opposing them.

"Once that truth became implanted in their minds, it is the theory
of many of us, no longer would they fall prey to the suggestion
of the deadly arrows, for greater would be the suggestion of the
truth, and the more powerful suggestion would prevail--it is la