ied in their vitals! Ah, that to
them was Nirvana.

Carthoris was quick to guess their error and take advantage of it.
He knew that in the pleasure of killing they might fight on long
after they had discovered their mistake, unless their attention
was distracted by sight of the real cause of the altercation, and
so he lost no time in continuing across the room to the doorway
upon the opposite side, which opened into the inner court, where
the savage thoats were squealing and fighting among themselves.

Once here he had no easy task before him. To catch and mount one
of these habitually rageful and intractable beasts was no child's
play under the best of conditions; but now, when silence and time
were such important considerations, it might well have seemed quite
hopeless to a less resourceful and optimistic man than the son of
the great warlord.

From his father he had learned much concerning the traits of these
mighty beasts, and from Tars Tarkas, also, when he had visited that
great green jeddak among his horde at Thark. So now he centred
upon the work in hand all that he had ever learned about them from
others and from his own experience, for he, too, had ridden and
handled them many times.

The temper of the thoats of Torquas appeared even shorter than their
vicious cousins among the Tharks and Warhoons, and for a time it
seemed unlikely that he should escape a savage charge on the part
of a couple of old bulls that circled, squealing, about him; but
at last he managed to get close enough to one of them to touch the
beast. With the feel of his hand upon the sleek hide the creature
quieted, and in answer to the telepathic command of the red man
sank to its knees.

In a moment Carthoris was upon its back, guiding it toward the
great gate that leads from the courtyard through a large building
at one end into an avenue beyond.

The other bull, still squealing and enraged, followed after his
fellow. There was no bridle upon either, for these strange creatures
are controlled entirely by suggestion--when they are controlled at
all.

Even in the hands of the giant green men bridle reins would be
hopelessly futile against the mad savagery and mastodonic strength
of the thoat, and so they are guided by that strange telepathic
power with which the men of Mars have learned to communicate in a
crude way with the lower orders of their planet.

With difficulty Carthoris urged the two beasts to the gate, where,
le