chin, lifting him high into the air and depositing him in
a crumpled heap within the centre of the pimalia bush beside the
ersite bench.

Her champion turned toward the girl. "Kaor, Thuvia of Ptarth!" he
cried. "It seems that fate timed my visit well."

"Kaor, Carthoris of Helium!" the princess returned the young man's
greeting, "and what less could one expect of the son of such a
sire?"

He bowed his acknowledgment of the compliment to his father, John
Carter, Warlord of Mars. And then the guardsmen, panting from
their charge, came up just as the Prince of Dusar, bleeding at the
mouth, and with drawn sword, crawled from the entanglement of the
pimalia.

Astok would have leaped to mortal combat with the son of Dejah
Thoris, but the guardsmen pressed about him, preventing, though it
was clearly evident that naught would have better pleased Carthoris
of Helium.

"But say the word, Thuvia of Ptarth," he begged, "and naught will
give me greater pleasure than meting to this fellow the punishment
he has earned."

"It cannot be, Carthoris," she replied. "Even though he has forfeited
all claim upon my consideration, yet is he the guest of the jeddak,
my father, and to him alone may he account for the unpardonable
act he has committed."

"As you say, Thuvia," replied the Heliumite. "But afterward he
shall account to Carthoris, Prince of Helium, for this affront to
the daughter of my father's friend." As he spoke, though, there
burned in his eyes a fire that proclaimed a nearer, dearer cause
for his championship of this glorious daughter of Barsoom.

The maid's cheek darkened beneath the satin of her transparent skin,
and the eyes of Astok, Prince of Dusar, darkened, too, as he read
that which passed unspoken between the two in the royal gardens of
the jeddak.

"And thou to me," he snapped at Carthoris, answering the young
man's challenge.

The guard still surrounded Astok. It was a difficult position for
the young officer who commanded it. His prisoner was the son of a
mighty jeddak; he was the guest of Thuvan Dihn--until but now an
honoured guest upon whom every royal dignity had been showered.
To arrest him forcibly could mean naught else than war, and yet he
had done that which in the eyes of the Ptarth warrior merited death.

The young man hesitated. He looked toward his princess. She, too,
guessed all that hung upon the action of the coming moment. For
many years Dusar and Ptarth had been at peac