r-skinned
warriors, armed only with their long bows and a kind of short-handled
war-axe, were almost helpless beneath the savage mounted green men
at close quarters; but at a distance their sharp arrows did fully
as much execution as the radium projectiles of the green men.

But if the warriors themselves were outclassed, not so their savage
companions, the fierce banths. Scarce had the two lines come
together when hundreds of these appalling creatures had leaped
among the Torquasians, dragging warriors from their thoats--dragging
down the huge thoats themselves, and bringing consternation to all
before them.

The numbers of the citizenry, too, was to their advantage, for
it seemed that scarce a warrior fell but his place was taken by a
score more, in such a constant stream did they pour from the city's
great gate.

And so it came, what with the ferocity of the banths and the
numbers of the bowmen, that at last the Torquasians fell back,
until presently the platform upon which stood Carthoris and Thuvia
lay directly in the centre of the fight.

That neither was struck by a bullet or an arrow seemed a miracle
to both; but at last the tide had rolled completely past them, so
that they were alone between the fighters and the city, except for
the dying and the dead, and a score or so of growling banths, less
well trained than their fellows, who prowled among the corpses
seeking meat.

To Carthoris the strangest part of the battle had been the terrific
toll taken by the bowmen with their relatively puny weapons. Nowhere
that he could see was there a single wounded green man, but the
corpses of their dead lay thick upon the field of battle.

Death seemed to follow instantly the slightest pinprick of a bowman's
arrow, nor apparently did one ever miss its goal. There could be
but one explanation: the missiles were poison-tipped.

Presently the sounds of conflict died in the distant forest.
Quiet reigned, broken only by the growling of the devouring banths.
Carthoris turned toward Thuvia of Ptarth. As yet neither had
spoken.

"Where are we, Thuvia?" he asked.

The girl looked at him questioningly. His very presence had seemed
to proclaim a guilty knowledge of her abduction. How else might
he have known the destination of the flier that brought her!

"Who should know better than the Prince of Helium?" she asked in
return. "Did he not come hither of his own free will?"

"From Aaanthor I came voluntarily upon