to the
highest of his own officers who had accompanied him to Kaol.

"To you I entrust the return of my retinue to Ptarth," he said.
"There my son rules ably in my absence. The Prince of Helium shall
not go alone into the land of his enemies. I have spoken. Farewell!"

THROUGH THE CARRION CAVES

Straight toward the north, day and night, our destination compass
led us after the fleeing flier upon which it had remained set since
I first attuned it after leaving the thern fortress.

Early in the second night we noticed the air becoming perceptibly
colder, and from the distance we had come from the equator were
assured that we were rapidly approaching the north arctic region.

My knowledge of the efforts that had been made by countless
expeditions to explore that unknown land bade me to caution, for
never had flier returned who had passed to any considerable distance
beyond the mighty ice-barrier that fringes the southern hem of the
frigid zone.

What became of them none knew--only that they passed forever out
of the sight of man into that grim and mysterious country of the
pole.

The distance from the barrier to the pole was no more than a swift
flier should cover in a few hours, and so it was assumed that some
frightful catastrophe awaited those who reached the "forbidden land,"
as it had come to be called by the Martians of the outer world.

Thus it was that I went more slowly as we approached the barrier,
for it was my intention to move cautiously by day over the ice-pack
that I might discover, before I had run into a trap, if there
really lay an inhabited country at the north pole, for there only
could I imagine a spot where Matai Shang might feel secure from
John Carter, Prince of Helium.

We were flying at a snail's pace but a few feet above the
ground--literally feeling our way along through the darkness, for
both moons had set, and the night was black with the clouds that
are to be found only at Mars's two extremities.

Suddenly a towering wall of white rose directly in our path, and
though I threw the helm hard over, and reversed our engine, I was
too late to avoid collision. With a sickening crash we struck the
high looming obstacle three-quarters on.

The flier reeled half over; the engine stopped; as one, the patched
buoyancy tanks burst, and we plunged, headforemost, to the ground
twenty feet beneath.

Fortunately none of us was injured, and when we had disentangled
ourselves from