credit should be read there to my judges--who knew it
all by heart--even down to the present moment. When the reading
had ceased Tardos Mors arose.

"Most righteous judges," he exclaimed, "you have heard recited all
that is known of John Carter, Prince of Helium--the good with the
bad. What is your judgment?"

Then Tars Tarkas came slowly to his feet, unfolding all his mighty,
towering height until he loomed, a green-bronze statue, far above
us all. He turned a baleful eye upon me--he, Tars Tarkas, with whom
I had fought through countless battles; whom I loved as a brother.

I could have wept had I not been so mad with rage that I almost
whipped my sword out and had at them all upon the spot.

"Judges," he said, "there can be but one verdict. No longer may
John Carter be Prince of Helium"--he paused--"but instead let him
be Jeddak of Jeddaks, Warlord of Barsoom!"

As the thirty-one judges sprang to their feet with drawn and
upraised swords in unanimous concurrence in the verdict, the storm
broke throughout the length and breadth and height of that mighty
building until I thought the roof would fall from the thunder of
the mad shouting.

Now, at last, I saw the grim humor of the method they had adopted
to do me this great honor, but that there was any hoax in the reality
of the title they had conferred upon me was readily disproved by
the sincerity of the congratulations that were heaped upon me by
the judges first and then the nobles.

Presently fifty of the mightiest nobles of the greatest courts of
Mars marched down the broad Aisle of Hope bearing a splendid car
upon their shoulders, and as the people saw who sat within, the
cheers that had rung out for me paled into insignificance beside
those which thundered through the vast edifice now, for she whom
the nobles carried was Dejah Thoris, beloved Princess of Helium.

Straight to the Throne of Righteousness they bore her, and there
Tardos Mors assisted her from the car, leading her forward to my
side.

"Let a world's most beautiful woman share the honor of her husband,"
he said.

Before them all I drew my wife close to me and kissed her upon the lips.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Warlord of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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