unless we go together."

"I heard your challenge to the creature you call Tars Tarkas, and I
think I understand your position among these people, but what I cannot
fathom is your statement that you are not of Barsoom."

"In the name of my first ancestor, then," she continued, "where may you
be from? You are like unto my people, and yet so unlike. You speak my
language, and yet I heard you tell Tars Tarkas that you had but learned
it recently. All Barsoomians speak the same tongue from the ice-clad
south to the ice-clad north, though their written languages differ.
Only in the valley Dor, where the river Iss empties into the lost sea
of Korus, is there supposed to be a different language spoken, and,
except in the legends of our ancestors, there is no record of a
Barsoomian returning up the river Iss, from the shores of Korus in the
valley of Dor. Do not tell me that you have thus returned! They would
kill you horribly anywhere upon the surface of Barsoom if that were
true; tell me it is not!"

Her eyes were filled with a strange, weird light; her voice was
pleading, and her little hands, reached up upon my breast, were pressed
against me as though to wring a denial from my very heart.

"I do not know your customs, Dejah Thoris, but in my own Virginia a
gentleman does not lie to save himself; I am not of Dor; I have never
seen the mysterious Iss; the lost sea of Korus is still lost, so far as
I am concerned. Do you believe me?"

And then it struck me suddenly that I was very anxious that she should
believe me. It was not that I feared the results which would follow a
general belief that I had returned from the Barsoomian heaven or hell,
or whatever it was. Why was it, then! Why should I care what she
thought? I looked down at her; her beautiful face upturned, and her
wonderful eyes opening up the very depth of her soul; and as my eyes
met hers I knew why, and--I shuddered.

A similar wave of feeling seemed to stir her; she drew away from me
with a sigh, and with her earnest, beautiful face turned up to mine,
she whispered: "I believe you, John Carter; I do not know what a
'gentleman' is, nor have I ever heard before of Virginia; but on
Barsoom no man lies; if he does not wish to speak the truth he is
silent. Where is this Virginia, your country, John Carter?" she asked,
and it seemed that this fair name of my fair land had never sounded
more beautiful than as it fell from those perfect lips on that far