hly things," I asked, "why is
it that you do not recognize me as identical with the inhabitants of
that planet?"

She smiled again as one might in bored indulgence of a questioning
child.

"Because, John Carter," she replied, "nearly every planet and star
having atmospheric conditions at all approaching those of Barsoom,
shows forms of animal life almost identical with you and me; and,
further, Earth men, almost without exception, cover their bodies with
strange, unsightly pieces of cloth, and their heads with hideous
contraptions the purpose of which we have been unable to conceive;
while you, when found by the Tharkian warriors, were entirely
undisfigured and unadorned.

"The fact that you wore no ornaments is a strong proof of your
un-Barsoomian origin, while the absence of grotesque coverings might
cause a doubt as to your earthliness."

I then narrated the details of my departure from the Earth, explaining
that my body there lay fully clothed in all the, to her, strange
garments of mundane dwellers. At this point Sola returned with our
meager belongings and her young Martian protege, who, of course, would
have to share the quarters with them.

Sola asked us if we had had a visitor during her absence, and seemed
much surprised when we answered in the negative. It seemed that as she
had mounted the approach to the upper floors where our quarters were
located, she had met Sarkoja descending. We decided that she must have
been eavesdropping, but as we could recall nothing of importance that
had passed between us we dismissed the matter as of little consequence,
merely promising ourselves to be warned to the utmost caution in the
future.

Dejah Thoris and I then fell to examining the architecture and
decorations of the beautiful chambers of the building we were
occupying. She told me that these people had presumably flourished
over a hundred thousand years before. They were the early progenitors
of her race, but had mixed with the other great race of early Martians,
who were very dark, almost black, and also with the reddish yellow race
which had flourished at the same time.

These three great divisions of the higher Martians had been forced into
a mighty alliance as the drying up of the Martian seas had compelled
them to seek the comparatively few and always diminishing fertile
areas, and to defend themselves, under new conditions of life, against
the wild hordes of green men.

Ages of close relationsh