nness by your side, until crazed by loneliness and hunger you feed
upon the crawling maggots that were once a man."

That was all. In another instant she was gone, and the dim light which
had filled the cell faded into Cimmerian blackness.

"Pleasant old lady," said a voice at my side.

"Who speaks?" I asked.

"'Tis I, your companion, who has had the honour this day of fighting
shoulder to shoulder with the greatest warrior that ever wore metal
upon Barsoom."

"I thank God that you are not dead," I said. "I feared for that nasty
cut upon your head."

"It but stunned me," he replied. "A mere scratch."

"Maybe it were as well had it been final," I said. "We seem to be in a
pretty fix here with a splendid chance of dying of starvation and
thirst."

"Where are we?"

"Beneath the arena," I replied. "We tumbled down the shaft that
swallowed Issus as she was almost at our mercy."

He laughed a low laugh of pleasure and relief, and then reaching out
through the inky blackness he sought my shoulder and pulled my ear
close to his mouth.

"Nothing could be better," he whispered. "There are secrets within the
secrets of Issus of which Issus herself does not dream."

"What do you mean?"

"I laboured with the other slaves a year since in the remodelling of
these subterranean galleries, and at that time we found below these an
ancient system of corridors and chambers that had been sealed up for
ages. The blacks in charge of the work explored them, taking several
of us along to do whatever work there might be occasion for. I know
the entire system perfectly.

"There are miles of corridors honeycombing the ground beneath the
gardens and the temple itself, and there is one passage that leads down
to and connects with the lower regions that open on the water shaft
that gives passage to Omean.

"If we can reach the submarine undetected we may yet make the sea in
which there are many islands where the blacks never go. There we may
live for a time, and who knows what may transpire to aid us to escape?"

He had spoken all in a low whisper, evidently fearing spying ears even
here, and so I answered him in the same subdued tone.

"Lead back to Shador, my friend," I whispered. "Xodar, the black, is
there. We were to attempt our escape together, so I cannot desert him."

"No," said the boy, "one cannot desert a friend. It were better to be
recaptured ourselves than that."

Then he commenced groping his way abo