hen
by the mere weight and momentum of my body, I rushed completely through
the two remaining ranks and sprang upon the dais beside the carved
sorapus throne.

The repulsive creature, squatting there in terror, attempted to escape
me and leap into a trap behind her. But this time I was not to be
outwitted by any such petty subterfuge. Before she had half arisen I
had grasped her by the arm, and then, as I saw the guard starting to
make a concerted rush upon me from all sides, I whipped out my dagger
and, holding it close to that vile breast, ordered them to halt.

"Back!" I cried to them. "Back! The first black foot that is planted
upon this platform sends my dagger into Issus' heart."

For an instant they hesitated. Then an officer ordered them back,
while from the outer corridor there swept into the throne room at the
heels of my little party of survivors a full thousand red men under
Kantos Kan, Hor Vastus, and Xodar.

"Where is Dejah Thoris?" I cried to the thing within my hands.

For a moment her eyes roved wildly about the scene beneath her. I
think that it took a moment for the true condition to make any
impression upon her--she could not at first realize that the temple had
fallen before the assault of men of the outer world. When she did,
there must have come, too, a terrible realization of what it meant to
her--the loss of power--humiliation--the exposure of the fraud and
imposture which she had for so long played upon her own people.

There was just one thing needed to complete the reality of the picture
she was seeing, and that was added by the highest noble of her
realm--the high priest of her religion--the prime minister of her
government.

"Issus, Goddess of Death, and of Life Eternal," he cried, "arise in the
might of thy righteous wrath and with one single wave of thy omnipotent
hand strike dead thy blasphemers! Let not one escape. Issus, thy
people depend upon thee. Daughter of the Lesser Moon, thou only art
all-powerful. Thou only canst save thy people. I am done. We await
thy will. Strike!"

And then it was that she went mad. A screaming, gibbering maniac
writhed in my grasp. It bit and clawed and scratched in impotent fury.
And then it laughed a weird and terrible laughter that froze the blood.
The slave girls upon the dais shrieked and cowered away. And the thing
jumped at them and gnashed its teeth and then spat upon them from
frothing lips. God, but it was a horrid sig