ternal
laws of life and death? Wouldst cheat the mysterious Issus, Goddess of
Death, of her just dues? Did not her mighty messenger, the ancient
Iss, bear you upon her leaden bosom at your own behest to the Valley
Dor?

"Thinkest thou, O fools, that Issus wilt give up her own? Thinkest
thou to escape from whence in all the countless ages but a single soul
has fled?

"Go back the way thou camest, to the merciful maws of the children of
the Tree of Life or the gleaming fangs of the great white apes, for
there lies speedy surcease from suffering; but insist in your rash
purpose to thread the mazes of the Golden Cliffs of the Mountains of
Otz, past the ramparts of the impregnable fortresses of the Holy
Therns, and upon your way Death in its most frightful form will
overtake you--a death so horrible that even the Holy Therns themselves,
who conceived both Life and Death, avert their eyes from its
fiendishness and close their ears against the hideous shrieks of its
victims.

"Go back, O fools, the way thou camest."

And then the awful laugh broke out from another part of the chamber.

"Most uncanny," I remarked, turning to Tars Tarkas.

"What shall we do?" he asked. "We cannot fight empty air; I would
almost sooner return and face foes into whose flesh I may feel my blade
bite and know that I am selling my carcass dearly before I go down to
that eternal oblivion which is evidently the fairest and most desirable
eternity that mortal man has the right to hope for."

"If, as you say, we cannot fight empty air, Tars Tarkas," I replied,
"neither, on the other hand, can empty air fight us. I, who have faced
and conquered in my time thousands of sinewy warriors and tempered
blades, shall not be turned back by wind; nor no more shall you, Thark."

"But unseen voices may emanate from unseen and unseeable creatures who
wield invisible blades," answered the green warrior.

"Rot, Tars Tarkas," I cried, "those voices come from beings as real as
you or as I. In their veins flows lifeblood that may be let as easily
as ours, and the fact that they remain invisible to us is the best
proof to my mind that they are mortal; nor overly courageous mortals at
that. Think you, Tars Tarkas, that John Carter will fly at the first
shriek of a cowardly foe who dare not come out into the open and face a
good blade?"

I had spoken in a loud voice that there might be no question that our
would-be terrorizers should hear me, for I was ti