Early the next morning Xodar and I commenced workupon our plans for escape. First I had him sketch upon thestone floor of our cell as accurate a map of the southpolar regions as was possible with the crude instrumentsat our disposal--a buckle from my harness, and the sharpedge of the wondrous gem I had taken from Sator Throg.

From this I computed the general direction of Helium and thedistance at which it lay from the opening which led to Omean.

Then I had him draw a map of Omean, indicating plainlythe position of Shador and of the opening in the dome whichled to the outer world.

These I studied until they were indelibly imprinted in mymemory. From Xodar I learned the duties and customs ofthe guards who patrolled Shador. It seemed that during thehours set aside for sleep only one man was on duty at atime. He paced a beat that passed around the prison, at adistance of about a hundred feet from the building.

The pace of the sentries, Xodar said, was very slow,requiring nearly ten minutes to make a single round.This meant that for practically five minutes at a time eachside of the prison was unguarded as the sentry pursued hissnail like pace upon the opposite side.

"This information you ask," said Xodar, "will be all veryvaluable AFTER we get out, but nothing that you haveasked has any bearing on that first and most importantconsideration."

"We will get out all right," I replied, laughing. "Leave that to me."

"When shall we make the attempt?" he asked.

"The first night that finds a small craft moored nearthe shore of Shador," I replied.

"But how will you know that any craft is moored nearShador? The windows are far beyond our reach."

"Not so, friend Xodar; look!"

With a bound I sprang to the bars of the window oppositeus, and took a quick survey of the scene without.

Several small craft and two large battleships lay withina hundred yards of Shador.

"To-night," I thought, and was just about to voice mydecision to Xodar, when, without warning, the door of ourprison opened and a guard stepped in.

If the fellow saw me there our chances of escape mightquickly go glimmering, for I knew that they would put mein irons if they had the slightest conception of the wonderfulagility which my earthly muscles gave me upon Mars.

The man had entered and was standing facing the centreof the room, so that his back was toward me. Five feetabove me was the top of a partition wall separating ourcell from the next.

There was my only chance to escape detection. If thefellow turned, I was lost; nor could I have dropped to thefloor undetected, since he was no nearly below me thatI would have struck him had I done so.

"Where is the white man?" cried the guard of Xodar."Issus commands his presence." He started to turn to see ifI were in another part of the cell.

I scrambled up the iron grating of the window until Icould catch a good footing on the sill with one foot; then Ilet go my hold and sprang for the partition top.

"What was that?" I heard the deep voice of the blackbellow as my metal grated against the stone wall as I slippedover. Then I dropped lightly to the floor of the cell beyond.

"Where is the white slave?" again cried the guard.

"I know not," replied Xodar. "He was here even as youentered. I am not his keeper--go find him."

The black grumbled something that I could not understand,and then I heard him unlocking the door into oneof the other cells on the further side. Listening intently,I caught the sound as the door closed behind him. Then Isprang once more to the top of the partition and droppedinto my own cell beside the astonished Xodar.

"Do you see now how we will escape?" I asked him in a whisper.

"I see how you may," he replied, "but I am no wiser than beforeas to how I am to pass these walls. Certain it is that I cannotbounce over them as you do."

We heard the guard moving about from cell to cell, andfinally, his rounds completed, he again entered ours.When his eyes fell upon me they fairly bulged from his head.

"By the shell of my first ancestor!" he roared."Where have you been?"

"I have been in prison since you put me here yesterday,"I answered. "I was in this room when you entered.You had better look to your eyesight."

He glared at me in mingled rage and relief.

"Come," he said. "Issus commands your presence."

He conducted me outside the prison, leaving Xodar behind. There we found several other guards, and with them thered Martian youth who occupied another cell upon Shador.

The journey I had taken to the Temple of Issus on thepreceding day was repeated. The guards kept the red boyand myself separated, so that we had no opportunity to continuethe conversation that had been interrupted the previous night.

The youth's face had haunted me. Where had I seenhim before. There was something strangely familiar inevery line of him; in his carriage, his manner of speaking,his gestures. I could have sworn that I knew him, and yetI knew too that I had never seen him before.

When we reached the gardens of Issus we were led awayfrom the temple instead of toward it. The way wound throughenchanted parks to a mighty wall that towered a hundredfeet in air.

Massive gates gave egress upon a small plain, surroundedby the same gorgeous forests that I had seen at the foot ofthe Golden Cliffs.

Crowds of blacks were strolling in the same directionthat our guards were leading us, and with them mingledmy old friends the plant men and great white apes.

The brutal beasts moved among the crowd as pet dogsmight. If they were in the way the blacks pushed themroughly to one side, or whacked them with the flat of asword, and the animals slunk away as in great fear.

Presently we came upon our destination, a great amphitheatresituated at the further edge of the plain, and about half amile beyond the garden walls.

Through a massive arched gateway the blacks poured into take their seats, while our guards led us to a smallerentrance near one end of the structure.

Through this we passed into an enclosure beneath theseats, where we found a number of other prisoners herdedtogether under guard. Some of them were in irons, butfor the most part they seemed sufficiently awed by thepresence of their guards to preclude any possibility ofattempted escape.

During the trip from Shador I had had no opportunityto talk with my fellow-prisoner, but now that we were safelywithin the barred paddock our guards abated their watchfulness,with the result that I found myself able to approach the redMartian youth for whom I felt such a strange attraction.

"What is the object of this assembly?" I asked him."Are we to fight for the edification of the First Born,or is it something worse than that?"

"It is a part of the monthly rites of Issus," he replied,"in which black men wash the sins from their souls in theblood of men from the outer world. If, perchance, theblack is killed, it is evidence of his disloyalty to Issus--the unpardonable sin. If he lives through the contest heis held acquitted of the charge that forced the sentence ofthe rites, as it is called, upon him.

"The forms of combat vary. A number of us may bepitted together against an equal number, or twice thenumber of blacks; or singly we may be sent forth toface wild beasts, or some famous black warrior."

"And if we are victorious," I asked, "what then--freedom?"

He laughed.

"Freedom, forsooth. The only freedom for us death.None who enters the domains of the First Born ever leave.If we prove able fighters we are permitted to fight often.If we are not mighty fighters--" He shrugged his shoulders. "Sooner or later we die in the arena."

"And you have fought often?" I asked.

"Very often," he replied. "It is my only pleasure. Somehundred black devils have I accounted for during nearly ayear of the rites of Issus. My mother would be very proudcould she only know how well I have maintained the traditionsof my father's prowess."

"Your father must have been a mighty warrior!" I said."I have known most of the warriors of Barsoom in mytime; doubtless I knew him. Who was he?"

"My father was--"

"Come, calots!" cried the rough voice of a guard. "Tothe slaughter with you," and roughly we were hustled tothe steep incline that led to the chambers far below whichlet out upon the arena.

The amphitheatre, like all I had ever seen upon Barsoom,was built in a large excavation. Only the highest seats,which formed the low wall surrounding the pit, were above thelevel of the ground. The arena itself was far below the surface.

Just beneath the lowest tier of seats was a series ofbarred cages on a level with the surface of the arena. Intothese we were herded. But, unfortunately, my youthful friendwas not of those who occupied a cage with me.

Directly opposite my cage was the throne of Issus. Herethe horrid creature squatted, surrounded by a hundred slavemaidens sparkling in jewelled trappings. Brilliant cloths ofmany hues and strange patterns formed the soft cushioncovering of the dais upon which they reclined about her.

On four sides of the throne and several feet below it stoodthree solid ranks of heavily armed soldiery, elbow to elbow.In front of these were the high dignitaries of this mockheaven--gleaming blacks bedecked with precious stones, upontheir foreheads the insignia of their rank set in circles of gold.

On both sides of the throne stretched a solid massof humanity from top to bottom of the amphitheatre.There were as many women as men, and each was clothed inthe wondrously wrought harness of his station and his house.With each black was from one to three slaves, drawn fromthe domains of the therns and from the outer world. Theblacks are all "noble." There is no peasantry among theFirst Born. Even the lowest soldier is a god, and has hisslaves to wait upon him.

The First Born do no work. The men fight--that is a sacredprivilege and duty; to fight and die for Issus. The women donothing, absolutely nothing. Slaves wash them, slaves dressthem, slaves feed them. There are some, even, who haveslaves that talk for them, and I saw one who sat duringthe rites with closed eyes while a slave narrated to her theevents that were transpiring within the arena.

The first event of the day was the Tribute to Issus. Itmarked the end of those poor unfortunates who had lookedupon the divine glory of the goddess a full year before.There were ten of them--splendid beauties from the proudcourts of mighty Jeddaks and from the temples of theHoly Therns. For a year they had served in the retinue ofIssus; to-day they were to pay the price of this divinepreferment with their lives; tomorrow they would grace thetables of the court functionaries.

A huge black entered the arena with the young women.Carefully he inspected them, felt of their limbs and pokedthem in the ribs. Presently he selected one of their numberwhom he led before the throne of Issus. He addressedsome words to the goddess which I could not hear. Issusnodded her head. The black raised his hands above his headin token of salute, grasped the girl by the wrist, and draggedher from the arena through a small doorway below the throne.

"Issus will dine well to-night," said a prisoner beside me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"That was her dinner that old Thabis is taking to thekitchens. Didst not note how carefully he selected theplumpest and tenderest of the lot?"

I growled out my curses on the monster sitting oppositeus on the gorgeous throne.

"Fume not," admonished my companion; "you will seefar worse than that if you live even a month among theFirst Born."

I turned again in time to see the gate of a nearby cagethrown open and three monstrous white apes spring into thearena. The girls shrank in a frightened group in the centreof the enclosure.

One was on her knees with imploring hands outstretchedtoward Issus; but the hideous deity only leaned furtherforward in keener anticipation of the entertainment to come.At length the apes spied the huddled knot of terror-strickenmaidens and with demoniacal shrieks of bestial frenzy,charged upon them.

A wave of mad fury surged over me. The cruel cowardlinessof the power-drunk creature whose malignant mind conceivedsuch frightful forms of torture stirred to their uttermostdepths my resentment and my manhood. The blood-red hazethat presaged death to my foes swam before my eyes.

The guard lolled before the unbarred gate of the cagewhich confined me. What need of bars, indeed, to keepthose poor victims from rushing into the arena which theedict of the gods had appointed as their death place!

A single blow sent the black unconscious to the ground.Snatching up his long-sword, I sprang into the arena. Theapes were almost upon the maidens, but a couple of mightybounds were all my earthly muscles required to carry meto the centre of the sand-strewn floor.

For an instant silence reigned in the great amphitheatre,then a wild shout arose from the cages of the doomed.My long-sword circled whirring through the air, and a greatape sprawled, headless, at the feet of the fainting girls.

The other apes turned now upon me, and as I stood facingthem a sullen roar from the audience answered the wild cheersfrom the cages. From the tail of my eye I saw a scoreof guards rushing across the glistening sand toward me.Then a figure broke from one of the cages behind them.It was the youth whose personality so fascinated me.

He paused a moment before the cages, with upraised sword.

"Come, men of the outer world!" he shouted. "Let usmake our deaths worth while, and at the back of thisunknown warrior turn this day's Tribute to Issus into anorgy of revenge that will echo through the ages and causeblack skins to blanch at each repetition of the rites of Issus.Come! The racks without your cages are filled with blades."

Without waiting to note the outcome of his plea, heturned and bounded toward me. From every cage thatharboured red men a thunderous shout went up in answerto his exhortation. The inner guards went down beneathhowling mobs, and the cages vomited forth their inmates hotwith the lust to kill.

The racks that stood without were stripped of the swordswith which the prisoners were to have been armed to entertheir allotted combats, and a swarm of determined warriorssped to our support.

The great apes, towering in all their fifteen feet of height,had gone down before my sword while the charging guardswere still some distance away. Close behind them pursuedthe youth. At my back were the young girls, and as itwas in their service that I fought, I remained standingthere to meet my inevitable death, but with the determinationto give such an account of myself as would long be rememberedin the land of the First Born.

I noted the marvellous speed of the young red man ashe raced after the guards. Never had I seen such speed inany Martian. His leaps and bounds were little short of thosewhich my earthly muscles had produced to create such aweand respect on the part of the green Martians into whosehands I had fallen on that long-gone day that had seen myfirst advent upon Mars.

The guards had not reached me when he fell upon themfrom the rear, and as they turned, thinking from thefierceness of his onslaught that a dozen were attacking them,I rushed them from my side.

In the rapid fighting that followed I had little chanceto note aught else than the movements of my immediateadversaries, but now and again I caught a fleeting glimpseof a purring sword and a lightly springing figure of sinewysteel that filled my heart with a strange yearning and amighty but unaccountable pride.

On the handsome face of the boy a grim smile played,and ever and anon he threw a taunting challenge to thefoes that faced him. In this and other ways his manner offighting was similar to that which had always marked meon the field of combat.

Perhaps it was this vague likeness which made me lovethe boy, while the awful havoc that his sword played amongstthe blacks filled my soul with a tremendous respect for him.

For my part, I was fighting as I had fought a thousandtimes before--now sidestepping a wicked thrust, now steppingquickly in to let my sword's point drink deep in a foeman'sheart, before it buried itself in the throat of his companion.

We were having a merry time of it, we two, when a greatbody of Issus' own guards were ordered into the arena.On they came with fierce cries, while from every side thearmed prisoners swarmed upon them.

For half an hour it was as though all hell had broken loose.In the walled confines of the arena we fought in aninextricable mass--howling, cursing, blood-streakeddemons; and ever the sword of the young red man flashedbeside me.

Slowly and by repeated commands I had succeeded in drawingthe prisoners into a rough formation about us, so that atlast we fought formed into a rude circle in the centre ofwhich were the doomed maids.

Many had gone down on both sides, but by far the greaterhavoc had been wrought in the ranks of the guards of Issus.I could see messengers running swiftly through the audience,and as they passed the nobles there unsheathed their swordsand sprang into the arena. They were going to annihilateus by force of numbers--that was quite evidently their plan.

I caught a glimpse of Issus leaning far forward upon herthrone, her hideous countenance distorted in a horridgrimace of hate and rage, in which I thought I coulddistinguish an expression of fear. It was that facethat inspired me to the thing that followed.

Quickly I ordered fifty of the prisoners to drop backbehind us and form a new circle about the maidens.

"Remain and protect them until I return," I commanded.

Then, turning to those who formed the outer line, I cried,"Down with Issus! Follow me to the throne; we will reapvengeance where vengeance is deserved."

The youth at my side was the first to take up the cry of"Down with Issus!" and then at my back and from allsides rose a hoarse shout, "To the throne! To the throne!"

As one man we moved, an irresistible fighting mass, overthe bodies of dead and dying foes toward the gorgeousthrone of the Martian deity. Hordes of the doughtiestfighting-men of the First Born poured from the audience tocheck our progress. We mowed them down before us as theyhad been paper men.

"To the seats, some of you!" I cried as we approachedthe arena's barrier wall. "Ten of us can take the throne,"for I had seen that Issus' guards had for the most partentered the fray within the arena.

On both sides of me the prisoners broke to left andright for the seats, vaulting the low wall with drippingswords lusting for the crowded victims who awaited them.

In another moment the entire amphitheatre was filledwith the shrieks of the dying and the wounded, mingled withthe clash of arms and triumphant shouts of the victors.

Side by side the young red man and I, with perhaps adozen others, fought our way to the foot of the throne.The remaining guards, reinforced by the high dignitariesand nobles of the First Born, closed in between us andIssus, who sat leaning far forward upon her carved sorapusbench, now screaming high-pitched commands to her following,now hurling blighting curses upon those who sought todesecrate her godhood.

The frightened slaves about her trembled in wide-eyedexpectancy, knowing not whether to pray for our victoryor our defeat. Several among them, proud daughters nodoubt of some of Barsoom's noblest warriors, snatchedswords from the hands of the fallen and fell upon theguards of Issus, but they were soon cut down; gloriousmartyrs to a hopeless cause.

The men with us fought well, but never since Tars Tarkasand I fought out that long, hot afternoon shoulder toshoulder against the hordes of Warhoon in the dead seabottom before Thark, had I seen two men fight to suchgood purpose and with such unconquerable ferocity asthe young red man and I fought that day before the throneof Issus, Goddess of Death, and of Life Eternal.

Man by man those who stood between us and the carvensorapus wood bench went down before our blades. Othersswarmed in to fill the breach, but inch by inch, foot byfoot we won nearer and nearer to our goal.

Presently a cry went up from a section of the standsnear by--"Rise slaves!" "Rise slaves!" it rose and fell untilit swelled to a mighty volume of sound that swept in greatbillows around the entire amphitheatre.

For an instant, as though by common assent, we ceasedour fighting to look for the meaning of this new note nordid it take but a moment to translate its significance. Inall parts of the structure the female slaves were fallingupon their masters with whatever weapon came first to hand.A dagger snatched from the harness of her mistress waswaved aloft by some fair slave, its shimmering blade crimsonwith the lifeblood of its owner; swords plucked from thebodies of the dead about them; heavy ornaments whichcould be turned into bludgeons--such were the implementswith which these fair women wreaked the long-pent vengeancewhich at best could but partially recompense them for theunspeakable cruelties and indignities which their black mastershad heaped upon them. And those who could find no other weaponsused their strong fingers and their gleaming teeth.

It was at once a sight to make one shudder and to cheer;but in a brief second we were engaged once more in ourown battle with only the unquenchable battle cry of thewomen to remind us that they still fought--"Rise slaves!""Rise slaves!"

Only a single thin rank of men now stood between usand Issus. Her face was blue with terror. Foam fleckedher lips. She seemed too paralysed with fear to move.Only the youth and I fought now. The others all hadfallen, and I was like to have gone down too from a nastylong-sword cut had not a hand reached out from behindmy adversary and clutched his elbow as the blade wasfalling upon me. The youth sprang to my side and ranhis sword through the fellow before he could recover todeliver another blow.

I should have died even then but for that as my swordwas tight wedged in the breastbone of a Dator of the FirstBorn. As the fellow went down I snatched his sword fromhim and over his prostrate body looked into the eyes ofthe one whose quick hand had saved me from the first cut ofhis sword--it was Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang.

"Fly, my Prince!" she cried. "It is useless to fight themlonger. All within the arena are dead. All who chargedthe throne are dead but you and this youth. Only amongthe seats are there left any of your fighting-men, and theyand the slave women are fast being cut down. Listen! Youcan scarce hear the battle-cry of the women now for nearlyall are dead. For each one of you there are ten thousandblacks within the domains of the First Born. Break for theopen and the sea of Korus. With your mighty sword armyou may yet win to the Golden Cliffs and the templed gardensof the Holy Therns. There tell your story to Matai Shang,my father. He will keep you, and together you may find a wayto rescue me. Fly while there is yet a bare chance for flight."

But that was not my mission, nor could I see much tobe preferred in the cruel hospitality of the Holy Thernsto that of the First Born.

"Down with Issus!" I shouted, and together the boy andI took up the fight once more. Two blacks went downwith our swords in their vitals, and we stood face to facewith Issus. As my sword went up to end her horrid careerher paralysis left her, and with an ear-piercing shriek sheturned to flee. Directly behind her a black gulf suddenlyyawned in the flooring of the dais. She sprang for theopening with the youth and I close at her heels. Her scatteredguard rallied at her cry and rushed for us. A blow fellupon the head of the youth. He staggered and would havefallen, but I caught him in my left arm and turned to facean infuriated mob of religious fanatics crazed by the affrontI had put upon their goddess, just as Issus disappeared intothe black depths beneath me.