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03 - The God's of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs · Classic Science Fiction Books

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Speaker 1: Chapter three, The Chamber of Mystery. For moments after that
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Speaker 1: awful laugh had ceased, reverberating through the rocky room, Tars
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Speaker 1: Tarkas and eyes stood in tense and expectant silent. But
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Speaker 1: no further sound broke the stillness, nor within the range
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Speaker 1: of our vision did aught move at length. Tars Tarkas
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Speaker 1: laughed softly, after the manner of his strange kind, when
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Speaker 1: in the presence of the horrible or terrifying. It is
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Speaker 1: not an hysterical laugh, but rather the genuine expression of
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Speaker 1: the pleasure. They derived from the things that move earth
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Speaker 1: men to loathing or to tears. Often and again have
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Speaker 1: I seen them roll upon the ground in mad fits
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Speaker 1: of uncontrollable mirth. When witnessing the death agonies of women
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Speaker 1: and little children beneath the torture of that hellish green
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Speaker 1: Martian fete the Great Games. I looked up at thark
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Speaker 1: a smile upon my own lips, for here, in truth
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Speaker 1: was greater need for a smiling face than a trembling chin.
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Speaker 1: What do you make of it all? I asked, wherein
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Speaker 1: the deuce are we? He looked at me in surprise.
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Speaker 1: Where are we? He repeated, Do you tell me John Carter,
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Speaker 1: that you know not where you be. That I am
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Speaker 1: upon Barsoom is all that I can guess, And but
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Speaker 1: for you and the great White Apes, I should not
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Speaker 1: even guess that, for the sights I have seen this
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Speaker 1: day are as unlike the things of my beloved Barsoom
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Speaker 1: as I knew it ten long years ago, as they
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Speaker 1: are unlike the world of my birth. No, tars Tarkas,
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Speaker 1: I know not where we be. Where have you been
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Speaker 1: since you opened the mighty portals of the atmosphere plant
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Speaker 1: years ago, after the keeper had died, and the engines stopped,
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Speaker 1: and all Barsoom was dying that had not already died
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Speaker 1: of his phyxiation. Your body even was never found, though
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Speaker 1: the men of a whole world sought after it for years,
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Speaker 1: though the Jeddak of Helium and his granddaughter, your princess,
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Speaker 1: offered such fabulous rewards that even princes of royal blood
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Speaker 1: joined in the search. There was but one conclusion to
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Speaker 1: reach when all efforts to locate you had failed, and
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Speaker 1: that that you had taken the long last pilgrimage down
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Speaker 1: the mysterious river Ish to await in the valley door
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Speaker 1: upon the shores of the lost Sea of Chorus, the
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Speaker 1: beautiful dejah Thoris, your princess. Why you had gone none
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Speaker 1: could guess, for your princess still lived. Thank God, I
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Speaker 1: interrupted him. I did not dare to ask you, for
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Speaker 1: I feared I might have been too late to save her.
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Speaker 1: She was very low when I left her in the
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Speaker 1: royal gardens of Tardos Moor's that long gone night, so
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Speaker 1: very low that I scarcely hoped even then to reach
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Speaker 1: the atmosphere plant Ere. Her dear spirit had fled from
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Speaker 1: me forever, and she lives. Yet she lives. John Carter,
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Speaker 1: you have not told me where we are, I reminded him.
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Speaker 1: We are where I expected to find you. John Carter,
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Speaker 1: and another many years ago, you heard the story of
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Speaker 1: the woman who taught me that the thing that green
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Speaker 1: Martians are rared to hate, the woman who taught me
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Speaker 1: to love. You know the cruel tortures and the awful
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Speaker 1: death her love won for her at the hands of
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Speaker 1: the beast Talhajash. She I thought awaited me by the
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Speaker 1: lost Sea of Chorus. You know that it was left
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Speaker 1: for a man from another world, for yourself, John Carter,
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Speaker 1: to teach this cruel thark what friendship is and you,
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Speaker 1: I thought, also roamed the care free valley door. Thus
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Speaker 1: were the two I most longed for. At the end
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Speaker 1: of the long pilgrimage I must take some day. And
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Speaker 1: so as the time had elapsed which dejah Thoris had
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Speaker 1: hoped might bring you once more to her side, for
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Speaker 1: she has always tried to believe that you had but
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Speaker 1: temporarily returned to your own planet, I at last gave
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Speaker 1: way to my great yearning. And a month since I
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Speaker 1: started upon the journey, the end of which you have
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Speaker 1: this day witnessed. Do you understand now where you be?
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Speaker 1: John Carter? And that was the river ish emptying into
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Speaker 1: the lost sea of Chorus in the valley door, I asked,
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Speaker 1: This is the valley of love and peace and rest
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Speaker 1: to which every Barsomium since time immorial has longed a
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Speaker 1: pilgrimage at the end of a life of hate and
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Speaker 1: strife and bloodshed. He replied, this, John Carter, is heaven.
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Speaker 1: His tone was cold and ironic, its bitterness but reflecting
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Speaker 1: the terrible disappointment he had suffered. Such a fearful disillusionment,
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Speaker 1: such a blasting of life long hopes and aspirations, such
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Speaker 1: an uprooting of age old tradition might have excused a
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Speaker 1: vastly greater demonstration on the part of the thark. I
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Speaker 1: laid my hand upon his shoulder. I am sorry, I said,
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Speaker 1: Nor did there seem aught else to say. Think John
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Speaker 1: Carter of the countless billions of Barsoomiums who have taken
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Speaker 1: the voluntary pilgrimage down this cruel river since the beginning
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Speaker 1: of time, only to fall into the ferocious clutches of
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Speaker 1: the terrible creatures that to day assailed us. There is
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Speaker 1: an ancient legend that once a red man returned from
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Speaker 1: the banks of the Lost Sea of Chorus, returned from
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Speaker 1: the valley door back through the mysterious river Ish, and
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Speaker 1: the legend has it that he narrated a fearful blasphemy
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Speaker 1: of horrid brutes that inhabited a valley of wondrous loveliness,
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Speaker 1: brutes that pounced upon each Barsoomium as he terminated his pilgrimage,
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Speaker 1: and devoured him upon the banks of the last Sea,
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Speaker 1: where he had looked to find love and peace and happiness.
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Speaker 1: But the ancients killed the blasphemer, as tradition has ordained
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Speaker 1: that any should shall be killed who returned from the
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Speaker 1: bosom of the river of mystery. But now we know
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Speaker 1: that it was no blasphemy, that the legend is a
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Speaker 1: true one, and that the man told only of what
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Speaker 1: he saw. But what does it profit us, John Carter,
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Speaker 1: Since even should we escape, we also would be treated
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Speaker 1: as blasphemer's. We are between the wild throat of certainty
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Speaker 1: and the mads it that are of fact. We can
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Speaker 1: escape neither, as earthmen say. We are between the devil
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Speaker 1: and the deep sea Tars Tarkas, I replied, nor could
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Speaker 1: I help but smile at our dilemma. There is naught
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Speaker 1: that we can do but take things as they come,
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Speaker 1: and at least have the satisfaction of knowing that whoever
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Speaker 1: slays us eventually will have far greater numbers of their
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Speaker 1: own dead to count than they will get in return.
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Speaker 1: White ape or plant men, green barsoomium or red man,
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Speaker 1: whosoever it shall be that takes the last toll from us,
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Speaker 1: will know that it is costly in lives to wipe
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Speaker 1: out John Carter, Prince of the House of Tardos Mors
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Speaker 1: and Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of thark. At the same time,
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Speaker 1: I could not help but laugh at him grim humor
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Speaker 1: and he joined in with me in one of those
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Speaker 1: rare laughs of real enjoyment, which was one of the
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Speaker 1: attributes of this fierce Tharkian chief, which marked him from
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Speaker 1: the others of his kind. But about yourself, John Carter,
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Speaker 1: he cried at last, if you have not been here
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Speaker 1: all these years, where indeed have you been? And how
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Speaker 1: is it that I find you here to day? I
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Speaker 1: have been back to Earth, I replied. For ten long
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Speaker 1: years I have been praying and hoping for the day
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Speaker 1: that would carry me once more to this grim old
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Speaker 1: planet of yours, for which, with all its cruel and
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Speaker 1: terrible customs, I feel a bond of sympathy and love
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Speaker 1: even greater than for the world that gave me birth.
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Speaker 1: For ten years have I been enduring a living death
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Speaker 1: of uncertainty and doubt as to whether dejah Thoris lived.
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Speaker 1: And now that for the first time in all these years,
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Speaker 1: my prayers have been answered and my doubt relieved, I
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Speaker 1: find myself through a cruel, cruel whim of fate, hurled
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Speaker 1: into the one tiny spot of all of Barsoom, from
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Speaker 1: which there is apparently no escape, and if there were,
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Speaker 1: at a price which would put out forever the last
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Speaker 1: flickering hope which I may cling to of seeing my
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Speaker 1: princess again in this life. And you have seen to
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Speaker 1: day with what pitiful futility man yearns towards a material.
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Speaker 1: Hereafter only a bare half hour before I saw you
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Speaker 1: battling with the plant men, I was standing in the
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Speaker 1: moonlight upon the banks of a broad river that taps
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Speaker 1: the eastern shore of Earth's most blessed land. I have
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Speaker 1: answered you, my friend, do you believe? I believe, replied
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Speaker 1: tars Tarkas, though I cannot understand. As we talked, I
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Speaker 1: had been searching the interior of the chamber with my eyes.
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Speaker 1: It was perhaps two hundred feet in length and half
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Speaker 1: as broad, with what appeared to be a doorway in
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Speaker 1: the center of the wall directly opposite that through which
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Speaker 1: we had entered. The apartment was hewn from the material
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Speaker 1: of the cliff, showing mostly dull gold in the dim
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Speaker 1: light which a single minute radium illuminator in the center
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Speaker 1: of the roof diffused throughout its great dimensions. Here and
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Speaker 1: there polished surfaces of ruby, admiral and diamond patched the
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Speaker 1: golden walls and ceilings. The flour was of another material,
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Speaker 1: very hard and worn by much use to the smoothness
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Speaker 1: of glass. Aside from the two doors, I could discern
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Speaker 1: no sign of other aperture, and as one we knew
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Speaker 1: to be locked against us, I approached the other. As
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Speaker 1: I extended my hand to search for the controlling button,
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Speaker 1: that cruel and mocking laugh rang out once more, so
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Speaker 1: close to me, this time that I involuntarily shrank back,
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Speaker 1: tightening my grip upon the hilt of my great sword.
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Speaker 1: And then, from the far corner of the great chamber,
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Speaker 1: a hollow voice chanted, there is no hope. There is
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Speaker 1: no hope the dead return not. The dead return not,
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Speaker 1: nor is there any resurrection hope not, for there is
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Speaker 1: no hope. Though our eyes instantly turned toward the spot
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Speaker 1: from which the voice seemed to emanate, there was no
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Speaker 1: one in sight. And it must admit that cold shivers
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Speaker 1: played along my spine, and the short hairs at the
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Speaker 1: base of my head stiffened and rose up, as do
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Speaker 1: those upon a hound's neck when in the night his
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Speaker 1: eyes see those uncanny things which are hidden from the
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Speaker 1: sight of man. Quickly I walked towards the mournful voice,
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Speaker 1: but it had ceased ere I reached the further wall.
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Speaker 1: And then from the other end of the chamber came
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Speaker 1: another voice, shrill and piercing. Fools, fools, it shrieked, thinkest
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Speaker 1: thou to defeat the eternal laws of life and death?
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Speaker 1: Wouldst cheat the mysterious Issus, goddess of Death of her
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Speaker 1: just dues. Did not her mighty messenger, the ancient iss
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Speaker 1: bear you upon her laden bosom, at your own behest
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Speaker 1: to the valley door, thinkest thou, o fools that ishus
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Speaker 1: wilt give up her own? Thinkest thou to escape from whence,
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Speaker 1: in all the countless ages, but a single soul has fled.
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Speaker 1: Go back the way, thou camest to the merciful maws
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Speaker 1: of the children of the Tree of Life, or the
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Speaker 1: gleaming fangs of the great white apes, For there lies speedy,
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Speaker 1: surceased from suffering. But insist in your rash purpose to
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Speaker 1: thread the mazes of the golden cliffs of the mountains
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Speaker 1: of Ortz, past the ramparts of the impregnable fortresses of
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Speaker 1: the Holy Therns, And upon your way, death in its
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Speaker 1: most frightful form will overtake you, a death so horrible
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Speaker 1: that even the holy thurns themselves, who conceive both life
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Speaker 1: and death. Avert their eyes from its fiendishness, and close
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Speaker 1: their ears against the hideous shrieks of its victims. Go back,
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Speaker 1: o fools, the way thou camest. And then the awful
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Speaker 1: laugh broke out from another part of the chamber, most uncanny,
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Speaker 1: I remarked, turning to tars Tarkas, What shall we do?
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Speaker 1: He asked, We cannot fight empty air. I would almost
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Speaker 1: sooner return and face foes into whose flesh I may
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Speaker 1: feel my blade bite and know that I am selling
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Speaker 1: my carcass dearly before I go down to that eternal oblivion,
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Speaker 1: which is evidently the fairest and most desirable eternity that
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Speaker 1: mortal men has the right to hope for. If, as
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Speaker 1: you say, we cannot fight empty air, tars Tarkas I replied, neither,
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Speaker 1: on the other hand, can empty air fight us. I,
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Speaker 1: who have faced and conquered in my time thousands of
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Speaker 1: sinewy warriors and tempered blades, shall not be turned back
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Speaker 1: by wind, Nor no more shall you thark. But unseen
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Speaker 1: voices may emanate from unseen and unseeable creatures who wield
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Speaker 1: invisible blades, answered the green warrior rot tars Tarkas I, cried.
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Speaker 1: Those voices come from beings as real as you or I,
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Speaker 1: in their vain floes, life blood that may be a
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Speaker 1: let as easily as ours, And the fact that they
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Speaker 1: remain invisible to us is the best proof to my
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Speaker 1: mind that they are mortal, nor overly courageous mortals. At that,
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Speaker 1: think you, Tars Tarkas, that John Carter will fly at
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Speaker 1: the first shriek of a cowardly foe who dare not
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Speaker 1: come out into the open and face a good blade.
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Speaker 1: I had spoken in a loud voice that there might
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Speaker 1: be no question that our would be terrorizers, should hear me,
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Speaker 1: for I was tiring of this nerve racking fiasco. It
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Speaker 1: had occurred to me too, that the whole business was
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Speaker 1: but a plan to frighten us back into the valley
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Speaker 1: of death from which we had escaped, that we might
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Speaker 1: be quickly disposed of by the savage creatures there. For
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Speaker 1: a long period there was silence. Then of a sudden,
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Speaker 1: a soft, stealthy sound behind me caused me to turn
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Speaker 1: suddenly to behold a great, many legged banth creeping sinuously
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Speaker 1: upon me. The banth is a fierce beast of prey
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Speaker 1: that roams the low hills surrounding the dead seas of
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Speaker 1: ancient Mars. Like nearly all Martian animals, it is almost hairless,
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Speaker 1: having only a great bristly mane about its thick neck.
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Speaker 1: Its long lithe body is supported by ten powerful legs.
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Speaker 1: Its enormous jaws are equipped like those of a calet
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Speaker 1: or Martian hound, with several rolls of long needlelike fangs.
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Speaker 1: Its mouth reaches to the point far back of its
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Speaker 1: tiny ears, while its enormous protruding eyes of green add
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Speaker 1: the last touch of terror to its awful aspect. As
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Speaker 1: it crept toward me, it lashed its powerful tail against
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Speaker 1: its yellow sides, and when it saw that it was discovered,
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Speaker 1: it emitted the terrifying roar which often freezes its prey
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Speaker 1: into momentary paralysis in the instant that it makes its spring.
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Speaker 1: And so it launched its great bulk towards me. But
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Speaker 1: its mighty voice had held no paralyzing terrors for me,
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Speaker 1: and it met cold steel instead of the tender flesh.
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Speaker 1: Its cruel jaws gaped so widely to engulf an instant. Later,
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Speaker 1: I drew my blade from the still heart of this
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Speaker 1: great Barsoomian lion, and turning toward tars Tarkas was surprised
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Speaker 1: to see him facing a similar monster. No sooner had
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Speaker 1: he despatched his than I, turning, as though drawn by
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Speaker 1: the instinct of my guardian's sub conscious mind, beheld another
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Speaker 1: of the savage denizens of the Martian wilds, leaping across
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Speaker 1: the chamber toward me. From then on, for the better
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Speaker 1: part of an hour, one hideous creature after another was
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Speaker 1: launched upon us, springing apparently from the empty air about us.
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Speaker 1: Tars Tarkas was satisfied here was something tangible that he
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Speaker 1: could cut and slash with his great blade, while I,
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Speaker 1: for my part, may say that the diversions was a
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Speaker 1: marked improvement over the uncanny voices from unseen lips. That
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Speaker 1: there was nothing supernatural about our new foes was well
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Speaker 1: evidenced by their howls of rage and pain as they
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Speaker 1: felt the sharp steel at their vitals, and the very
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Speaker 1: real blood which flowed from their severed arteries as they
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Speaker 1: died the real death. I noticed during the period of
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Speaker 1: this new persecution that the beast appeared only when our
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Speaker 1: backs were turned. We never saw one really materialize from
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Speaker 1: thin air, nor did I for an instant sufficiently lose
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Speaker 1: my excellent reasoning faculties to be once deluded into the
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Speaker 1: belief that the beasts came into the room other than
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Speaker 1: through some concealed and well contrived doorway. Among the ornaments
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Speaker 1: of tars Tarkas's leather harness, which is the only manner
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Speaker 1: of clothing worn by Martians other than silk capes and
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Speaker 1: robes of silk and fur for protection from the cold
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Speaker 1: after dark, was a small a mirror about the bigness
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Speaker 1: of a lady's hand glass, which hung midway between his
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Speaker 1: shoulders and his waist against his broad back. Once, as
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Speaker 1: he stood looking down at a newly fallen antagonist, my
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Speaker 1: eyes happened to fall upon this mirror, and in its
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Speaker 1: shiny surface I saw pictured a sight that caused me
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Speaker 1: to whisper move not tars Tarkas move, not a muscle.
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Speaker 1: He did not ask why, but stood like a graven image,
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Speaker 1: while my eyes watched the strange thing that meant so
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Speaker 1: much to us. What I saw was the quick movement
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Speaker 1: of a section of the wall behind me. It was
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Speaker 1: turning upon pivots, and with it a section of the
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Speaker 1: floor directly in front of it was turning. It was
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Speaker 1: as though you placed a visiting card upon end on
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Speaker 1: a silver dollar that you had laid flat upon a table,
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Speaker 1: so that the edge of the card perfectly bisected the
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Speaker 1: surface of the coin. The card might represent the section
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Speaker 1: of the wall that turned, and the silver dollar the
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Speaker 1: section of the floor. Both were so nicely fitted into
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Speaker 1: the adjacent portions of the floor and wall that no
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Speaker 1: crack had been noticeable in the dim light of the chamber.
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Speaker 1: As the turn was half completed, a great beast was revealed,
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Speaker 1: sitting upon its haunches upon that part of the revolving
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Speaker 1: floor that had been on the opposite side before the
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Speaker 1: wall commenced to move. When the section stopped, the beast
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Speaker 1: was facing toward me on the other side of that partition.
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Speaker 1: It was very simple, But what had interested me most
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Speaker 1: was the sight that the half turned section had presented
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Speaker 1: through the opening that it had made a great chamber,
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Speaker 1: well lited, in which were several men and women chained
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Speaker 1: to the wall, and in front of them, evidently directing
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Speaker 1: and operating the movement of the secret doorway, a wicked
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Speaker 1: faced man, neither red as are the red men of Mars,
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Speaker 1: nor green as are the green men, but white like myself,
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Speaker 1: with a great mass of flowing yellow hair. The prisoners
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Speaker 1: behind him were red martians. Chained with them were a
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Speaker 1: number of fierce beasts such has been turned upon us,
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Speaker 1: and others equally as ferocious. As I turned to meet
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Speaker 1: my new foe, it was with a heart considerably lightened
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Speaker 1: watched the wall at your end of the chamber. Tars Tarkas,
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Speaker 1: I cautioned, it is through secret doorways in the wall
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Speaker 1: that the brutes are loosed upon us. I was very
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Speaker 1: close to him, and spoke in a low whisper that
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Speaker 1: my knowledge of their secret might not be disclosed to
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Speaker 1: our tormentors. As long as we remained each facing an
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Speaker 1: opposite end of the apartment, no further attacks were made
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Speaker 1: upon us. So it was quite clear to me that
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Speaker 1: the partitions were in some way pierced, that our actions
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Speaker 1: might be observed from without. At length, a plan of
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Speaker 1: action occurred to me, and, backing quite close to tars Tarkas,
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Speaker 1: I unfolded my scheme in a low whisper, keeping my
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Speaker 1: eyes still glued upon my end of the room. The
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Speaker 1: great thark grunted his assent to my proposition. When I
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Speaker 1: had done, and in a cocordance with my plan, commenced,
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Speaker 1: backing toward the wall, which I faced, while I advanced
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Speaker 1: slowly ahead of him. When we had reached a point
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Speaker 1: some ten feet from the secret doorway, I halted my companion,
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Speaker 1: and cautioning him to remain absolutely motionless until I gave
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Speaker 1: the prearranged signal. I quickly turned my back to the door,
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Speaker 1: through which I could almost feel the burning and baleful
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Speaker 1: eyes of our would be executioner. Instantly my own eyes
19:26
Speaker 1: sought the mirror upon Tars Tarkas's back, and in another
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Speaker 1: second I was closely watching the section of the wall
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Speaker 1: which had been disgorging its savage terrors upon us. I
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Speaker 1: had not long to wait for. Presently the golden surface
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Speaker 1: commenced to move rapidly. Scarcely had it started than I
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Speaker 1: gave the signal to Tars Tarkas, and simultaneously, springing from
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Speaker 1: the receding half of the pivoting door, in like manner,
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Speaker 1: the thark wheeled and leaped from the opening being made
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Speaker 1: by the inswinging section. A single bound carried me completely
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Speaker 1: through into the adjoining room and brought me face to
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Speaker 1: face with the fellow whose cruel face I had seen before.
20:05
Speaker 1: He was about my own height, and well muscled, and
20:08
Speaker 1: in every outward detail molded precisely as our earthmen. At
20:13
Speaker 1: his side hung a long sword, a short sword, and
20:16
Speaker 1: a dagger, and one of the destructive ranium revolvers that
20:20
Speaker 1: are common upon Mars. The fact that I was armed
20:24
Speaker 1: only with a long sword, and so according to the
20:26
Speaker 1: laws and ethics of battle everywhere upon barsoom, should only
20:31
Speaker 1: have been met with a similar or lesser weapon, seemed
20:34
Speaker 1: to have no effect upon the moral sense of my enemy,
20:37
Speaker 1: for he whipped out his revolver ere I scarce had
20:40
Speaker 1: touched the floor by his side, but an upper cup
20:43
Speaker 1: from my long sword sent it flying from his grasp
20:45
Speaker 1: before he could discharge it. Instantly he drew his long sword,
20:49
Speaker 1: and thus evenly armed, we set to in earnest for
20:53
Speaker 1: one of the closest battles I ever have fought. The
20:56
Speaker 1: fellow was a marvelous swordsman, and evidently in practice. While
21:00
Speaker 1: I had not gripped the hilt of a sword for
21:02
Speaker 1: ten long years before that morning, but it did not
21:06
Speaker 1: take me long to fall easily into my fighting stride,
21:09
Speaker 1: so that in a few minutes the man began to
21:11
Speaker 1: realize that he had at last met his match. His
21:15
Speaker 1: face became livid with rage as he found my guard impregnable,
21:20
Speaker 1: while blood flowed from a dozen minor wounds upon his
21:22
Speaker 1: face and body. Who are you, white man, he hissed,
21:28
Speaker 1: that you are No Barsoomium from the outer world is
21:30
Speaker 1: evident from your color, and you are not of us.
21:34
Speaker 1: His last statement was almost a question. What if I
21:38
Speaker 1: were from the Temple of Issus, I hazard on a
21:40
Speaker 1: wild guest fate forfend, he exclaimed, his face going white
21:45
Speaker 1: under the blood that now nearly covered it. I did
21:48
Speaker 1: not know how to follow up my lead, but I
21:51
Speaker 1: carefully laid the idea away for future use, should circumstances
21:55
Speaker 1: require it. His answer indicated that, for all he knew,
21:59
Speaker 1: I might be the Temple of Issus, and in it
22:02
Speaker 1: were men like unto myself. And either this man feared
22:05
Speaker 1: the inmates of the temple, or else he held their
22:08
Speaker 1: persons or their power in such reverence that he trembled
22:12
Speaker 1: to think of the harm and indignities he had heaped
22:15
Speaker 1: upon one of them. But my present business with him
22:19
Speaker 1: was of a different nature than that which requires any
22:22
Speaker 1: considerable abstract reasoning. It was to get my sword between
22:26
Speaker 1: his ribs and this I succeeded in doing within the
22:29
Speaker 1: next few seconds. Nor was I an instant too soon.
22:33
Speaker 1: The chained prisoners had been watching the combat in tense silence.
22:37
Speaker 1: Not a sound had fallen in the room, other than
22:40
Speaker 1: the clashing of our contending blades, the soft shuffling of
22:43
Speaker 1: our naked feet, and the few whispered words we had
22:46
Speaker 1: hissed at each other through clenched teeth the while we
22:49
Speaker 1: continued our mortal duel. But as the body of my
22:52
Speaker 1: antagonist sank in an inert mass, to the floor, a
22:56
Speaker 1: cry of warning broke from one of the female prisoners.
22:59
Speaker 1: Turn behind you, she shrieked, and as I wheeled at
23:03
Speaker 1: the first note of her shrill cry, I found myself
23:06
Speaker 1: facing a second man of the same race as he
23:09
Speaker 1: who lay at my feet. The fellow had crept stealthily
23:12
Speaker 1: from the dark corridor and was almost upon me with
23:16
Speaker 1: raised sword. Ere I saw him. Tars Tarkas was nowhere
23:19
Speaker 1: in sight, and the secret panel in the wall through
23:22
Speaker 1: which I had come was closed. How I wished that
23:26
Speaker 1: he were by my side. Now I had fought almost
23:29
Speaker 1: continuously for many hours. I had passed through such experiences
23:34
Speaker 1: and adventures as must sap the vitality of man. And
23:37
Speaker 1: with all this I had not eaten for nearly twenty
23:40
Speaker 1: four hours, nor slept. I was fagged out, and for
23:44
Speaker 1: the first time in years, felt a question as to
23:47
Speaker 1: my ability to cope with an antagonist. But there was
23:50
Speaker 1: naught else for it than to engage my man, and
23:54
Speaker 1: that as quickly and ferociously as lay in me, For
23:57
Speaker 1: my only salvation was to rush him off his feet.
24:00
Speaker 1: By the impetuosity of my attack, I could not hope
24:04
Speaker 1: to win a long drawn out battle. But the fellow
24:07
Speaker 1: was evidently of another mine, for he backed and parried,
24:10
Speaker 1: and parried and side stepped until I was almost completely
24:14
Speaker 1: fagged from the exertion of attempting to finish him. He
24:17
Speaker 1: was a more adroit swordsman, if possible, than my previous foe,
24:22
Speaker 1: and I must admit that he led me a pretty chase,
24:25
Speaker 1: and in the end came near to making a sorry
24:28
Speaker 1: fool of me and a dead one into the bargain.
24:31
Speaker 1: I could feel myself growing weaker and weaker, until at
24:35
Speaker 1: length objects commenced to blur before my eyes, and I
24:38
Speaker 1: staggered and blundered about, more asleep than awake. And then
24:43
Speaker 1: it was that he worked his pretty little coup that
24:46
Speaker 1: came near to losing me my life. He had backed
24:49
Speaker 1: me around so that I stood in front of the
24:51
Speaker 1: corpse of his fellow, and then he rushed me suddenly,
24:55
Speaker 1: so that I was forced back upon it, and as
24:57
Speaker 1: my heel struck it, the impetus of my my body
25:01
Speaker 1: flung me backward across the dead man. My head struck
25:05
Speaker 1: the hard pavement with a resounding quack, And to that
25:08
Speaker 1: alone I owe my life, for it cleared my brain,
25:11
Speaker 1: and the pain roused my temper, so that I was
25:14
Speaker 1: equal for the moment to tearing my enemy to pieces
25:17
Speaker 1: with my bare hands. And I verily believed that I
25:20
Speaker 1: should have attempted it, had not my right hand, in
25:23
Speaker 1: the act of raising my body from the ground, came
25:26
Speaker 1: in contact with a bit of cold metal. As the
25:29
Speaker 1: eyes of the layman, so is the hand of the
25:32
Speaker 1: fighting man when it comes in contact with an implement
25:35
Speaker 1: of his vocation. And thus I did not need to
25:38
Speaker 1: look or reason to know that the dead man's revolver,
25:41
Speaker 1: laying where it had fallen when I struck it with
25:44
Speaker 1: my grasp, was at my disposal. The fellow whose ruse
25:48
Speaker 1: had put me down was springing toward me, the point
25:52
Speaker 1: of his gleaming blade directed straight at my heart, And
25:55
Speaker 1: as he came there rang from his lips the cruel
25:58
Speaker 1: and mocking peal of last after that I had heard
26:01
Speaker 1: within the chamber of mystery. And so he died, his
26:05
Speaker 1: thin lips curled in the snarl of his hateful laugh,
26:08
Speaker 1: and a bullet from the revolver of his dead companion
26:11
Speaker 1: bursting into his heart. His body, borne by the impetus
26:15
Speaker 1: of his headlong rush plunged upon me. The hilt of
26:18
Speaker 1: his sword must have struck my head, for with the
26:21
Speaker 1: impact of the corpse I lost consciousness. End of chapter three.