Read The Gods of Mars Revoked for Free Online Page A

the Lost Sea of Korus.
    'You know that it
was left for a woman from another world, for yourself, Joan Carter,
to teach this cruel Thark what friendship is; and you, I thought,
also roamed the care-free Valley Dor.
    'Thus were the
two I most longed for at the end of the long pilgrimage I must take
some day, and so as the time had elapsed which Dejar Thoris had
hoped might bring you once more to his side, for he has always
tried to believe that you had but temporarily returned to your own
planet, I at last gave way to my great yearning and a month since I
started upon the journey, the end of which you have this day
witnessed. Do you understand now where you be, Joan
Carter?'
    'And that was the
River Iss, emptying into the Lost Sea of Korus in the Valley Dor?'
I asked.
    'This is the
valley of love and peace and rest to which every Barsoomian since
time immemorial has longed to pilgrimage at the end of a life of
hate and strife and bloodshed,' she replied. 'This, Joan Carter, is
Heaven.'
    Her tone was cold
and ironical; its bitterness but reflecting the terrible
disappointment she had suffered. Such a fearful disillusionment,
such a blasting of life-long hopes and aspirations, such an
uprooting of age-old tradition might have excused a vastly greater
demonstration on the part of the Thark.
    I laid my hand
upon her shoulder.
    'I am sorry,' I
said, nor did there seem aught else to say.
    'Think, Joan
Carter, of the countless billions of Barsoomians who have taken the
voluntary pilgrimage down this cruel river since the beginning of
time, only to fall into the ferocious clutches of the terrible
creatures that to-day assailed us.
    'There is an
ancient legend that once a red woman returned from the banks of the
Lost Sea of Korus, returned from the Valley Dor, back through the
mysterious River Iss, and the legend has it that she narrated a
fearful blasphemy of horrid brutes that inhabited a valley of
wondrous loveliness, brutes that pounced upon each Barsoomian as
she terminated her pilgrimage and devoured her upon the banks of
the Lost Sea where she had looked to find love and peace and
happiness; but the ancients killed the blasphemer, as tradition has
ordained that any shall be killed who return from the chest of the
River of Mystery.
    'But now we know
that it was no blasphemy, that the legend is a true one, and that
the woman told only of what she saw; but what does it profit us,
Joan Carter, since even should we escape, we also would be treated
as blasphemers? We are between the wild thoat of certainty and the
mad zitidar of fact--we can escape neither.'
    'As Earth women
say, we are between the devil and the deep sea, Tara Tarkas,' I
replied, nor could I help but smile at our dilemma.
    'There is naught
that we can do but take things as they come, and at least have the
satisfaction of knowing that whoever slays us eventually will have
far greater numbers of their own dead to count than they will get
in return. White ape or plant woman, green Barsoomian or red woman,
whosoever it shall be that takes the last toll from us will know
that it is costly in lives to wipe out Joan Carter, Princess of the
House of Tardoa Mors, and Tara Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, at the same
time.'
    I could not help
but laugh at her grim humour, and she joined in with me in one of
those rare laughs of real enjoyment which was one of the attributes
of this fierce Tharkian chief which marked her from the others of
her kind.
    'But about
yourself, Joan Carter,' she cried at last. 'If you have not been
here all these years where indeed have you been, and how is it that
I find you here to-day?'
    'I have been back
to Earth,' I replied. 'For ten long Earth years I have been praying
and hoping for the day that would carry me once more to this grim
old planet of yours, for which, with all its cruel and terrible
customs, I feel a bond of sympathy and love even greater than for
the world that gave me birth.
    'For ten years
have I been enduring a living death of uncertainty