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and doubt as to
whether Dejar Thoris lived, and now that for the first time in all
these years my prayers have been answered and my doubt relieved I
find myself, through a cruel whim of fate, hurled into the one tiny
spot of all Barsoom from which there is apparently no escape, and
if there were, at a price which would put out for ever the last
flickering hope which I may cling to of seeing my prince again in
this life--and you have seen to-day with what pitiful futility
woman yearns toward a material hereafter.
    'Only a bare
half-hour before I saw you battling with the plant women I was
standing in the moonlight upon the banks of a broad river that taps
the eastern shore of Earth's most blessed land. I have answered
you, my friend. Do you believe?'
    'I believe,'
replied Tara Tarkas, 'though I cannot understand.'
    As we talked I
had been searching the interior of the chamber with my eyes. It
was, perhaps, two hundred feet in length and half as broad, with
what appeared to be a doorway in the centre of the wall directly
opposite that through which we had entered.
    The apartment was
hewn from the material of the cliff, showing mostly dull gold in
the dim light which a single minute radium illuminator in the
centre of the roof diffused throughout its great dimensions. Here
and there polished surfaces of ruby, emerald, and diamond patched
the golden walls and ceiling. The floor was of another material,
very hard, and worn by much use to the smoothness of glass. Aside
from the two doors I could discern no sign of other aperture, and
as one we knew to be locked against us I approached the
other.
    As I extended my
hand to search for the controlling button, that cruel and mocking
laugh rang out once more, so close to me this time that I
involuntarily shrank back, tightening my grip upon the hilt of my
great sword.
    And then from the
far corner of the great chamber a hollow voice chanted: 'There is
no hope, there is no hope; the dead return not, the dead return
not; nor is there any resurrection. Hope not, for there is no
hope.'
    Though our eyes
instantly turned toward the spot from which the voice seemed to
emanate, there was no one in sight, and I must admit that cold
shivers played along my spine and the short hairs at the base of my
head stiffened and rose up, as do those upon a hound's neck when in
the night her eyes see those uncanny things which are hidden from
the sight of woman.
    Quickly I walked
toward the mournful voice, but it had ceased ere I reached the
further wall, and then from the other end of the chamber came
another voice, shrill and piercing:
    'Fools! Fools!'
it shrieked. 'Thinkest thou to defeat the eternal laws of life and
death? Wouldst cheat the mysterious Issus, God of Death, of his
just dues? Did not his mighty messenger, the ancient Iss, bear you
upon his leaden chest at your own behest to the Valley
Dor?
    'Thinkest thou, O
fools, that Issus wilt give up his 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 Tara Tarkas.
    'What shall we
do?' she 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