INTRODUCTION
THE PUBLICATION OF JOHN CARTER OF MARS is an historic event for a number of  reasons.
First, and most obviously, it is the long and eagerly awaited "eleventh book" of the Martian series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. For sixteen years, ever since the appearance of LLANA OF GATHOL, the tenth book in the series and the last of Burroughs' works to see print during the author's life, there has been a constant desire by his many followers to see the two remaining Barsoomian adventures appear in book form. They are at last available, in the present volume, to Burroughs' myriad fans and admirers.

The second historical aspect of JOHN CARTER OF MARS is its very name. Although JOHN CARTER OF MARS is a "natural" title for a book in the Martian series, it was never so used by Burroughs himself. It has been applied to a number of adaptations of the Barsoomian tales, including two completely different children's books and a comic magazine, but has never before been used as the title of a "real" book.

Regarding the two short novels (or novellas, or novelettes, or even long short stories, the title is not worth the quibble) that make up JOHN CARTER OF MARS, each has a fascinating tale of its own, quite aside from the story content itself. John Carter and the Giant of Mars (or Giant for short) first appeared in AMAZING STORIES magazine for January, 1941, and created an immediate furore. Dozens of readers wrote to the magazine challenging the authenticity of the story, which was stoutly defended by Raymond A. Palmer, the editor. The complaints were based mainly on two points.

For one, many of Burroughs' more dedicated and scholarly devotees found points on which the setting of Giant conflicted with the pseudo-world Burroughs ad constructed in the rest of the series. Specifically, there is the use of the three-legged rat in Giant, whereas Burroughs had quite graphically described the Martian rat, or ulsio, in CHESSMEN OF MARS, as "fierce and unlovely ... many-legged and hairless."

Similarly, the imaginary geography of Giant has been criticized as placing cities in regions where other stories indicate only deserts or swamps, and including, without explanation, imaginary creatures and devices present in no other Barsoomian tale.

Another objection to Giant is the fact that it is narrated in the third person, while the Martian series was customarily told in first person. This charge, however, fails on two books, the fourth and fifth in the series. The fourth book, THUVIA, MAID OF MARS, is told in standard third-person style. The fifth, CHESSMEN, opens with an introduction in which Edgar Rice Burroughs recounts, in first person, the circumstances in which John Carter told him, Burroughs, the tale contained in the book.

The story CHESSMEN is told in third person, but this argument against Giant is mitigated by the first person introduction. Not so with THUVIA, which pretty thoroughly demolishes the "first-person / third-person" case against Giant.In planning the current book, JOHN CARTER OF MARS, it was my hope to verify or refute the charges against Giant of Mars once and for all. In order to do this, I wrote directly to Ray Palmer and asked him outright whether (a) the story had actually been written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and (b) if it had, whether or not Palmer or anyone else had tampered with the manuscript before publication; or (c) if it had not been written by Burroughs, who did write the story.Simultaneously I wrote to Hulbert Burroughs, the author's son, and asked him to check through his father's files and records, and determine if possible (a) whether his father did write Giant and (b) if he did, whether a copy of the manuscript still existed for purposes of comparison with the magazine version.Palmer's reply was the first to arrive, and in it he stated that (a) the story had indeed been written by Burroughs and (b) no one had changed it in any way prior to publication. Unfortunately, according to Palmer, the manuscript had been kept in the files of the Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, publisher of AMAZING STORIES, and had been destroyed some years later in a records-clearance move.

An initial reply from Hulbert Burroughs was equally mystifying -- a search of the records of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., had produced an entry for the sale of John Carter and the Giant of Mars to Ziff-Davis. But an examination of ERB's notebook, in which the author usually kept painstaking track of starting, completion, and revision dates of all his stories, did not uncover the expected entry for Giant.

More or less reconciled, by now, to permanent mystification regarding the authorship of Giant, I was surprised and gratified to receive a further communication from Hulbert Burroughs, unravelling the mystery at last. Hulbert had continued to investigate both business and personal records of his father, and had discussed the question with other members of the Burroughs family. The story which was pieced together is this: In 1940 the Whitman Publishing Company, which had published children's adaptations of a number of Tarzan stories with great success, asked ERB for a "Big Little Book" featuring John Carter. The Big Little Books were a children's series following an extremely rigid format: stories had to be 15,000 words in length, and so constructed that they could be published with alternating pages of text and drawings, each picture illustrating the action depicted on the facing page of text.

Edgar Rice Burroughs felt uncomfortable writing to the strict formula of this series, and so he asked his son John Coleman Burroughs, who was also the illustrator of the book, to collaborate with him in producing the story. The result was a tale, essentially similar to John Carter and the Giant of Mars, which appeared under the Whitman impress with the same title as the present volume: JOHN CARTER OF MARS.At the same time, Ray Palmer of AMAZING STORIES was seeking a new Barsoomian adventure from ERB, to feature in his magazine. Taking the as-yet unpublished  collaboration as his basis, Edgar Rice Burroughs lengthened it by some 5000 words and adapted it "upward" for adult readership, producing finally John Carter and the Giant of Mars.

The longer version appeared in AMAZING and the shorter one in the Whitman book. The text used in the present volume is the AMAZING version. Skeleton Men of Jupiter, the second story in this book, offers no such problem as does Giant of Mars. By contrast with Giant, Skeleton Men received nothing but extravagant praise from readers at the time of its first appearance in AMAZING in February, 1943. Its name may sound odd for a "Martian" story, and indeed, most of the action of Skeleton Men takes place not on Mars, but on Jupiter. However, the hero is John Carter, and the basic story rationale is part of the Martian series, so the tale well fits into the present book.Skeleton Men of Jupiter was intended by Burroughs as the opening episode of the group of interconnected novelettes, probably to number four, which would have become a John Carter novel in the fashion of LLANA OF GATHOL or the Carson Napier book ESCAPE ON VENUS. This form of quasiserialization was one with which Burroughs experimented quite successfully in the early 1940s.

However, wartime service as a correspondent in the Pacific reduced Burroughs' fiction output nearly to zero, and after the end of the war his health prevented ERB from resuming his former pace. As a result, the continuing episodes of John Carter's Jupiterian adventure were never written. Still, Skeleton Men is a complete adventure story, and an excellent one.

Writing (or at least dreaming) its sequels has become a favorite pastime of Burroughs fans over the years, and the reader is invited to join in the fun. The Foreword of Skeleton Men of Jupiter, by the way, is published here for the first time. When the magazine version of the story appeared twenty-one years ago, the editor may have felt that a Foreword would serve only to put off readers, while a policy of "On with the story" above all else, would have
greater commercial appeal.

He may well have been right for the pulp magazine audience of a generation ago, but assuming the readers of books to have a slightly more serious and patient outlook on literature, I have restored the Foreword, obtaining its text from a photostat of ERB's original manuscript, kindly furnished by Hulbert Burroughs.If you are completely intolerant of forewords and wish, like the magazine audience of 1943, to plunge directly into the narration, you are welcome to skip the first 132 words of Skeleton Men of Jupiter. I personally find them a charming prelude and a minor but fascinating insight into the personality of Edgar Rice Burroughs, science-fictioneer.

The Martian series, of which this book is the final volume, is regarded by many readers as Burroughs' greatest sustained performance as a writer. Of course his Tarzan stories are the more famous, due largely to the popularity of their motion-picture adaptations. And there are many moments of excellence in the Venus and Pellucidar series, as there are in such "singles" as THE MOON MEN, THE MUCKER, THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, and I AM A BARBARIAN.Still, for eleven volumes, the adventures of Captain John Carter of Virginia, upon the planet Barsoom, and the comparable deeds of heroism performed by Burroughs' other Martian heroes, represent a series of tales unmatched in their author's works, and, for that matter, unequalled in the annals of science-fiction adventure writing

The first three volumes in the series, originally appearing between 1912 and 1914, actually constitute a single super-epic. In them, John Carter, a Confederate officer mustered out of service at the close of the Civil War, is miraculously transported to the planet Mars, known to its inhabitants as Barsoom. He arrives in the middle of a desert, naked and unarmed, wholly ignorant of local customs and conditions, unable to speak the language of the natives (in fact, knowing nothing about the natives, or even that there are any). Shortly encountering a group of barbarian nomads, John Carter is taken prisoner, and would seem to face a life of degraded slavery ending in early and ignominious death.

Instead, through the display of courage and skill, Captain Carter rises to the position of Warlord of Mars, having along the way fought his way from pole to pole of the red planet, returned to Earth for a period of several years and then travelled again to Barsoom, encountered a variety of strange races of men and beasts, weird nations and weirder peoples. He has, in addition, gained the lesser title of Prince of Helium (not the inert gas, but the leading city-empire of Barsoom), and has won the hand of the incomparable Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium.

The volumes in this trilogy are A PRINCESS OF MARS, THE GODS OF MARS, and THE WARLORD OF MARS. Their enduring qualities have led to their translation into many languages, including even an Esperanto edition of PRINCESS. Further, the same book has been issued by Oxford University Press in its "Stories Told and Retold" series, as a "teaching novel" for school use. Other authors in the "Stories Told and Retold" series include Dickens' Doyle, Shakespeare, Stevenson, Defoe, Wells, Sabatini, Anthony Hope, and Nordoff and Hall.A mixed roll, these, and yet all have in common the characteristic of a literary quality which endures beyond their times, and makes their works part of the enduring body of the literature of the English language which stands a solid chance of living for centuries to come. The presence here of Burroughs' A PRINCESS OF MARS is perhaps the first important sign that this author, whose works have enjoyed public acclaim from the first, is beginning to receive the acceptance of educators and serious critics as well.

Having raised Carter, in three books, from a naked and unarmed stranger to the Warlord of the red planet, Burroughs faced the question, What do you do for an encore? Faced with the same question in his Tarzan series, Burroughs carried the Ape Man off into a seemingly interminable series of exotic settings, lost cities and forgotten empires dotting the African landscape so that they must ultimately have crowded one another into the sea!

In the Martian series, ERB tried another approach, I think a more daring one, and a completely successful one. Transferring his attention from John Carter and Dejah Thoris, Burroughs called the fourth book of the series TRUVIA, MAID OF MARS. The title figure had been introduced in THE GODS OF MARS as an equivocal character. She was the plaything of the degenerate group of cultist priests, involuntarily so, in fact the term "white slave" might be applied except that for Thuvia, it would have to be "red slave."

Rescued by John Carter from her unhappy life, Thuvia at the end of the book is imprisoned with Dejah Thoris and a third Martian woman, the beautiful but treacherous Phaidor, in a sort of horizontal ferris wheel which is a Martian prison. Entrance to or exit from each cell is blocked for a year at a time as the giant wheel rotates through a huge hollow rock. As the cell containing the three women passes from sight, Phaidor lunges at Dejah Thoris with a murderous knife-thrust, Thuvia throws herself between the two, seeking to save Dejah Thoris, and ... The tag line is not "continued in the next thrilling installment," but "continued in the next thrilling book, THE WARLORD OF MARS."But Dejah Thoris and Thuvia escape, of. course, and by the book following WARLORD, Thuvia had reached the status not only of lead heroine, but of title character, an honor shared with Dejah Thoris herself (the princess of PRINCESS) and with the granddaughter of John Carter and Dejah Thoris, LLANA OF GATHOL (tenth volume of the series). The action of THUVIA, MAID OF MARS, is no mere rehash of the adventures of John Carter, but blazes new trails across the Barsoomian horizon. The novel is full of invention and intrigue, the most brilliant probably being the Bowmen of Lothar, a phantom army of archers created by the sheer mental power of the Lotharians to counter the aggression of the Warhoons, their hereditary enemies.THUVIA was first published in 1916, and following it, Burroughs turned his attention to other matters, including several books in his Tarzan and Pellucidar series, as well as several "singles." In 1922 he resumed the Martian series, producing THE CHESSMEN OF MARS. Again, Burroughs changed focus, this time making his hero Gahan of Gathol, a Martian noble, with the heroine this time Tara of Helium, the younger sister of Carthoris. Again, not mere action and adventure, but wondrous creations of imagination mark the book. The outstanding creations of CHESSMEN may well be the rykors and the kaldanes, inhabitants of the city of
Bantoom.

Strange symbiotes, these two races, the rykors resemble headless humans, while the kaldanes are little more than animated heads, provided by evolution with chelae with which they attach themselves to rykors and control the bodies. A kaldane might change bodies any time he felt like it, even "being" a man one day and a woman the next!

THE MASTER MIND OF MARS, next in the series, appeared in the AMAZING STORIES ANNUAL for 1927, and introduces a marvelous new hero in the person of Ulysses S. Paxton, a U.S. Army captain apparently killed in the trenches in World War I, but whisked miraculously, instead, to Mars. Here he experiences a strange adventure with Ras Thavas, a brilliant Martian surgeon who has perfected the surgical transfer of the brain from one human to another. Valla Dia, a lovely Martian girl, is victimized by Ras Thavas, being forced into an exchange of bodies with the hideous Queen Xaxa. The action which ensues leads ultimately to the regaining by Valla Dia of her rightful body, and her marriage to Paxton (who has been dubbed with the Barsoomian appellation of Vad Varo).

The seventh book of the series, A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS, is reported to Earth via a sort of super radio called the Gridley Wave. The narration is somewhat complicated. An introduction by Burroughs explains that the story recorded in the book was told him (via Gridley Wave) by Ulysses Paxton/Vad Varo. But Paxton had the story from its own central character, Tan Hadron of Hastor (a city enjoying a certain degree of self-rule but within the empire of Helium and subject to Helium's authority).

A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS perhaps epitomizes that form of science fiction formerly known as the "scientific romance," a tale of high action and wonder in which science is the basis of the situation, but plays little part in the development of the story. Tan Hadron faces peril and horror, travels to two marvelous hidden cities, faces a maddened monarch who specializes in torturing beautiful maidens, is sentenced to a form of execution known only as The Death, traverses a forest inhabited by giant spiders ... and in general has a rollicking swash-buckling time to the reader's utter delight!

In SWORDS OF MARS, serialized in BLUE BOOK magazine in 1934 and '35, Burroughs returned to John Carter as hero. The novel features an astonishing prediction of the automatic control of experimental space craft by computers, including the size, placement, functioning and even programming characteristics of the electronic guidance devices being built today, to guide the rockets that will carry first instruments and then Man to the planets. What a joy if one of those manned rockets set out for Mars and found Barsoom instead!

In SWORDS OF MARS the space ship is used to carry Carter and a number of others from the city of Zodanga on Mars to the Martian moon Thuria (Phobos). Here Carter encounters still more strange people and strange beasts, before returning to Barsoom.SYNTHETIC MEN OF MARS (1939) is the final actual novel of the series, has a new hero again, Vor Daj, and calls Ras Thavas back from retirement to make new mischief. The problem arises from Ras Thavas's attempt, Frankenstein-like, to create artificial life. He succeeds, but produces only monsters, who revolt and attempt to take over the entire planet. Neither the most imaginative nor the best written of the Martian series, SYNTHETIC MEN is nonetheless a compelling story, sufficiently suspenseful and adequately packed with conflict and action to make it well worth reading.

The tenth book in the series, LLANA OF GATHOL, is not a novel but a collection of four novelettes, loosely intertwined. All are excellent, perhaps the best being a tale originally published as The City of Mummies, and called in LLANA The Ancient Dead. In it, scores of ancient Martians are discovered, preserved for millenia in a trance-like state, Awakened, they find their world gone, their city dead. It is a touching and melancholy scene, and marks a high point in a generally excellent book.Finally, of course, the present volume, JOHN CARTER OF MARS, containing one unconnected tale and another which was intended as the opener of a new cycle of adventures, adventures fated never to be written.A final note now concerning John Carter and the Giant of Mars. In the magazine version of two decades ago there were a number of footnotes, signed "Ed." It is not known today whether this "Ed." was Raymond A. Palmer, editor of AMAZING STORIES, or Edgar Rice Burroughs, who sometimes described himself as merely the "editor" of John Carter's true adventures, rather than as an author. These footnotes are retained in the present edition, the reader is free to form his
own opinion regarding their authenticity.

To the reader who regards science fiction as a sugarcoated course in chemistry and physics equally as to the one who seeks only serious sociological extrapolation, Burroughs' Martian novels will prove unsatisfactory.But to the reader who seeks magnificent adventure in an endlessly imaginative, exotic setting, these books without question represent an all-time high in the field.

RICHARD A. LUPOFF
New York City
Jasoom
June, 1964

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One
ABDUCTION

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THE MOONS OF MARS looked down upon a giant Martian thoat as it raced silently over the soft mossy ground. Eight powerful legs carried the creature forward in great, leaping strides.

The path of the mighty beast was guided telepathically by the two people who sat in a huge saddle that was cinched to the thoat's broad back. It was the custom of Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, to ride forth weekly to inspect part of her grandfather's vast farming and industrial kingdom. Her journey to the farm lands wound through the lonely Helium Forest where grow the huge trees that furnish much of the lumber supply to the civilized nations of Mars.

Dawn was just breaking in the eastern Martian sky, and the jungle was dark and still damp with the evening dew. The gloom of the forest made Dejah Thoris thankful for the presence of her companion, who rode in the saddle in front of her. Her hands rested on his broad, bronze shoulders, and the feel of those smooth, supple muscles gave her a little thrill of confidence. One of his hands rested on the jewel-encrusted hilt of his great long sword; and he sat his saddle very straight, for he was the mightiest warrior on Mars.

John Carter turned to gaze at the lovely face of his princess. "Frightened, Dejah Thoris?" he asked.

"Never, when I am with my chieftain," Dejah Thoris smiled.

"But what of the forest monsters, the arboks?"

"Grandfather has had them all removed. On the last trip, my guard killed the only tree reptile I've ever seen."

Suddenly Dejah Thoris gasped, clutched vainly at John Carter to regain her balance. The mighty thoat lurched heavily to the mossy ground. The riders catapulted over his head. In an instant the two had regained their feet; but the thoat lay very still. Carter jerked his long sword from its scabbard and motioned Dejah Thoris to stay at his back.

The silence of the forest was abruptly shattered by an uncanny roar directly above them.

"An arbok!" Dejah Thoris cried.

The tree reptile launched itself straight for the hated man-things. Carter lifted his sword and swung quickly to one side, drawing the monster's attention away from Dejah Thoris who crouched behind the fallen thoat. The earthman's first thrust sliced harmlessly through the beast's outer skin. A huge claw knocked him off balance, and he found himself lying on the ground with the great fangs at his throat.

"Dejah Thoris, get the atom gun from the thoat's back," Carter called hoarsely to the girl. There was no answer. Calling upon every ounce of his great strength, Carter drove his sword into the arbok's neck. The creature shuddered. A stream of blood gushed from the wound. The man wriggled from under the dead body and sprang to his feet.

"Dejah Thoris! Dejah Thoris!"

Wildly Carter searched the ground and trees surrounding the dead thoat and arbok. There was no sign of Dejah Thoris. She had utterly vanished.

A shaft of light from the rising sun filtering through the foliage glistened on an object at the earthman's feet. Carter picked up a large shell, a shell
recently ejected from a silent atom gun. Springing to the dead thoat, he examined the saddle trappings. The atom gun that he had told Dejah Thoris to fire was still in its leather boot! The earthman stooped beside the dead thoat's head. There was a tiny, bloody hole through its skull. That shot and the charging arbok had been part of a well conceived plan to abduct Dejah Thoris, and kill him! But Dejah Thoris -- how had she disappeared so quickly, so completely? Grimly, Carter set off at a run back to the forest toward Helium. Noon found the earthman in a private audience chamber of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium, grandfather of Dejah Thoris.

The old jeddak was worried. He thrust a rough piece of parchment into John Carter's hand. Crude, bold letters were inscribed upon the parchment; and as Carter scanned the note his eyes burned with anger: It read:

"I, Pew Mogel, the most powerful ruler on Mars, have decided to take over the iron works of Helium. The iron will furnish me with all the ships I need to protect Helium and the other cities of Barsoom from invasion. If you have not evacuated all your workers from the iron mines and factories in three days, then I will start sending you the fingers of the Royal Princess of Helium. Hurry, because I may decide to send her tongue, which wags too much of John Carter. Remember, obey Pew Mogel, for he is all-powerful."

Tardos Mors dug his nails into the palms of his hands. "Who is this upstart who calls himself the most powerful ruler of Mars?"

Carter looked thoughtfully at the note.

"He must have spies here," he said. "Pew Mogel knew that I was to leave this morning with Dejah Thoris on a tour of inspection."

"A spy it must have been," Tardos Mors groaned. I found this note pinned to the curtains in my private audience-chamber. "But what can we do? Dejah Thoris is the only thing in life that I have left to love--" His voice broke. "All Helium loves her, Tardos Mors, and we will all die before we return to you empty-handed."

Carter strode to the visiscreen and pushed a button.

"Summon Kantos Kan and Tars Tarkas." He spoke quickly to an orderly. "Have them come here at once."

Soon after, the huge, green warrior and the lean, red man were in the audience-chamber.

"It is fortunate, John Carter, that I am here in Helium on my weekly visit from the plains." Tars Tarkas, the green thark, gripped his massive sword with his powerful four hands. His great, giant body loomed majestically above the others in the room.

Kantos Kan laid his hand on John Carter's shoulder. "I was on my way to the palace when I received your summons. Already, word of our princess' abduction has spread over Helium. I came immediately," said the noble fellow, "to offer you my sword and my heart."

"I have never heard of this Pew Mogel," said Tars Tarkas. "is he a green man?"

Tardos Mors grunted, "He's probably some petty outlaw or criminal who as an overbloated ego."

Carter raised his eyes from the ransom note.

"No, Tardos Mors, I think he is more formidable than you imagine. He is clever, also. There must have been an airship, with a silent motor, at hand to carry Dejah Thoris away so quickly -- or perhaps some great bird! Only a very powerful man who is prepared to back up his threats would kidnap the Princess of Helium and even hope to take over the great iron works.

"He probably has great resources at his command, It is doubtful, however, if he has any intention of returning the princess or he would have included more details in his ransom note."

Suddenly the earthman's keen eyes narrowed. A shadow had moved in the adjoining room. With a powerful leap, Carter reached the arched doorway. A furtive figure melted away into the semi-gloom of the passageway, with Carter close behind. Seeing escape impossible, the stranger halted, sank to one knee and leveled a ray-gun at the approaching figure of the earthman. Carter saw his finger whiten as he squeezed the trigger.

"Carter!" Kantos Kan shouted, "throw yourself to the floor."

With the speed of light, Carter dropped prone. A long blade whizzed over his head and buried itself to the hilt in the heart of the stranger. "One of Pew Mogel's spies," John Carter muttered as he rose to his feet. "Thank you, Kantos Kan."

Kantos Kan searched the body but found no clue to the man's identity. Back in the audience-chamber, the men set to work with fierce resolve. They were bending over a huge map of Barsoom when Carter spoke. "Cities for miles around Helium are now all friendly. They would have warned us of this Pew Mogel if they had known of him. He has probably taken over one of the deserted cities in the dead sea bottom east or west of Helium. It means thousands of miles to search; but we will go over each mile."

Carter seated himself at a table and explained his plan.

"Tars Tarkas, go east and contact the chiefs of all your tribes. I'll cover the west with air scouts. Kantos Kan will stay in Helium as contact man. Be ready night and day with the entire Helium air force. Whoever discovers Dejah Thoris first will notify Kantos Kan of his position. Naturally, we can only communicate to each other through Kantos Kan. The wave length will be constant and secret, 2000 kilocycles."

Tardos Mors turned to the earthman.

"Every resource in my kingdom is at your command, John Carter."

"We leave at once, your majesty; and if Dejah Thoris is alive on Barsoom, we shall find her," replied John Carter.
 

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Two
THE SEARCH

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WITHIN THREE HOURS, John Carter was standing on the roof of the Royal Airdrome giving last-minute instructions to a fleet of twenty-four fast, one-man scouts.

"Cover all the territory in your district thoroughly. If you discover anything, don't attempt to handle it by yourself. Notify Kantos Kan immediately." Carter surveyed the grim faces before him and knew that they would obey him. "Let's go." Carter jerked a thumb over his shoulder to the ships.

The men scattered and soon their planes were speeding away from Helium.

Carter stayed on the roof long enough to check with Kantos Kan. He adjusted the earphones around his head and then signalled on 2000 kilocycles. The dots and dashes of Kantos Kan's reply began coming in immediately. "Your signal comes in perfectly. Tars Tarkas is just leaving the city. The air fleet is mobilizing. The entire air force will stand by to come to your aid.Kantos Kan signing off."

Night found Carter cruising about five hundred miles from Helium. He was very tired. The search of several ruined cities and canals had been fruitless. The buzzing of the microset aroused him again.

"Kantos Kan reporting. Tars Tarkas has organized a complete ground search east to south; other air scouts west to south report nothing. Will acquaint you with any news that might come in. Await orders. Will stand by. Signing off."

"No orders. No news. Carter signing off."

Wearily he let the ship drift. No need to look further until the moons came up. The earthman fell into a fitful sleep. It was midnight when the speaker sounded, jerking Carter to wakefulness. Kantos Kan was signalling again, excitedly.

"Tars Tarkas has found Dejah Thoris. She is held in a deserted city on the banks of the dead sea at Korvas." Kantos Kan gave the exact latitude and longitude of the spot.

"Further instructions from Tars Tarkas request the greatest secrecy in your movements. He will be at the main bridge leading into the City. Kantos Kan signing off. Come in, John Carter." John Carter signed off with Kantos Kan, urging him to stand by constantly to be ready with the Helium Air Fleet. Now he set his gyro-compass, a device that would automatically steer him to his destination.

Several hours later, the earthman flew over a low range of hills and saw below him an ancient city on the banks of the Dead Sea. He circled his plane and dropped to the bridge where he had been instructed to meet Tars Tarkas. Long, black shadows filled a dry gulley below him. Carter climbed out of his plane, keeping to the shadows, and made his way to the towering ruins of the City. It was so quiet that a lonely bat swooping from a tower sounded like a falling airship.

Where was Tars Tarkas? The green man should have appeared at the bridge.

At the entrance to the city, Carter stepped into the black shadow of a wall and waited. No sound broke the stillness of the quiet night. The city was like a tomb. Deimos and Phobos, the two fast-moving moons of Mars, whirled across the heavens.

Carter stopped breathing to listen. To his keen ears came the faint sound of steps -- strange, shuffing steps dragging closer. Something was coming along the wall. The earthman tensed, ready to spring away to his ship. Now he could hear other steps all around him. Inside the ruins something dragged against the fallen rocks. Then a great, heavy body dropped on John Carter from the wall above. Hot, fetid breath burned his neck. Huge, shaggy arms smothered him in their fierce embrace.

The thing hurled him to the rough cobblestones. Huge hands clutched at his throat. Carter turned his head and saw above him the face of a great, white ape. Three of the creature's fellows were circling around Carter, striving to tie his feet with a piece of rope while the other choked him into insensibility with his four mighty hands.

Carter wriggled his feet under the belly of the ape with whom he was grappling. One mighty heave sent the creature into the air to fall, groaning and helpless, to the ground.

Like a cornered banth,* Carter was on his feet, crouched against the wall, awaiting the attacking trio, with drawn sword.

* A banth is the huge, eight-legged lion of Mars. -- ED.

They were mighty beasts, fully eight feet tall with long, white hair covering their great bodies. Each was equipped with four muscular arms that ended in tremendous hands armed with sharp, hooked claws. They were baring their fangs and growling viciously as they came toward the earthman. Carter crouched low; and as the beasts sprang in, his earthly muscles sent him leaping high into the air over their heads. The earthman's heavy blade, backed by all the power of his muscles, smacked down upon one ape's head, splitting the skull wide open.

Carter hit the ground and, turning, was ready when the two apes remaining flew at him again. There was a hideous, hair-raising shriek as this time the earthman's sword sank deep into a savage heart. As the monster sprawled to the ground, the earthman jerked free his sword. Now the other beast turned and slunk away in fright, his eyes gleaming at Carter in the darkness as it fled down a long corridor in the adjacent building. The earthman could have sworn that he heard his own name coming from the ape's throat and mingling with its sullen growl as it fled away.

The earthman had just seized his sword when he felt a rush of air above his head. There was a blur of motion as something came down toward him. Now he felt himself clutched about the waist; then he was jerked fifty feet into the air. Struggling for breath, Carter clutched at the thing encircling his body. It was as horny as the skin of an arbok. It had hairs as large as tree roots bristling from the horny scales. It was a giant hand!

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Three
JOOG, THE GIANT

---

JOHN CARTER found himself looking into a monstrous face.

From top of shaggy head to bottom of its hairy chin, the head measured fully fifteen feet. A new monstrosity had come to life on Mars. Judging by the adjacent buildings, the creature must have been a hundred and thirty feet tall!

The giant raised Carter high over his head and shook him; then he threw back his face. Hideous, hollow laughter rumbled out of his pendulous lips revealing teeth like small mountain crags.

He was dressed in an illy-fitting, baggy tunic that came down in loose folds over his hips but which allowed his arms and legs to be free. With his other hand he beat his mighty chest.

"I, Joog. I, Joog," he kept repeating as he continued to laugh and shake his helpless victim. "I can kill! I can kill!"

Joog, the giant, commenced to walk. Carefully he stepped along the barren streets, sometimes going around a building that was too high to step over. Finally he stopped before a partially ruined palace. The ravages of time had only dimmed its beauty. Huge masses of moss and vines trailed through the masonry, hiding the shattered battlements. With a sudden thrust, Joog, the giant, shoved John Carter through a high window in the palace tower. When Carter felt the giants hold releasing upon him he relaxed completely. He hit the stone floor in a long roll, protecting his head with his arms. As he lay  in the deep darkness of the place where he had fallen, the earthman listened while he regained his breath.

No sound came to his ears for some time; then he began to hear the heavy breathing of Joog outside his window. Once more Carter's earthly muscles, reacting to the lesser gravity of Mars, sent him leaping twenty feet to the sill of the narrow window. Here he clung and looked once again into the hairy, hideous face of the giant. "I, Joog. I, Joog," he mumbled. I can kill! I can kill!" The giant's breath swept over Carter like a blast from a sulphur furnace. There would be no escape from that window!

Once more he dropped down into his cell. This time he commenced a slow circuit of the room, groping his way along the polished ersite slabs that formed the wall. The cobblestone floor was thick with debris. Once, Carter heard the sinister hiss of a Martian spider as he brushed its web. How long he groped his way around the walls, there was no way of knowing. It seemed hours. Then, suddenly, the deathly silence was shattered by a woman's scream coming from somewhere in the building. John Carter could feel his skin grow cold. Could that have been the voice of Dejah Thoris?

Once again John Carter leaped toward the faint light that marked the window ledge. Cautiously, he looked down. Joog lay on his back on the flagstones below, breathing as though he were asleep, his great chest rising five feet with every breath.

Quietly he started to edge his way along a ledge that ran from the window and disappeared into the shadow of an adjoining tower. If he could make that shadow without awakening Joog! He had almost gained his objective when Joog growled hoarsely. He had opened one great eye. Now he reached up and, grabbing Carter by the leg, hurled him into the tower window again.

Wearily, the earthman crawled to the wall of his dark cell and there slumped down against it. That scream haunted his memory. He was tormented by the thought that Dejah Thoris might be in danger. And where was Tars Tarkas? Pew Mogel must have captured him, too. Carter suddenly sprang to his feet.

One of the ersite slabs at his back had moved! He waited. Nothing came out. Cautiously, he approached the rock and shoved it with his foot. The slab moved slightly inward. Now Carter shoved the stone with all his tremendous strength. Inch by inch he moved it until finally there was enough room for him to squeeze his body through.

He was still in utter darkness, but his groping fingers revealed to him that he was in a corridor between two walls. Perhaps this was the way out of his prison!

Carefully he shoved the stone back into position, leaving no trace of his disappearance from the room. The corridor in which he found himself was so low that he was forced to crawl on hands and knees. The low corridor had the stench of age, as if it had been unused for a long time. Gradually the tunnel sloped more and more downward. Many little side-passages branched off from the main tunnel. There was no light, no noise. Only a faint, pungent odor beginning to fill the air. Now it was growing lighter. The earthman realized that he must be in the subterranean caverns of the palace. The dim light was caused by the phosphorescent radium glow that is used on all Mars for radiation.

The source of this faint light the earthman suddenly discovered. It was shining through a cleft in the wall ahead. Pushing aside another loose stone, John Carter crawled forth into a chamber. He drew in his breath sharply. Facing him was a warrior with drawn sword, the point of which was almost touching the breast of the earthman! John Carter leaped back with the speed of lightning, whipped out his own sword and struck at the other's weapon. The arm of the red man fell from his body to the floor where it dissolved into dust. The ancient sword clattered on the cobblestones. Carter could see now that the warrior had been leaning against the wall, balanced there precariously for ages, his sword arm extending in front of him just a it had stiffened long ago in death. The loss of the arm overbalanced the torso which toppled to the floor and there dissolved into a heap of ash-like dust!

In an adjoining chamber there were a score of women, beautiful girls, chained together by collars of gold around their necks. They sat at a table where they had been eating, and the food was still before them. They had been the prisoners, the slaves of the rulers of the long-dead city. The dry, motionless air combined with some gaseous secretion from the walls and dungeons had preserved their beauty through the ages.

The earthman had traversed some little distance down a musty corridor when he became aware of something scraping behind him. Whirling into a side corridor he looked back. Gleaming eyes were coming toward him. They followed him as he backed into the tunnel. Now again came the scraping, repeated this time farther ahead in the tunnel. Other eyes shone ahead of him. John Carter ran forward, his sword-point extended. The eyes ahead retreated, but those in back of him started to close in. It was very dark now, but far ahead the earthman could see a faint gleam of light filtering into the tunnel.

He ran toward the light. Fighting the things where he could see them would be a lot easier than stumbling around in a dark corridor.

Carter entered the room and in the dim light came face to face with the creature whose eyes he had seen ahead of him in the tunnel. It was a species of the huge three-legged Martian rat!

Its yellow fangs were bared hideously in a vicious snarl, as it backed slowly away from Carter to the far end of the small room. Now behind him came the other rat, and together the two beasts started to close in upon the earthman. Carter smiled grimly as he gripped his sword. "I am the proverbial cornered rat now," he muttered as he swung his blade at the nearest creature. It ducked the blow and scurried toward him. But the earthman's sword was ready. The charging rat lunged full upon the waiting sword-point. The momentum of the beast carried Carter back five feet; but he still retained a hold on his sword, the point of which had plunged through the animal's single shoulder and pierced its wild heart.

When Carter had jerked free his sword and turned to meet his other antagonist an exclamation of dismay escaped his lips. The room was half filled with rats! The creatures had entered through another opening and had formed a circle around him, waiting to attack. For half an hour, Carter battled furiously for his life in the lonely dungeon beneath the palace in the ancient city of Korvas. The carcasses of the dead rats were piled high around him, but still they came and eventually they overpowered him by their very numbers. John Carter went down by a terrific blow to his head from a snake-like tail.
He was half stunned, but he still clung tenaciously to his sword as he felt himself seized by the arms and dragged away into the darkness of an adjoining tunnel.

---

Four
THE CITY OF RATS

---

JOHN CARTER RECOVERED FULLY when he was dragged through a pool of muddy water. He heard the rats greedily drinking, saw their green eyes gleaming in the darkness. The smell of freshly dug earth reached his nostrils and he realized that he was in a burrow far under the subterranean vaults of the palace. Several rats on either side of him had hold of his arms by their forepaws as they dragged him along. It was very uncomfortable, and he wondered how much longer the journey would last. Nor had he long to wait. The strange company finally came out into a huge underground cavern. Light from the outside filtered down through various openings in the ceiling above, its rays reflecting on thousands of gleaming stalactites of red sand stone. Massive stalagmites, huge sedimentary formations of grotesque shape, rose up from the floor of the cavern. Among these formations on the floor were numerous domeshaped mud huts.

As Carter was dragged by, he stared at a hut that several rats were constructing, The framework was composed of white sticks of various shapes plastered with mud from an underground stream bed. The white sticks were very irregular in length and size. One of the rats stopped work to gnaw at a stick. It looked like a bone.

As he was dragged closer, he saw that the stick was a human thigh bone!

The mud huts were studded with bones and skulls, upon some of which were still dangling hideously the vestiges of hair and skin. Carter noticed that the tops of all the skulls had been removed, neatly sliced off. The earthman was dragged to a clearing in the center of the cavern. Here, upon a mound of skulls, sat a rat half again as large as the others. The baleful, pink eyes of the creature glared at Carter as he was dragged up on top of the mound. The beasts released their hold upon the earthman and descended to the bottom of the mound, leaving Carter alone with the large rat. The long whiskers of the monster were constantly twitching as the thing sniffed at the man. It had lost one ear in some battle long ago and the other was bright with scar-tissue.

Its little pink eyes surveyed Carter for a long time while it fondly caressed its long, hairless tail with its one claw-like paw. This, evidently, was the King of the Rats. "Lord of the Underworld," Carter thought, trying to hold his breath. The stench in the cavern was overwhelming. Without taking his eyes from Carter's, the rat reached down and picked up a skull beside him and put it in front of Carter. This he repeated, picking up a skull from the other side and placing it beside the first. By repeating this, he eventually formed a little ring of topless heads in front of the earthman. Now, very judiciously, he climbed inside the circle of skulls and picking one of them up tossed it to Carter. The earthman caught it and tossed it back at the
king.

This seemed to annoy his royal highness. He made no effort to catch the skull and it flew past him and went bouncing down the mound. Instead, the king leaped up and down inside the little circle of skulls, at the same time emitting angry squeals. This was all very puzzling to the earthman. As he stood there, he became aware of two circles of rats forming at the base of the mound, each circle consisting of about a thousand animals. They began a weird dance, moving around the raised dais of bones counter-clockwise. The tail of each rat was gripped in the mouth of the following beast, thus forming a continuous chain.

There was no doubt that the earthman was in the center of a weird ritual. While he was ignorant of the exact nature of the ceremony, he had little doubt as to its final outcome. The countless barren skulls, the yellowed bones that filled the cavern were mute, horrible evidence of his final fate. Where did the rats get all the bodies from which the skulls were obtained and why were the tops of those skulls missing? The City of Korvas, as every Martian schoolboy knew, had been deserted for a thousand years; yet many of the skulls and bones were recently picked clean of their flesh. Carter had seen no evidence in the city of any life other than the great white apes and the mysterious giant, and the rats themselves. However, there had been the woman's scream that he had heard earlier. This thought accentuated his ever-present anxiety over Dejah Thoris's safety and whereabouts. This delay was tormenting. As the circles of rats closed in about him, the earthman's eyes eagerly searched for some avenue of escape.

The rats circled slowly, watching their king who rose to his hind legs stamping his feet, thumping his tail. The mound of skulls echoed hollowly. Faster danced the king and faster moved the circles of rats drawing ever closer to the mound. The closer rats shot hungry glances at the earthman. Carter smiled grimly and gripped his sword more tightly. Strange that they should let him retain it. More than one of the beasts would die before he was overcome, and the king would be the first to go. There was no doubt that he was to be sacrificed to furnish a gastronomic orgy.

Suddenly the king stopped his wild gyrations directly in front of Carter. The dancers halted instantly, watching, waiting. A strange, growling squeal started deep in the king's throat and grew in volume to an ear-piercing shriek. The King of Rats stepped over the ring of skulls and advanced slowly toward Carter. Once again the earthman glanced about seeking some means of escape from the mound. This time he looked up. The ceiling was at least fifty feet away. No native-born Martian would even consider escaping in that direction. But John Carter had been born on the planet Earth, and he had brought with him to Mars all the strength and agility of a trained athlete. It was upon this, combined with the lesser gravity of Mars, that the earthman made his quick plan for the next moment.Tensely he waited for his opportunity. The ceremony was nearly concluded. The king was baring his fangs not a foot from Carter's neck.

The earthman's hand tightened on his sword-hilt; then the blade streaked from its scabbard. There was a blur of motion and a sickening smack. The king's head flew into the air and then rolled away, bouncing down the mound. The other beasts beneath were stunned into silence, but only momentarily. Now, squealing wildly, they swarmed up the mount intent on tearing the earthman to pieces.

John Carter crouched and with a mighty leap his earthly muscles sent him shooting fifty feet up into the air.

Desperately he clutched and held to a hanging stalagtite. Soon he was swinging on the hanging moss to the vast upper reaches of the cavern. Once he looked down to see the rats milling and squealing in confusion beneath One other fact he noted, also. Apparently there was only one means of entrance or exit into the dungeon that formed the rats' underground city, the same tunnel through which he had first been dragged.

Now, however, the earthman was intent upon finding some means of exit in the ceiling above. At last he found a narrow opening; and plunging through a heavy curtain of moss Carter swung into a cave.

There were several tunnels branching off into the darkness, most of them thickly hung with the sticky webs of the great Martian spider. They were evidently parts of a vast underground network of tunnels that had been fashioned long ages ago by the ancients who once inhabited Korvas. Carter was ready with his blade for any encounter with man or beast that might come his way; and so he started off up the largest tunnel.

The perpetually burning radium light that had been set in the wall when the tunnel was constructed furnished sufficient illumination for the earthman to see his way quite clearly. Carter halted before a massive door set into the end of a tunnel. It was inscribed with hieroglyphics unfamiliar to the earthman. The subdued drone of what sounded like many motors seemed to come from somewhere beyond the door. He pushed open the unbarred door and halted just beyond, staring unbelievingly at the tremendous laboratory in which he found himself. Great motors pumped oxygen through low pipes into rows of glass cages that lined the walls and filled the antiseptically white chamber from end to end. In the center of the laboratory were several operating tables with large searchlights focused down upon them from above. But the contents of the glass cages immediately absorbed the earthman's attention.

Each cage contained a giant white ape, standing upright inside, apparently lifeless. The top of each hairy head was swathed in bandages. If these beasts were dead, why then the oxygen tubes running to their cages? Carter moved across the room to examine the cases at closer range. Halfway to the farther wall he came upon a low, glassed dome that covered a huge pit set in the floor.

He gasped. The pit was filled with dead bodies, red warriors with the tops of their heads neatly sliced off!

So this was where the beasts got the skulls and bones with which they constructed their odorous, underground dwellings!

Carter's eyes scanned the laboratory. He noted the operating tables, the encased instruments above, the anesthetics. Everything pointed to some grisly experiment, conducted by some insane scientist.

Within a glass case were many books. One ponderous volume was inscribed in gold letters: PEW MOGEL, HIS LIFE AND WONDERFUL WORKS.

The earthman frowned. What was the explanation? Why this well-equipped laboratory buried in an ancient lost city, a city apparently deserted except for
apes, rats, and a giant man?

Why the cases about the wall containing the mute, motionless bodies of apes with bandaged heads? And the red men in the pit -- why were their skulls cut in half, their brains removed?

From whence came the giant, the monstrous creature whose likeness had existed only in Barsoomian folklore?

One of the books in a case before Carter bore the name "Pew Mogel." What connection had Pew Mogel with all this and who was the man?

But more important, where was Dejah Thoris, the Princess of Helium?

John Carter reached for Pew Mogel's book. Suddenly the room fell silent. The generators that had been humming out their power, stopped.

"Touch not that book, John Carter," came the words echoing through the laboratory.

Carter's hand dropped to his sword. There was a moment's pause; then the hidden voice continued.

"Give yourself up, John Carter, or your princess dies." The words were apparently coming from a concealed loudspeaker somewhere in the room. "Through the door to your right, earthman, the door to your right."

Carter immediately sensed a trap. He crossed to the door. Warily, he pushed it open with his foot.

Upon a gorgeous throne at the far end of a huge dome-shaped chamber sat a hideous, misshapen man. A tiny, bullet head squatted upon massive shoulders.

Everything about the creature seemed distorted. His torso was crooked, his arms were not equal in length; one foot was larger than the other.

The face in the diminutive head leered at John Carter. A thick tongue hung partly out over yellowed teeth.

The hulking body was encased in gorgeous trappings of platinum and diamonds. One claw-like hand stroked the bare head. From head to foot there was apparently not a hair on his body!

At the man's feet crouched a great, four-armed shaggy brute -- another white ape. Its little red eyes were fixed steadily upon the earthman as he stood at the far end of the chamber.

The man on the throne idly fingered the microphone with which he had summoned Carter to the room. "I have trapped you at last, John Carter!" Beady, cocked eyes glared with hatred.

"You cannot cope with the great brain of Pew Mogel!" Pew Mogel turned to a television screen studded with dials and lights of various colors. His face twisted into a smile. "You honor my humble city, John Carter. It is with the greatest interest I have watched your progress through the many chambers of the palace with my television machine." Pew Mogel patted the machine.

"This little invention of my good teacher, Ras Thavas," continued Pew Mogel, "which I acquired from him, has been an invaluable aid to me in learning of your intended search for my unworthy person. It was unfortunate that you should suspect the honorable intentions of my agent that afternoon in the Jeddak's
chambers.

"Fortunately, however, he had already completed his mission; and through an extension upon this television set, concealed cleverly behind a mirror in the
Jeddak's private throne room, I was able to see and hear the entire proceedings."

Pew Mogel laughed vacantly, his little unblinking eyes staring steadily at Carter who remained motionless at the other end of the room.

The earthman could see nothing in the chamber that indicated a trap. The walls and floor were all of grey, polished ersite slabs. Carter stood at one end of a
long aisle leading to Pew Mogel's throne.

Slowly he advanced toward Pew Mogel, his hand grasping his sword, the muscles of his arm etched bands of steel.

Halfway down the aisle, the earthman halted. "Where is Dejah Thoris?" His words cut the air.

The microcephalic* head of Pew Mogel cocked to one side. Carter waited for him to speak.
 

* A microcephalic head is one possessing a very small brain capacity. It is the opposite of megacephalic, which means a large brain capacity. Generally microcephalia is a sign of idiocy, although in the case of Pew Mogel, the condition did not mean idiocy, but extreme craftiness, and madness, which might indicate that, since Pew Mogel was an artificial, synthetic product of Ras Thavas, one of Mars' most famous scientists, his microcephalia was either caused by a disease, or by inability of the brain to adapt itself to a foreign, ill-fitting cranial cavity. Pew Mogel's head was obviously too small for his body, or for his brain. --ED.

Then Carter realized that those eyes were unblinking. There were no eyelids. The man's eyes could never close. Pew Mogel spoke coldly.

"I am greatly indebted to you for this visit. I was fortunate enough to be able to entertain your princess and your best friend; but I hardly dared to hope you
would honor me, too."

Carter's face was expressionless. Slowly he repeated. "Where is Dejah Thoris?"

Pew Mogel leered mockingly.

The earthman advanced toward the throne. The white ape at Pew Mogel's feet growled, the hairs on its neck bristling upright as Pew Mogel flinched slightly.
Again the twisted smile passed over his face as he raised his hand toward John Carter and drawled.

"Have patience, John Carter, and I will show you your princess; but first, perhaps you will be interested in seeing the man who, last night, told you to
meet him at the main bridge outside the city."

Pew Mogel hooked one of his fingers over a lever projecting from the golden arm of his throne and slipped it toward himself. A pillar to the left of his throne, half set in the wall, began to revolve slowly.

A giant green man appeared, chained to the pillar. His four mighty arms were strapped securely; and for Pew Mogel's additional safety, several steel chains
were wrapped around his body and cinched with massive padlocks. His neck and ankles were also secured with bands of steel, also padlocked.

"Tars Tarkas!" Carter exclaimed.

"Kaor, John Carter," there was a grim smile on Tars Tarkas' face as he replied.

"I see our friend here trapped us both the same way; but it took a giant fifteen times my size to hold me while they trussed me in these chains."

"The message you sent me last night--" In a flash, Carter realized the truth. Pew Mogel had faked the messages from Kantos Kan and Tars Tarkas, trapping them both in the city the night before.

"Yes, I sent you both identical messages," said Pew Mogel, "each message apparently from the other. The proper broadcasting length I ascertained from
listening to the concealed microphone I had planted in the Jeddak's throne room. Clever, eh?"

Pew Mogel's left eye suddenly popped out of its socket and dangled on his cheek. He took no notice of it, but continued to speak, glancing first at Carter and
then at Tars Tarkas with the other eye.

"You have both met Joog," stated Pew Mogel. "One hundred and thirty feet tall, he is all muscle, a product of science, the result of my great brain. With my own hands I created him from living flesh, the greatest fighting monster that Barsoom has ever seen.  I modeled him from the organs, tissues, and bones of ten thousand red men and white apes."

Pew Mogel, becoming aware of his left eye, quickly shoved it back into place.

Tars Tarkas laughed one of his rare laughs.

"Pew Mogel," he said, "you are falling apart. As you claim to have created your giant, so you yourself have been made.

"Unless I miss my guess, John Carter," continued Tars Tarkas, "this freak before us who calls himself a king has, himself, crawled out of a tissue vat!"

Pew Mogel's pallid countenance turned even paler as he leaped to his feet. He struck Tars Tarkas a vicious blow on the face.

"Silence, green man!" he shrieked.

Tars Tarkas only smiled at this insult, ignoring the pain. John Carter's face was a frozen mask. One more blow at his defenseless friend would have sent him
at Pew Mogel's throat. Better to bide his time, he knew, until he learned where Dejah Thoris was hidden.

Pew Mogel sank back upon his throne. The white ape, who had risen, once more squatted down at his master's feet.

Presently Pew Mogel smiled again.

"So sorry, he drawled, "that I lost my temper. Some times I forget that my present appearance reveals the nature of my origin.

"You see, soon I shall have trained one of my apes in the intricate procedure of transferring my marvelous brain into a suitable, handsome body; then no one will guess that I am not like any other normal man on Barsoom.

John Carter smiled grimly at Pew Mogel's words.

"Then you are one of Ras Thavas' synthetic men?"

"For years I was a devoted pupil of Ras Thavas in his laboratories at Morbus. I learned all that the Master could teach me of the secrets of creating living
tissue. When I learned from him all that I thought necessary to pursue my plans, I left Morbus. With a hundred synthetic men I escaped over the Great Toonolian Marshes on the backs of malagors, the birds of transport.

"I brought with me all the intricate equipment that I could steal from his laboratories. The rest, I have fashioned here in this ancient deserted city where we finally landed."

John Carter was studying Pew Mogel intently.

I was tired of being a slave," continued Pew Mogel. I wanted to rule; and by Issus, I have ruled; and some day I shall rule all Barsoom!"

Pew Mogel's eyes gleamed. "It was not long before red men gathered in our city, escaped and exiled criminals. Since their faces would only lead them to capture and execution in other civilized cities on Barsoom, I persuaded them to allow me to transfer their brains into the bodies of the stupid white apes that overran this city.

"I promised to later restore their brains into the bodies of other red men, provided they would help me in my conquests."

Carter recalled the apes with the bandaged heads in the adjoining laboratory, and the red men with their skulls sliced off in the chamber of the rats. He began to understand a little; then he remembered Joog.

"But the giant?" asked John Carter. "Whence came he?"

Pew Mogel was silent for a minute; then he spoke. "Joog I have built, piece by piece, during several years, from the bones, tissues and organs of a thousand red men and white apes who came voluntarily to me or whom I captured.

"Even his brain is the synthesis of the brains of ten thousand red men and white apes. Into Joog's veins I have pumped a serum that makes all tissues self-repairing.

"My giant is practically indestructible. No bullet or cannon-shot made can stop him!"

Pew Mogel smiled and stroked his hairless chin. "Think how powerful my ape soldiers will be," he purred, "each one armed with the great strength of an ape. With their four arms they can hold twice as many weapons as ordinary men, and inside their skulls will function the cunning brains of human beings.

"With Joog and my army of white apes, I can go forth and become master of all Barsoom." Pew Mogel paused and then added, "--provided I acquire more iron for even greater weapons than I already have."

Now Pew Mogel had risen from his throne in his great excitement. "I preferred to conquer peacefully by first acquiring the Helium iron works as payment for Dejah Thoris's safe return. But the Jeddak and John Carter force me into other alternatives--

"However, I'll give you one more chance to settle peacefully," he said.

Pew Mogel's hand moved toward the right arm of his throne, as he pulled a duplicate lever. A beautiful woman swung into view.

It was Dejah Thoris!

At the sight of his princess chained to the other pillar before him, John Carter grew very pale. He sprang forward to free her. His earthly muscles could have easily covered the distance in one leap; but halfway there in his spring, Dejah Thoris and Tars Tarkas saw the earthman sprawl in mid-air as though he had struck full force against some invisible barrier. Half-stunned, he crumpled to the floor.

Dejah Thoris gave a little cry. Tars Tarkas strained at his bonds. Slowly, the earthman rose to his feet, shaking his body like some majestic animal. With his
sword he reached down and felt the barrier that stood between him and the throne.

Pew Mogel laughed harshly.

"You are trapped, John Carter. The invisible glass partition that you struck is another invention of the great Ras Thavas that I acquired. It is invulnerable.
"From there, you may watch the torture of your princess, unless she sees fit to sign a note to her father demanding the surrender of Helium to me."

The earthman looked at his princess not ten feet from him. Dejah Thoris held her head proudly high, which was answer enough to Pew Mogel's demands that she betray her people. Pew Mogel saw, and angrily issued a command to the ape. The white brute rose and ambled over to Dejah Thoris. Grabbing her hair with one paw, he forced her head back until he could see her face. His hideous, grinning face was not two inches from hers.

"Demand Helium's surrender," hissed Pew Mogel, "and you shall have your freedom!"

"Never!" the word shot back at him.

Pew Mogel flung another command to the ape.

The creature planted his great, pendulous lips on those of the princess. Dejah Thoris went limp in his embrace, while Tars Tarkas surged vainly at the steel
chains. The girl had fainted. The earthman again hurled himself futilely against the barrier that he could not see.

"Fool," yelled Pew Mogel, "I gave you your chance to retain your princess by turning over to me the Helium iron works; but you and the Jeddak thought you
could thwart me and regain Dejah Thoris without paying me the price I asked for her safe return. For that mistake, you all die."

Pew Mogel again reached over to the instrument board beside his throne. He began to turn several dials, and Carter heard a strange, droning noise that increased steadily in volume.

Suddenly the earthman turned and raced for the door through which he came. But before he had covered fifteen feet, another barrier had closed down. Escape
through the door was impossible. There was a window over on the wall to his right. He leaped for it. He struck another glass barrier.

There was another window on the left side of the room. He had nearly reached it when he was met by another wall of invisible glass.

In a flash he became acutely conscious of his predicament. The walls were moving in upon him. He could see now that the glass barriers had moved out from
cleverly concealed slits in the adjoining walls. The two side barriers, however, were fastened to horizontal pistons in the ceiling. These pistons were moving together, bringing the glass walls toward each other, and would eventually crush the earthman between them.

Upon John Carter's finger was a jeweled ring. Set in the center of the ring was a large diamond.

Diamonds can cut glass!

Here was a new type of glass, but the chances were it was not as hard as the diamond on Carter's finger!

The earthman clenched his fist, pressed the diamond ring against the barrier in front of him and quickly made a large circular scratch in the glass surface.
Then he crashed his body with all his strength against the area of glass enclosed by the scratch.

The section broke out neatly at the blow, and the earthman found himself face to face with Pew Mogel.

Dejah Thoris had regained consciousness, a set, intent expression on her beautiful face. A grim smile had settled over Tars Tarkas's lips when he saw
that his friend was no longer impeded by the invisible barriers.

Pew Mogel shrank back on his throne and gasped in a cracked voice.

"Seize him, Gore, seize him!" Little beads of sweat stood forth on his brow.

Gore, the white ape, released his hold on Dejah Thoris and, turning, saw the earthman advancing toward them. Gore snarled viciously, revealing jagged, mighty fangs. He crouched low, so that his four massive fists supported his weight on the floor. His little, beady, blood-shot eyes gleamed hatred, for Gore hated all men save Pew Mogel.

The momentum of the brute's attack forced Carter backward a few steps as he deftly warded off the mighty blows.

But the earthman saw his chance. Quickly, surely, his blade streaked. There was a sudden twist and Gore's sword went hurtling across the room.

Gore, however, reacted with lightning speed. With his four huge hands he grasped the naked steel of the earthman's sword.

Violently he jerked the blade from Carter's grasp and, raising it overhead, snapped the strong steel in two as if it had been a splinter of wood.

Now, with a low growl, Gore closed in; and Carter crouched. Suddenly the man leaped over the ape's head; but again with uncanny speed the monster shot out a hairy hand and grasped the earthman's ankle.

Gore held John Carter in his four hands, drawing the man closer and closer and closer to the drooling jowls and gleaming fangs.

But with a surge of his mighty muscles, the earthman jerked free his arm and sent a terrific blow crashing full into Gore's face.

The ape recoiled, dropping John Carter, and staggered back toward the huge window on the right wall by Pew Mogel's throne.

Here the beast tottered; and the earthman, seeing his chance, once again leaped into the air, but this time flew feet foremost toward the ape.

At the moment of contact with the ape's chest, Carter extended his legs violently; and so, as his feet struck Gore, this force was added to the hurtling
momentum of his body.

With a bellowing cry, Gore hurtled out through the window and his screams ended only when he landed with a sickening crunch in the courtyard far below.

Dejah Thoris and Tars Tarkas, chained to the pillars, had watched the short fight, fascinated by the earthman's sure, quick actions.

But when Carter did not succumb instantly to Gore's attack, Pew Mogel had grown frightened. He began jerking dials and switches; and then spoke swiftly into the little microphone beside him.

So now, as the earthman regained his feet and advanced slowly toward Pew Mogel, he did not see the black shadow that obscured the window behind him.
Only when Dejah Thoris screamed a warning did the earthman turn.

But he was too late!

A giant hand, fully three feet across, closed about his body. He was lifted from the floor and pulled out quickly through the window.

To Carter's ears came the hopeless cry of his princess mingled with the cruel, hollow laugh of Pew Mogel.

Carter did not need the added assurance of his eyes to know that he was being held in the grasp of Pew Mogel's synthetic giant. Joog's fetid breath blasting
across his face was ample evidence.

Joog held Carter several feet from his face and contracted his features in the semblance of a grin, exposing his two great rows of cracked, stained teeth the
size of sharp boulders.

Hoarse, gurgling sounds emanated from Joog's throat as he held the earthman before his face.

"I, Joog. I, Joog," the monster finally managed. "I can kill! I can kill!"

Then he shook his victim until the man's teeth rattled.

But quite suddenly the giant was quiet, listening; then Carter became aware of muffled words coming, apparently, from Joog's ear.

Then John Carter realized that the command was coming from Pew Mogel, transmitted by short wave to a receiving device attached to one of Joog's ears.
"To the arena," repeated the voice. "Fasten him over the pit!"

The pit -- what new form of devilish torture was this? Carter tried vaguely to ease the awful pressure that was crushing him.

But his arms were pinned to his sides by the giant's grasp, All the man could do was breathe laboriously and hope that Joog's great strides would soon bring them to his destination, whatever that might be.

The giant's tremendous pace, stepping over tall, ancient edifices or across wide, spacious plazas in single, mighty strides, soon brought them to a large,
crowded amphitheatre on the outskirts of the city.

The amphitheatre apparently was fashioned from a natural crater. Row upon row of circular tiers had been carved within the inner wall of the crater, forming a series of levels upon which sat thousands of white apes.

In the center of the arena was a circular pit about fifty feet across. The pit contained what appeared to be water whose level was about fifteen feet from the
top of the pit.

Three iron-barred cages hung suspended over the center of the pit by means of three heavy ropes, one attached to the top of each cage and running up through a pulley in the scaffolding built overhead and down to the edge of the pit where it was anchored.

Joog climbed partly over the edge of the coliseum and deposited Carter on the brink of the pit. Five great apes held him there while another ape lowered one
of the cages to ground level.

Then he reached out with a hooked pole and swung the cage over the edge. He unlocked the cage door with a large key.

The keeper of the key was a short, heavy-set ape with a bull neck and exceedingly cruel, close-set eyes.

This brute now came up to Carter; and although the captive was being held by five other apes, he grabbed him cruelly by the hair and jerked Carter into the
cage, at the same time kicking him viciously.

The cage door was slammed immediately, its padlock bolted closed. Now Carter's cage was pulled up over the pit and the rope end anchored to a davit at the edge.

It was not long before Joog returned with Dejah Thoris and Tars Tarkas. Their chains had been removed.

They were placed in the other two cages that hung over the pit next to that of John Carter.

"Oh, John Carter, my chieftain!" cried Dejah Thoris, when she saw him in the cage next to hers. "Thank Issus you are still alive!" The little princess was
crying softly.

John Carter reached through the bars and took her hand in his. He tried to speak reassuring words to her; but he knew, as did Tars Tarkas, who sat grim-faced in the other cage beside his, that Pew Mogel had ordained their deaths -- but in what manner they would die, Carter, as yet, was uncertain.

"John Carter," spoke Tars Tarkas softly, "do you notice that all these thousands of apes gathered here in the arena apparently are paying no attention to us?"

"Yes, I noticed," replied the earthman. "They are all looking into the sky toward the city."

"Look," whispered Dejah Thoris. "It's the same thing upon which the ape rode when he captured me in the Helium Forest after shooting our thoat!"

There appeared in the sky, coming from the direction of the city, a great, lone bird upon whose back rode a single man.

The earthman's keen eyes squinted for an instant. "The bird is a malagor. Pew Mogel is riding it."

The bird and its rider circled directly overhead.

"Open the east gate," Pew Mogel commanded, his voice ringing out through a loudspeaker somewhere in the arena. The gates were thrown open and there began pouring out into the arena wave after wave of malagors exactly like the bird Pew Mogel rode.

As the malagors came out, column after column of apes were waiting at the entrance to vault onto the birds' backs. As each bird was mounted, it rose into
the air by telepathic command to join a constantly growing formation circling high overhead.

The mounting of the birds must have taken nearly two hours, so great were the number of Pew Mogel's apes and birds. Carter noticed that upon each ape's back was strapped a rifle and each bird itself carried a varying assortment of military equipment, including ammunition supplies, small cannon; and a sub-machine gun was carried by each flight platoon.

At last all was ready and Pew Mogel descended down over the cages of his three captives.

"You see, now, Pew Mogel's mighty army," he cried, "with which he will first conquer Helium and then all Barsoom." The man seemed very confident, for his crooked, misshapen body sat very straight upon his feathered mount.

"Before you are chewed to bits by the reptiles in the rising water below you,"

he said, "you will have a few moments to consider the fate that awaits Helium within the next forty-eight hours. I should have preferred to conquer peacefully; but you interfered. For that, you die, slowly and horribly."

Pew Mogel turned to the only ape that was left in the arena, the keeper of the key to the cages.

"Open the flood-gate!" was his single command before he rose up to lead his troops off toward the north.

Accompanying the weird, flying army in a sling carried by a hundred malagors rode Joog, the synthetic giant. A hollow, mirthless laugh peeled like thunder
from the giant's throat as he was borne away into the sky.

"Those creatures will make Helium a formidable enemy," he said. "Kantos Kan's splended airfleet and infantry will be hard pressed against those thousands of apes equipped with human brains and modern armament, mounted upon fast birds of prey!"

"Kantos Kan and his airfleet are not even in Helium to protect the city," announced Tars Tarkas grimly. "I heard Pew Mogel bragging that he had sent Kantos Kan a false message, supposedly from you, urging that all Helium's fleet, as well as all ships of the searching party, be dispatched to your aid in the Great Toonolian Marshes."

"The Toonolian Marshes!" Carter gasped. "They're a thousand miles from Helium in the other direction."

A little scream from Dejah Thoris brought the men's attention to their own, immediate fate.

The ape beside the pit had pulled back a tall, metal lever. There was a gurgle of bubbles as air blasted up from the water in the pit below the three captives;
and the water at the same time commenced to rise slowly.

The guard now unfastened the rope on each cage and lowered them so that the cage tops were a little below the surface of the ground inside the pit; then he
refastened the ropes and stood for some time on the brink looking down at the helpless captives.

"The water rises slowly," he sneered thickly; "and so I shall have time now for a little sleep."

It was uncanny to hear words issuing from the mouth of the beast. They were barely articulate, for although the human brain in the ape's skull directed the
words, the muscles of the larynx in the creature's throat were normally unequipped for the specialized task of human speech.

The guard lay down on the brink and stretched his massive, squat body.

"Your death cries will awaken me," he mumbled pleasantly, "when the water begins to envelop your feet and the reptiles start clawing at you through the bars of your cages." Whereupon, the ape rolled over and began snoring.

It was then that the three captives saw the slanting, evil eyes, the rows of flashing teeth, in a dozen hideous, reptilian faces staring greedily up at them from the rising waters below.

"Quite ingenious," remarked Tars Tarkas, his stoic face giving no more evidence of fear than did that of the earthman. "When the water partly submerges us, the reptiles will reach in with their claws and begin tearing us to pieces -- if there is any life left in us, the rising water will drown it out when finally it
submerges the tops of our cages."

"How horrible!" gasped Dejah Thoris.

John Carter's eyes were fastened on the brink of the pit. From his cage he could just see one of the guard's feet as the fellow lay asleep at the edge of the
pit.

Cautioning the others to silence, Carter began swinging his body back and forth while he held fast to the bars of his cage. If he could just get his cage to
swinging!

The water had risen to about ten feet below their cages.

It seemed an eternity before he could get the heavy cage to even moving slightly. Nine feet to the water surface and those hideous, staring eyes and those gleaming teeth!

The cage was swinging now a little more, in rhythm to the earthman's constantly swaying body.

Eight feet, seven feet, six feet came the water. There were about ten reptiles in the water below the captives -- ten pairs of narrow, evil eyes fixed steadily
on their prey.

The cage was swinging faster.

Five feet, four feet. Tars Tarkas and Dejah Thoris could feel the hot breath of the reptiles!

Three, two feet! Only two more feet to go before the steadily swinging cage would cut into the water and slow down again to a standstill.

But the iron prison, swinging pendulum-like, would reach the brink on its next swing; so this time as the cage moved toward the brink on which lay the sleeping guard, John Carter knew he must act and act quickly!

As the bars of the cage smacked against the cement wall of the pit, John Carter's arms shot out with the quickness of a striking snake.

His fingers closed in a grip of steel about the ankle of the sleeping guard.

An ear-piercing shriek rang out across the arena, echoing dismally in the hollow crater, as the ape felt himself jerked suddenly from his slumbers.

Back swung the cage. Carter regrasped the shrieking ape with his other hand through the bars as they swung out over the water. The reptiles had to lower
their heads as the cage moved over them so close had the water risen.

"Good work, John Carter," came Tars Tarkas's tense words as he reached out and grabbed hold of the ape with his four mighty hands. At the same time, Carter's cage splashed to a sudden stop. It had hit the water's surface.

"Hold him, Tars Tarkas, while I pull the key off the scoundrel's neck -- there, I've got it!"

The water was flowing over the bottom of the cages. One of the reptiles had reached a horny arm into Dejah Thoris's cage and was attempting to snag her body with its sharp, hooked claws.

Tars Tarkas flung the ape's body with all the force of his giant thews straight at the reptile beside the girl's cage.

"Quickly, John Carter," cried Dejah Thoris. "Save yourself while they are fighting over the ape's body."

"Yes," echoed Tars Tarkas, "unlock your cage and get out while there is still time."

A half-smile lifted the comer of Carter's mouth as he swung open his prison door and leaped to the top of Dejah Thoris's cage.

"I'd sooner stay and die with you both," the earthman said, "than desert you now."

Carter soon had the princess' prison door unlocked; but as he reached down to lift the girl up, a reptile darted forward into the cage with the princess.

In a quick second, Carter was inside the girl's cage, already knee-deep in water; and he had hurled himself onto the back of the reptile. A steely arm was
clamped tightly around the creature's neck. The head was jerked back just in time, for the heavy jaws snapped closed only an inch from the girl's body
"Climb out, Dejah Thoris -- to the top of the cage!" ordered Carter. When the girl had obeyed, Carter dragged the flopping, helpless reptile to the cage door,
as other slimy monsters started in. Using its body as a shield before him, the earthman forced his way to the door.

In an instant he had released his hold and vaulted up on top of the cage with the girl.

A moment later he had unlocked Tars Tarkas's cage door. After the green man had swung up beside them without mishap, the three climbed the ropes to the
scaffolding above and then lowered themselves down to the ground beside the pit.

"Thank Issus", breathed the girl as they sat down to regain their breaths. Her beautiful head was cushioned upon Carter's shoulder, and he stroked her lovely
black hair reassuringly.

Presently the earthman rose to his feet. Tars Tarkas had motioned him across the arena.

"There are some malagors left inside here," Tars Tarkas called from the entrance to the cavern inside the crater from where had come Pew Mogel's mounts.
"Good!" exclaimed Carter. "There may be a chance yet to reach and help Helium."

A moment later they had caught two of the birds and had risen over the ancient city of Korvas.

They spotted their planes on the outskirts of the city where they had left them the night they were tricked into being captured by Pew Mogel.

But to their disappointment, the controls had been destroyed irreparably, so that they were forced to continue their journey on the backs of the malagors.
However, the malagors proved speedy mounts. By noon the next day the trio had reached the City of Thark, inhabited by a hundred thousand green warriors over whom Tars Tarkas ruled.

Gathering the warriors together in the market-place, Tars Tarkas and John Carter explained the peril that confronted Helium and asked for their support in
marching to their allies' aid.

As one man, the mighty warriors shouted their approval. The next day dawned upon a long caravan of thoat-mounted soldiers streaming out from the city gates toward Helium.

A messenger was sent on a malagor to the Toonolian Marshes in an attempt to locate Kantos Kan and urge him to return home with his fleet to aid in the
defense of Helium.

Tars Tarkas had abandoned his malagor to this messenger, in favor of a thoat upon which he rode at the head of his warriors. Directly above him, mounted on
the other malagor, rode Dejah Thoris and John Carter.

It was bright moonlight. The princess voiced a little, disappointed cry when she looked out across the spacious valley toward Helium. Her grandfather's city was completely surrounded by the besieging troops of Pew Mogel.

"My poor city!" The girl was crying softly, for in the bright moonlight below could be easily discerned the terrific gap in the ramparts and the many crushed
and shattered buildings of the beautiful metropolis.

John Carter telepathically commanded the malagor to land upon a high peak in the mountains overlooking the Valley of Helium.

"Listen," cautioned John Carter. Pew Mogel's light entrenched cannon and small arms were commencing to open fire again by moonlight. "They are getting ready for an air attack."

Suddenly, from behind the low foothills between the valley and the towering peaks, there rose the vast, flying army of Pew Mogel.

"They are closing in from all sides," Dejah Thoris cried.

The great winged creatures and their formidable ape riders were swooping down relentlessly upon the city. Only a few of Helium's airships rose to give battle.

"Kantos Kan must have taken nearly all Helium's fleet with him," the earthman remarked, "I am surprised Helium has withstood the attack as long as this."
"You should know my people by now, John Carter," replied the princess.

"The infantry and anti-aircraft fire entrenched in Helium are doing well,"

Carter replied. "See those birds plummet to the ground."

"They can't hold out much longer, though," the girl relied. "Those apes are dropping bombs squarely into the city, as they swoop over, wave after wave of
them -- oh, John Carter, what can we do?"

John Carter's old fighting smile, usually present at times of personal danger, had given way to a stern, grave expression.

He saw below him the oldest and most powerful city on Mars being conquered by Pew Mogel's forces. Armed with Helium's vast resources, the synthetic man would go forth and conquer all civilized nations on Mars.

Fifty thousand years of Martian learning and culture wrecked by a power-mad maniac -- himself the synthetic product of civilized man!

"Is there nothing we can do to stop him, John Carter?" came the girl's repeated question.

"Very little, I'm afraid, my princess," he replied sadly. "All we can do is station Tars Tarkas's green warriors at advantageous points in preparation for a
counter-attack and trust to fate that our messenger reached Kantos Kan in time that he may return and aid us.

"Without supporting aircraft, our green warriors, heroic fighters that they are, can do little against Pew Mogel's superior numbers in the air."

When John Carter and Dejah Thoris returned to Tars Tarkas, they reported what they had seen.

The great Thark agreed that his warriors could avail but little in a direct attack against Pew Mogel's air force. It was decided that half their troops be
concentrated at one point and at dawn attempt to rush through into the City.

The remaining half of the warriors would scatter into the mountains in smaller groups and engage the enemy in guerrilla warfare.

Thus they hoped to forestall the fate of Helium until Kantos Kan returned with his fleet of speedy air fighters.

"Helium's fleet of trim, metal fighting craft will furnish Pew Mogel's feathered bird brigade a worthy enemy," remarked Tars Tarkas.

"Provided, of course," added Carter, "Kantos Kan's fleet reaches Helium before Pew Mogel has entrenched himself in the City and returned his own anti-aircraft guns upon them."

All that night in the mountains, under cover of semi-darkness, John Carter and Tars Tarkas reorganized and restationed their troops. By dawn all was ready.
John Carter and Tars Tarkas would lead the advance half of the Tharks in a wild rush toward the gates of Helium; the other half would remain behind, covering their comrades' assault with long-range rifles.

Much against the earthman's will, Dejah Thoris insisted she would ride into the City beside him upon their malagor.

It was just commencing to grow brighter.

"Prepare to charge," Carter ordered. Tars Tarkas passed the word down by his orderly to his unit commanders.

"Prepare to charge! Prepare to charge!" echoed down and across the battalions of magnificent, four-armed, green fighters astride their eight-legged, massive,
restless thoats.

The minutes dragged by as the troop lines swung around. Steel swords were drawn from scabbards. Hammers, on short, deadly ray-pistols, clicked back as they cocked over saddle pommels.

John Carter looked around at the girl sitting so straight and steady behind him.

"You are very brave, my princess," he said.

"It's easy to be brave," she replied, "when I'm so close to the greatest warrior on Mars."

"Charge!" came Carter's terse, sudden order.

Down the mountain and across the plain toward Helium streaked the savage horde of Tharks. Out ahead raced Tars Tarkas, his sword held high.

Far ahead and above, on speedy wings, streaked the malagor carrying John Carter and the Princess of Helium.

"John Carter, thank Issus!" Dejah Thoris cried in relief, and pointed toward the far mountain skyline.

"The Helium Fleet has returned," shouted John Carter. "Our messenger reached Kantos Kan in time!" Over the mountains, with flying banners streaming, sailed the mighty Helium Fleet.

There was a moment's silence in the entrenched guns of the enemy. They had seen the charging Tharks and the Helium Fleet simultaneously.

A great cry of triumph rose from the ranks of the charging warriors at sight of the Helium Fleet streaking to their aid.

"Listen," cried Dejah Thoris to Carter, "the bells of Helium are tolling our victory song!" Then it seemed as though all of Pew Mogel's guns broke loose at
once; and from behind the protecting hills rose his flying legions of winged malagors. Upon their backs rode the white apes with men's brains.

Down upon the legions of Tharks came wave after wave of Pew Mogel's feathered squadrons. In true blitzkrieg fashion, the birds would swoop down just out of sword's reach over the green warriors. As each bird pulled out of its dive, the ape on its back would empty its death-dealing atomgun into the mass of warriors beneath.

The carnage was terrific. Only after Tars Tarkas and John Carter had led their warriors into the first lines of entrenched apes did the Tharks find an enemy
with whom they could fight effectively.

Here, the fourarmed green soldiers of Thark fought gloriously against the great white apes of Pew Mogel's ghastly legions.

But never for a second did the horrible death-diving squadrons cease their attacks from above. Like angry hornets, the thousands dove, killed, climbed,
dove, and killed again -- always killing.

John Carter masterfully controlled his frightened bird while he issued orders and directed attacks from his vantage point immediately above the center of
battle.

Bravely, efficiently, the Princess of Helium protected her chieftain against countless side and rear attacks from the air. The barrel of her radium pistol
was red-hot with constant firing; and many were the charging birds and shrieking apes she sent catapulting into the melee below.

Suddenly a hoarse shout rose again from Pew Mogel's legions on ground and in air.

"What is it, my chieftain?" cried the girl. "Why are the enemy shouting in triumph?"

John Carter looked toward the advancing ships now over the mountains only a half mile away; then his blood ran cold.

"The giant -- Joog, the giant!"

The creature had risen up from behind the shelter of a low hill, as the ships approached above him. The giant grasped a huge tree trunk in his mighty hand.
Even from where they were, John Carter could discern the head of a man sitting in an armor-enclosed, steel howdah strapped to the top of Joog's helmet.
From the giant's lips there suddenly issued a thunderous, shrieking roar that echoed in the mountains and across the plain.

Then he clambered swiftly to the top of a small hill. Before the astonished Heliumites could swerve their speeding craft, the giant struck out mightily with
the great tree trunk.

The great, synthetic muscles of Pew Mogel's giant swung the huge weapon full into the advancing craft.

The vanguard of twenty ships, the pride of Helium's airfleet met the blow head-on -- went smashing and shattering against the mountain-side, carrying their
crews to swift, crushing death!

From their position on the malagor, John Carter and Dejah Thoris could see many of the airships turning back toward the mountains. Others, however, were not so fortunate.

Caught in the wild rush of air resulting from the giant's swinging club, the craft pitched and tossed crazily out of control.

Again and again the huge tree trunk split through the air as the giant swung blow after blow at the helpless ships.

"Kantos Kan is re-forming his fleet," John Carter shouted above the roar of battle as the fighting on the ground was once more resumed with increased zeal.
"The ships are returning again," cried the princess, "toward that awful creature!"

"They are spreading out in the air," the earthman relied. "Kantos Kan is trying to surround the giant!"

"But why?"

"Look, they are giving him some of Pew Mogel's own medicine!"

Helium's vast fleet of airships was darting in from all sides. Others came zooming down from above, As they approached within range of their massive
target, the gunners would pour out a veritable hail of bullets and rays into the giant's body.

Dejah Thoris sighed in relief.

"He can't stand that much longer!" she said.

John Carter, however, shook his head sadly as the giant began to strike down the planes with renewed fury.

"I'm afraid it's useless. Not only those bullets but the ray-guns as well are having no effect upon the creature. His body has been imbued with a serum that
Ras Thavas discovered. The stuff spreads throughout the tissue cells and makes them grow immediately with unbelievable speed to replace all wounded or
destroyed flesh."

"You mean," Dejah Thoris asked, horror-stricken, "the awful monster might never be destroyed?"

"It is probable that he will live and grow forever, replied the earthman, "unless something drastic is done to destroy him--"

A sudden fire of determination flared in the earthman's steel grey eyes.

"There may be a way yet to stop him, my princess, and save our people--"

A weird, bold plan had formulated itself in John Carter's mind. He was accustomed to acting quickly on sudden impulse. Now he ordered his malagor down
close over Tars Tarkas's head.

Although he knew the battle was hopeless, the green man was fighting furiously on his great thoat.

"Call your men back to the mountains," shouted Carter to his old friend. "Hide out there and reorganize -- wait for my return!"

The next half hour found John Carter and the girl beside Kantos Kan's flagship.

The great Helium Fleet had once more retreated over the mountains to take stock of its losses and re-form for a new attack.

Every ship's captain must have known the futility of further battle against this indomitable element; yet they were all willing to fight to the last for their
nation and for their princess, who had so recently been rescued.

After the earthman and the girl boarded the flagship, they freed the great malagor that had so faithfully served them. Kantos Kan joyously greeted the
princess on bended knee and then welcomed his old friend.

"To know you two are safe again is a pleasure that even outweighs the great sadness of seeing our City of Helium fall into the enemy's hands," stated Kantos
Kan sincerely.

"We have not lost yet, Kantos Kan," said the earthman. I have a plan that might save us -- I'll need ten of your largest planes manned by only a minimum crew."

"I'll wire orders for them to break formation and assemble beside the flagship immediately," replied Kantos Kan, turning to an orderly.

"Just a minute," added Carter. "I'll want each plane equipped with two hundred parachutes!"

"Two hundred parachutes?" echoed the orderly. "Yes, Sir!"

Almost immediately there were ten large aircraft, empty troop ships, drifting in single file formation beside Kantos Kan's flagship. Each had a minimum crew of ten men and two hundred parachutes, two thousand parachutes in all!

Just before he boarded the leading ship, John Carter spoke to Kantos Kan.

"Keep your fleet intact," he said, "until I return. Stay near Helium and protect the city as best you can. I'll be back by dawn."

"But that monster," groaned Kantos Kan. "Look at him -- we must do something to save Helium."

The enormous creature, standing one hundred and thirty feet tall, dressed in his ill-fitting, baggy tunic, was tossing boulders and bombs into Helium, his every
action dictated through short wave by Pew Mogel, who sat in the armored howdah atop the giant's head.

John Carter laid his hand on Kantos Kan's shoulder.

"Don't waste further ships and men uselessly in fighting the creature," he warned; "and trust me, my friend. Do as I say -- at least until dawn!"

John Carter took Dejah Thoris's hand in his and kissed it.

"Goodbye, my chieftain," she whispered, tears filling her eyes.

"You’ll be safer here with Kantos Kan, Dejah Thoris," spoke the earthman; and then, "Goodbye my princess," he called and vaulted lightly over the craft's rail to the deck of the troop ship alongside. It pained him to leave Dejah Thoris; yet he knew she was in safe hands.

Ten minutes later, Dejah Thoris and Kantos Kan watched the ten speedy craft disappear into the distant haze.

When John Carter had gone, Kantos Kan unfurled Dejah Thoris's personal colors beside the nation's flag; so that all Helium would know that their princess had been found safe and the people be heartened by her close presence.

During his absence, Kantos Kan and Tars Tarkas followed the earthman's orders, refraining from throwing away their forces in hopeless battle. As a result, Pew Mogel's fighters had moved closer and closer to Helium; while Pew Mogel himself was even now preparing Joog to lead the final assault upon the fortressed city.

Exactly twenty-four hours later, John Carter's ten ships returned.

As he approached Helium, the earth man took in the situation at a glance. He had feared that he would be too late, for his secret mission had occupied more
precious time than he had anticipated.

But now he sighed with relief. There was still time to put into execution his bold plan, the plan upon which rested the fate of a nation.

---

SKELETON MEN OF JUPITER
Foreword

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Particularly disliking forewords, I seldom read them; yet it seems that I scarcely ever write a story that I do not inflict a foreword on my
long-suffering readers. Occasionally I also have to inject a little weather and scenery in my deathless classics, two further examples of literary racketeering that I especially deplore in the writings of others. Yet there is something to be said in extenuation of weather and scenery, which, together with adjectives, do much to lighten the burdens of authors and run up their word count. Still, there is little excuse for forewords; and if this were my story there would be none. However, it is not my story. It is John Carter's story. I am merely his amanuensus.

On guard! John Carter takes his sword in hand.
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS

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