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Page 43
"Oh very," she said, "especially when they have such excellent
profiles."
It was my turn to flush, but I did not. I felt that she was poking
fun at me, and I admired a brave heart that could look for humour
on the road to death, and so I laughed with her.
"Do you know where we are going?" she said.
"To solve the mystery of the eternal hereafter, I imagine," I
replied.
"I am going to a worse fate than that," she said, with a little
shudder.
"What do you mean?"
"I can only guess," she replied, "since no thern damsel of all the
millions that have been stolen away by black pirates during the
ages they have raided our domains has ever returned to narrate her
experiences among them. That they never take a man prisoner lends
strength to the belief that the fate of the girls they steal is
worse than death."
"Is it not a just retribution?" I could not help but ask.
"What do you mean?"
"Do not the therns themselves do likewise with the poor creatures
who take the voluntary pilgrimage down the River of Mystery? Was
not Thuvia for fifteen years a plaything and a slave? Is it less
than just that you should suffer as you have caused others to
suffer?"
"You do not understand," she replied. "We therns are a holy race.
It is an honour to a lesser creature to be a slave among us. Did
we not occasionally save a few of the lower orders that stupidly
float down an unknown river to an unknown end all would become the
prey of the plant men and the apes."
"But do you not by every means encourage the superstition among
those of the outside world?" I argued. "That is the wickedest of
your deeds. Can you tell me why you foster the cruel deception?"
"All life on Barsoom," she said, "is created solely for the support
of the race of therns. How else could we live did the outer world
not furnish our labour and our food? Think you that a thern would
demean himself by labour?"
"It is true then that you eat human flesh?" I asked in horror.
She looked at me in pitying commiseration for my ignorance.
"Truly we eat the flesh of the lower orders. Do not you also?"
"The flesh of beasts, yes," I replied, "but not the flesh of man."
"As man may eat of the flesh of beasts, so may gods eat of the
flesh of man. The Holy Therns are the gods of Barsoom."
I was disgusted and I imagine that I showed it.
"You are an unbeliever now," she continued gently, "but should we
be fortunate enough to escape the clutches of the black pirates and
come again to the court of Matai Shang I think that we shall find
an argument to convince you of the error of your ways. And--," she
hesitated, "perhaps we shall find a way to keep you as--as--one of
us."
Again her eyes dropped to the floor, and a faint colour suffused
her cheek. I could not understand her meaning; nor did I for a
long time. Dejah Thoris was wont to say that in some things I was
a veritable simpleton, and I guess that she was right.
"I fear that I would ill requite your father's hospitality," I
answered, "since the first thing that I should do were I a thern
would be to set an armed guard at the mouth of the River Iss to
escort the poor deluded voyagers back to the outer world. Also
should I devote my life to the extermination of the hideous plant
men and their horrible companions, the great white apes."
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