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Page 38
"He is All, I told you," replied Jav. "I know not how to explain
him in words that you will understand. He is the beginning and
the end. All life emanates from Komal, since the substance which
feeds the brain with imaginings radiates from the body of Komal.
"Should Komal cease to eat, all life upon Barsoom would cease to be.
He cannot die, but he might cease to eat, and, thus, to radiate."
"And he feeds upon the men and women of your belief?" cried Carthoris.
"Women!" exclaimed Jav. "There are no women in Lothar. The last
of the Lotharian females perished ages since, upon that cruel and
terrible journey across the muddy plains that fringed the half-dried
seas, when the green hordes scourged us across the world to this
our last hiding-place--our impregnable fortress of Lothar.
"Scarce twenty thousand men of all the countless millions of our
race lived to reach Lothar. Among us were no women and no children.
All these had perished by the way.
"As time went on, we, too, were dying and the race fast approaching
extinction, when the Great Truth was revealed to us, that mind is
all. Many more died before we perfected our powers, but at last
we were able to defy death when we fully understood that death was
merely a state of mind.
"Then came the creation of mind-people, or rather the materialization
of imaginings. We first put these to practical use when the
Torquasians discovered our retreat, and fortunate for us it was
that it required ages of search upon their part before they found
the single tiny entrance to the valley of Lothar.
"That day we threw our first bowmen against them. The intention
was purely to frighten them away by the vast numbers of bowmen which
we could muster upon our walls. All Lothar bristled with the bows
and arrows of our ethereal host.
"But the Torquasians did not frighten. They are lower than the
beasts--they know no fear. They rushed upon our walls, and standing
upon the shoulders of others they built human approaches to the
wall tops, and were on the very point of surging in upon us and
overwhelming us.
"Not an arrow had been discharged by our bowmen--we did but cause
them to run to and fro along the wall top, screaming taunts and
threats at the enemy.
"Presently I thought to attempt the thing--THE GREAT THING. I centred
all my mighty intellect upon the bowmen of my own creation--each
of us produces and directs as many bowmen as his mentality and
imagination is capable of.
"I caused them to fit arrows to their bows for the first time. I
made them take aim at the hearts of the green men. I made the
green men see all this, and then I made them see the arrows fly,
and I made them think that the points pierced their hearts.
"It was all that was necessary. By hundreds they toppled from
our walls, and when my fellows saw what I had done they were quick
to follow my example, so that presently the hordes of Torquas had
retreated beyond the range of our arrows.
"We might have killed them at any distance, but one rule of war we
have maintained from the first--the rule of realism. We do nothing,
or rather we cause our bowmen to do nothing within sight of the
enemy that is beyond the understanding of the foe. Otherwise they
might guess the truth, and that would be the end of us.
"But after the Torquasians had retreated beyond bowshot, they turned
upon us with their terrible rifles, and by constant popping at us
made life miserable within our walls.
"So then I bethought the scheme to hurl our bowmen through the
gates upon them. You have seen this day how well it works. For
ages they have come down upon us at intervals, but always with the
same results."
"And all this is due to your intellect, Jav?" asked Carthoris. "I
should think that you would be high in the councils of your people."
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