Futuristic Views

He sprang down from the plat­form and gras­ped her rough­ly by the arm, but scar­ce­ly had he touch­ed her than I leaped bet­ween them. My short-sword, sharp and gle­a­ming was in my right hand; I could have plun­ged it into his putrid heart befo­re he rea­li­zed that I was upon him; but as I rai­sed my arm to strike I thought of Tars Tar­kas, and, with all my rage, with all my hat­red, I could not rob him of that sweet moment for which he had lived and hoped all the­se long, wea­ry years, and so, ins­tead, I swung my good right fist full upon the point of his jaw. Wit­hout a sound he slip­ped to the flo­or as one dead.

In the same death­ly silence I gras­ped Dejah Tho­ris by the hand, and motio­ning Sola to fol­low we sped noi­se­l­ess­ly from the cham­ber and to the flo­or abo­ve. Unseen we rea­ched a rear win­dow and with the straps and lea­ther of my trap­pings I lowe­red, first Sola and then Dejah Tho­ris to the ground below. Drop­ping light­ly after them I drew them rapidly around the court in the shadows of the buil­dings, and thus we retur­ned over the same cour­se I had so recent­ly fol­lo­wed from the distant boun­da­ry of the city.

We final­ly came upon my thoats in the cour­ty­ard whe­re I had left them, and pla­cing the trap­pings upon them we has­ten­ed through the buil­ding to the ave­nue bey­ond. Moun­ting, Sola upon one beast, and Dejah Tho­ris behind me upon the other, we rode from the city of Thark through the hills to the south.

Ins­tead of cir­cling back around the city to the nor­thwest and toward the nea­rest water­way which lay so short a distance from us, we tur­ned to the nor­the­ast and struck out upon the mos­sy was­te across which, for two hundred dan­ge­rous and wea­ry miles, lay ano­ther main artery lea­ding to Helium.