The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-02-12

"Oh, no; those whom you laid low are lesser therns, but of the same cruel and hateful race. The holy therns i abide upon the outer slopes of these grim hills, facing the broad world, from which they harvest their victims and their spells.
 "Labyrinthine passages connect these caves with the luxurious palaces of the holy therns, and through them l pass upon their many duties the lesser therns and hordes of slaves and pris- oners and fierce beasts-the grim in- habitants of this sunless world.
 "There are within this vast network of winding passages and countless chambers men, women and beasts. who, born within its dim and grew some underworld, have never seen the light of day--nor ever shall. ''They are kept to do the bidding of the race of therns; to furnish St once their sport and their sustenance.
 ''Now and again some hapless pill grim, drifting out upon the silent sea from the cold Iss, escapes the plant men and the great white apes that guard the temple of IssuE and falls into the remorseless clutches of the therns, or, as was my misfortune, Is coveted by the holy thern who chances to be upon watch in the balcony above the river where it issues from the bowels of the mountains through the cliffs of gold to empty into the lost sea of Korus.
 All who reach the valley Dor are, by custom, the rightful prey of the plant men and the apes, while their arms and ornaments become the DOT tion of the therns, but if one escapes the terrible denizens of the valley for even a few hours the therns may claim such a one as their own. !,
 And again the holy thern on watch, should he see victim he covets, often tramples upon the rights of the unrea- soning brutes of the valley and takes his prize by foul means if he cannot gain it by fair.
 ''It is said that occasionally some de- luded victim of Barsoomian supersti- tion will so far escape the clutches of the countless enemies that beset his path from the moment that he emerges from the subterranean passage through which the Iss flows for a thousand miles before 1t enters the Valley Dor as to reach the very walls of the tenn pie of Issus. But what fate awaits one there not even the holy therns may guess, for who has passed within those gilded walls never has returned to un- fold the mysteries they have held since the beginning of time.
 "The temple of Issus is to the therns what the valley Dor is imagined by the peoples of the outer world to be to them. It is the ultimate haven, of peace, refuge and happiness to which they pass after this life and wherein an eternity of eternities is spent amid the delights of the flesh which appeal most strongly to this race of mental giants and moral pygmies.'
 ''The temple of Issus is, take 1t, a heaven within a heaven" I said. ''Let us hope that there it will be meted to the therns as they have meted it here unto others"
 "Who knows?' the girl murmured.
 ''The therns, I judge from what you have said, are no less mortal than we, and yet have I always heard them spoken of with the utmost awe and reverence by the people of Barsoom as one might speak of the gods them selves"
 "The therns are mortal" she replied. ''They die from the same causes as you or mfght-those who do not live their allotted span of life, 1000 years. By the authority of custom at that time they may take their way in happiness through the long tunnel that leads to Issus.
 "Those who die before are supposed to spend the balance of their allotted time in the image of plant man, and it is for this reason that the plant men are held sacred by the therns, since they believe that each of these hideous creatures was formerly a thern."
 "And should a plant man die?" I asked.
 Should he die before the expiration of the thousand years from the birth of the thern, whose immortality abides within him, then the soul passes into a great white ape. Should the ape die short of the exact hour that terminates the thousand years the soul is forever lost and passes for all eternity into the carcass of the slimy and fear some silian. whose wriggling thou sands seethe in the silent sea beneath the hurtling moons when the sun has gone and strange shapes walk through 1 the valley Dor.''
 "We sent several holy therns to the | silians today, then,' said Tars Tarkas, laughing.
 'And so will your death be the more l terrible when it comes" said the | maiden. And come it will. You can not escape"
 "One has escaped, centuries ago." reminded her, land what has been done may be done again."
 ''It is useless even to try" she an- swered hopelessly.
 "But try we shall," I cried, "and you shall go with us, if you wish.'
 '"To be put to death by mine own people and render my memory a dis grace to my family and my nation? A prinee of the house of Tardos Mors should know better than to suggest such thing"