All Story Magazine, December 1913 — page 148: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

858 the universal lighting medium of Bar- soon. ‘These same lamps may have been doing continuous duty in these subter- ranean chambers for ages, since they require no attention and are so com- pounded that they give off but the minutest portion of their substance in the generation of years of luminosity. We had proceeded for but a short distance when we commenced to pass the mouths of diverging corridors, but not once did Woola hesitate. It was at the opening to one of these corri- dors upon my right that I presently heard a sound that spoke more plainly to John Carter, fighting man, than could the words of my mother tongue —it was the clank of metal—the metal of a warrior’s harness — and it came from a little distance up the corridor upon my right. Woola heard it, too, and like a flash he had wheeled and stood facing the threatened danger, his mane all abristle and all his rows of glistening fangs bared by snarling, backdrawn lips. With a gesture I silenced him, and to- gether we drew aside into another corridor a few paces farther on. Here we waited; nor did we have long to wait, for presently we saw the shadows of two men fall upon the floor of the main corridor athwart the doorway of our hiding - place. Very cautiously they were moving now— the accidental clank that had alarmed me was not repeated. Presently they came opposite our station: nor was I surprised to see that the two were Lakor and his com- panion of the guard-room. : They walked very softly, and in the right hand of each gleamed a keen long-sword. ‘They halted quite close to the entrance to our retreat, whisper- ing to one another. “Can it be that we have distanced them already?” said Lakor. “Fither that or the beast has led the man upon a wrong trail,” replied the other, “ for the way which we took is by far the shorter to this point— THE ALL-STORY MAGAZINE. for him who knows it. John Carter would have found it a short road to death had he taken it as you suggested to him.” “Yes,” said Lakor; ‘ no amount of fighting ability would have saved him from the pivoted flagstone. He surely would have stepped upon it, and by now, if the pit beneath it has a bottom, which Thurid denies, he should have been rapidly approaching it. Curses on that calot of his that warned him to- ward the safer avenue! ”’ “There be other dangers ahead of him, though,” spoke Lakor’s fellow, “which he may not so easily escape— should he succeed in escaping our two good swords. Consider, for example, what chance he will have, coming un- expectedly into the chamber of—” I would have given much to have heard the balance of that conversation that I might have been warned of the perils of the way that lay ahead, but fate intervened, and just at the very in- stant of all other instants that I would not have elected to do it, I sneezed. CHAPTER. II, THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN, THERE was nothing for it now other than to fight; nor did I have any ad- vantage as I sprang, sword in hand, into the corridor before the two therns, for my untimely sneeze had warned them of my presence and they were ready for me. There were no words, for they would have been a waste of breath. The very presence of the two pro- claimed their treachery. That they were following to fall upon me un- awares was all. too plain, and they, of course, must have known that I under- stood their plan. In an instant I was engaged with both, and though I loathe the very name of thern, I must in all fairness adinit that they are mighty swordsmen; and these two wgre no exception, un- less it were that they were even more comliclooks.com