meeting their onslaught as only John Carter himself might have done. 

 So swift his sword, so mighty and agile his half-earthly muscles, that one of his opponents was down, crimsoning the ochre moss with his life-blood, when he had scarce made a single pass at Carthoris. 

 Now the two remaining Dusarians rushed simultaneously upon the Heliumite. Three long-swords clashed and sparkled in the moonlight, until the great white apes, roused from their slumbers, crept to the lowering windows of the dead city to view the bloody scene beneath them. 

 Thrice was Carthoris touched, so that the red blood ran down his face, blinding him and dyeing his broad chest. With his free hand he wiped the gore from his eyes, and with the fighting smile of his father touching his lips, leaped upon his antagonists with renewed fury. 

 A single cut of his heavy sword severed the head of one of them, and then the other, backing away clear of that point of death, turned and fled toward the palace at his back. 

 Carthoris made no step to pursue. He had other concern than the meting of even well-deserved punishment to strange men who masqueraded in the metal of his own house, for he had seen that these men were tricked out in the insignia that marked his personal followers. 

 Turning quickly toward his flier, he was soon rising from the plaza in pursuit of Thar Ban. 

 The red warrior whom he had put to flight turned in the entrance to the palace, and, seeing Carthoris’ intent, snatched a rifle from those that he and his fellows had left leaning against the wall as they had rushed out with drawn swords to prevent the theft of their prisoner. 

 Few red men are good shots, for the sword is their chosen weapon; so now as the Dusarian drew bead upon the rising flier, and touched the button upon his rifle’s stock, it was more to chance than proficiency that he owed the partial success of his aim. 

 The projectile grazed the flier’s side, the opaque coating breaking sufficiently to permit daylight to strike in upon the powder phial within the bullet’s nose. There was a sharp explosion. Carthoris felt his craft reel drunkenly beneath him, and the engine stopped. 

 The momentum the air boat had gained carried her on over the city toward the sea-bottom beyond. 

 The red 

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