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caprice of the great force that carried her along. And the watchers saw that this

great ship was merely being blown away with the other bits of debris great and

small that filled the sky. Never in the memory of man or the annals of recorded

history had such a storm raged across the face of Barsoom.

And in another instant was the Vanator forgotten as the lofty, scarlet tower that

had marked Lesser Helium for ages crashed to ground, carrying death and

demolition upon the city beneath. Panic reigned. A fire broke out in the ruins.

The city's every force seemed crippled, and it was then that The Warlord ordered

the men that were about to set forth in search of Tara of Helium to devote their

energies to the salvation of the city, for he too had witnessed the start of the

Vanator and realized the futility of wasting men who were needed sorely if Lesser

Helium was to be saved from utter destruction.

Shortly after noon of the second day the storm commenced to abate, and before

the sun went down, the little craft upon which Tara of Helium had hovered

between life and death these many hours drifted slowly before a gentle breeze

above a landscape of rolling hills that once had been lofty mountains upon a

Martian continent. The girl was exhausted from loss of sleep, from lack of food

and drink, and from the nervous reaction consequent to the terrifying experiences

through which she had passed. In the near distance, just topping an intervening

hill, she caught a momentary glimpse of what appeared to be a dome-capped

tower. Quickly she dropped the flier until the hill shut it off from the view of the

possible occupants of the structure she had seen. The tower meant to her the

habitation of man, suggesting the presence of water and, perhaps, of food. If the

tower was the deserted relic of a bygone age she would scarcely find food there,

but there was still a chance that there might be water. If it was inhabited, then

must her approach be cautious, for only enemies might be expected to abide in so

far distant a land. Tara of Helium knew that she must be far from the twin cities

of her grandfather's empire, but had she guessed within even a thousand haads

of the reality, she had been stunned by realization of the utter hopelessness of

her state.

Keeping the craft low, for the buoyancy tanks were still intact, the girl skimmed

the ground until the gently-moving wind had carried her to the side of the last hill

that intervened between her and the structure she had thought a man-built

tower. Here she brought the flier to the ground among some stunted trees, and

dragging it beneath one where it might be somewhat hidden from craft passing

above, she made it fast and set forth to reconnoiter. Like most women of her class

she was armed only with a single slender blade, so that in such an emergency as

now confronted her she must depend almost solely upon her cleverness in

remaining undiscovered by enemies. With utmost caution she crept warily toward

The Chessmen of Mars