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there was a suggestion of grotesqueness about them that carried to her a feeling
of revulsion.
The two carried a long rope to which were fastened, at intervals of about two
sofads, what she later guessed were light manacles, for she saw the warriors
passing among the poor creatures in the enclosure and about the right wrist of
each they fastened one of the manacles. When all had been thus fastened to the
rope one of the warriors commenced to pull and tug at the loose end as though
attempting to drag the headless company toward the tower, while the other went
among them with a long, light whip with which he flicked them upon the naked
skin. Slowly, dully, the creatures rose to their feet and between the tugging of the
warrior in front and the lashing of him behind the hopeless band was finally
herded within the tower. Tara of Helium shuddered as she turned away. What
manner of creatures were these?
Suddenly it was night. The Barsoomian day had ended, and then the brief period
of twilight that renders the transition from daylight to darkness almost as abrupt
as the switching off of an electric light, and Tara of Helium had found no
sanctuary. But perhaps there were no beasts to fear, or rather to avoid--Tara of
Helium liked not the word fear. She would have been glad, however, had there
been a cabin, even a very tiny cabin, upon her small flier; but there was no cabin.
The interior of the hull was completely taken up by the buoyancy tanks. Ah, she
had it! How stupid of her not to have thought of it before! She could moor the
craft to the tree beneath which it rested and let it rise the length of the rope.
Lashed to the deck rings she would then be safe from any roaming beast of prey
that chanced along. In the morning she could drop to the ground again before the
craft was discovered.
As Tara of Helium crept over the brow of the hill down toward the valley, her
presence was hidden by the darkness of the night from the sight of any chance
observer who might be loitering by a window in the nearby tower. Cluros, the
farther moon, was just rising above the horizon to commence his leisurely
journey through the heavens. Eight zodes later he would set--a trifle over
nineteen and a half Earth hours--and during that time Thuria, his vivacious
mate, would have circled the planet twice and be more than half way around on
her third trip. She had but just set. It would be more than three and a half hours
before she shot above the opposite horizon to hurtle, swift and low, across the
face of the dying planet. During this temporary absence of the mad moon Tara of
Helium hoped to find both food and water, and gain again the safety of her flier's
deck.
She groped her way through the darkness, giving the tower and its enclosure as
wide a berth as possible. Sometimes she stumbled, for in the long shadows cast
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