In Captain Carter's
manuscript it is mentioned always by the name used in the written
language of Helium and is spelled in hieroglyphics which it would be
difficult and useless to reproduce.]
While I was much interested in Dejah Thoris' explanation of this
wonderful adjunct to Martian warfare, I was more concerned by the
immediate problem of their treatment of her. That they were keeping
her away from me was not a matter for surprise, but that they should
subject her to dangerous and arduous labor filled me with rage.
"Have they ever subjected you to cruelty and ignominy, Dejah
Thoris?" I asked, feeling the hot blood of my fighting ancestors
leap in my veins as I awaited her reply.
"Only in little ways, John Carter," she answered. "Nothing that can
harm me outside my pride. They know that I am the daughter of ten
thousand jeddaks, that I trace my ancestry straight back without a
break to the builder of the first great waterway, and they, who do
not even know their own mothers, are jealous of me. At heart they
hate their horrid fates, and so wreak their poor spite on me who
stand for everything they have not, and for all they most crave and
never can attain.
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