Jav sat up and gazed at the spectacle before him-the slender girl weaving her fingers in the tawny mane of the huge creature that he had thought divine, while Komal rubbed his hideous snout against her side.
«So this is your god!» laughed Thuvia.
Jav looked bewildered. He scarce knew whether he dare chance offending Komal or not, for so strong is the power of superstition that even though we know that we have been reverencing a sham, yet still we hesitate to admit the validity of our new-found convictions.
«Yes,» he said, «this is Komal. For ages the enemies of Tario have been hurled to this pit to fill his maw, for Komal must be fed.»
«Is there any way out of this chamber to the avenues of the city?» asked Carthoris.
Jav shrugged.
«I do not know,» he replied. «Never have I been here before, nor ever have I cared to do so.»
«Come,» suggested Thuvia, «let us explore. There must be a way out.»
Together the three approached the doorway through which Komal had entered the apartment that was to have witnessed their deaths. Beyond was a low-roofed lair, with a small door at the far end.
This, to their delight, opened to the lifting of an ordinary latch, letting them into a circular arena, surrounded by tiers of seats.
«Here is where Komal is fed in public,» explained Jav. «Had Tario dared it would have been here that our fates had been sealed; but he feared too much thy keen blade, red man, and so he hurled us all downward to the pit. I did not know how closely connected were the two chambers. Now we may easily reach the avenues and the city gates. Only the bowmen may dispute the right of way, and, knowing their secret, I doubt that they have power to harm us.»
Another door led to a flight of steps that rose from the arena level upward through the seats to an exit at the back of the hall. Beyond this was a straight, broad corridor, running directly through the palace to the gardens at the side.
No one appeared to question them as they advanced, mighty Komal pacing by the girl's side.
«Where are the people of the palace-the jeddak's retinue?» asked Carthoris. «Even in the city streets as we came through I scarce saw sign of a human being, yet all about are evidences of a mighty population.»
Jav sighed.
«Poor Lothar,» he said. «It is indeed a city of ghosts. There are scarce a thousand of us left, who once were numbered in the millions. Our great city is peopled by the creatures of our own imaginings. For our own needs we do not take the trouble to materialize these peoples of our brain, yet they are apparent to us.
«Even now I see great throngs lining the avenue, hastening to and fro in the round of their duties. I see women and children laughing on the balconies-these we are forbidden to materialize; but yet I see them-they are here. . But why not?» he mused. «No longer need I fear Tario-he has done his worst, and failed. Why not indeed?
«Stay, friends,» he continued. «Would you see Lothar in all her glory?»
Carthoris and Thuvia nodded their assent, more out of courtesy than because they fully grasped the import of his mutterings.
Jav gazed at them penetratingly for an instant, then, with a wave of his hand, cried: «Look!»
The sight that met them was awe-inspiring. Where before there had been naught but deserted pavements and scarlet swards, yawning windows and tenantless doors, now swarmed a countless multitude of happy, laughing people.
«It is the past,» said Jav in a low voice. «They do not see us-they but live the old dead past of ancient Lothar-the dead and crumbled Lothar of antiquity, which stood upon the shore of Throxus, mightiest of the five oceans.
«See those fine, upstanding men swinging along the broad avenue? See the young girls and the women smile upon them? See the men greet them with love and respect? Those be seafarers coming up from their ships which lie at the quays at the city's edge.
«Brave men, they-ah, but the glory of Lothar has faded! See their weapons. They alone bore arms, for they crossed the five seas to strange places where dangers were. With their passing passed the martial spirit of the Lotharians, leaving, as the ages rolled by, a race of spineless cowards.
«We hated war, and so we trained not our youth in warlike ways. Thus followed our undoing, for when the seas dried and the green hordes encroached upon us we could do naught but flee. But we remembered the seafaring bowmen of the days of our glory-it is the memory of these which we hurl upon our enemies.»
As Jav ceased speaking, the picture faded, and once more, the three took up their way toward the distant gates, along deserted avenues.
Twice they sighted Lotharians of flesh and blood. At sight of them and the huge banth which they must have recognized as Komal, the citizens turned and fled.
«They will carry word of our flight to Tario,» cried Jav, «and soon he will send his bowmen after us. Let us hope that our theory is correct, and that their shafts are powerless against minds cognizant of their unreality. Otherwise we are doomed.
«Explain, red man, to the woman the truths that I have explained to you, that she may meet the arrows with a stronger counter-suggestion of immunity.»
Carthoris did as Jav bid him; but they came to the great gates without sign of pursuit developing. Here Jav set in motion the mechanism that rolled the huge, wheel-like gate aside, and a moment later the three, accompanied by the banth, stepped out into the plain before Lothar.
Scarce had they covered a hundred yards when the sound of many men shouting arose behind them. As they turned they saw a company of bowmen debouching upon the plain from the gate through which they had but just passed.
Upon the wall above the gate were a number of Lotharians, among whom Jav recognized Tario. The jeddak stood glaring at them, evidently concentrating all the forces of his trained mind upon them. That he was making a supreme effort to render his imaginary creatures deadly was apparent.
Jav turned white, and commenced to tremble. At the crucial moment he appeared to lose the courage of his conviction. The great banth turned back toward the advancing bowmen and growled. Carthoris placed himself between Thuvia and the enemy and, facing them, awaited the outcome of their charge.
Suddenly an inspiration came to Carthoris.
«Hurl your own bowmen against Tario's!» he cried to Jav. «Let us see a materialized battle between two mentalities.»
The suggestion seemed to hearten the Lotharian, and in another moment the three stood behind solid ranks of huge bowmen who hurled taunts and menaces at the advancing company emerging from the walled city.
Jav was a new man the moment his battalions stood between him and Tario. One could almost have sworn the man believed these creatures of his strange hypnotic power to be real flesh and blood.
With hoarse battle cries they charged the bowmen of Tario. Barbed shafts flew thick and fast. Men fell, and the ground was red with gore.
Carthoris and Thuvia had difficulty in reconciling the reality of it all with their knowledge of the truth. They saw utan after utan march from the gate in perfect step to reinforce the outnumbered company which Tario had first sent forth to arrest them.
They saw Jav's forces grow correspondingly until all about them rolled a sea of fighting, cursing warriors, and the dead lay in heaps about the field.
Jav and Tario seemed to have forgotten all else beside the struggling bowmen that surged to and fro, filling the broad field between the forest and the city.
The wood loomed close behind Thuvia and Carthoris. The latter cast a glance toward Jav.
«Come!» he whispered to the girl. «Let them fight out their empty battle-neither, evidently, has power to harm the other. They are like two controversialists hurling words at one another. While they are engaged we may as well be devoting our energies to an attempt to find the passage through the cliffs to the plain beyond.»
As he spoke, Jav, turning from the battle for an instant, caught his words. He saw the girl move to accompany the Heliumite. A cunning look leaped to the Lotharian's eyes.