"Tara!" he called in a loud voice, for he knew that there was no danger that their pursuers would return; but there was no response, unless it was a faint sound as of cackling laughter from afar. Hurriedly he searched the passageway behind the hangings finding several doors, one of which was ajar. Through this he entered the adjoining chamber which was lighted more brilliantly for the moment by the soft rays of hurtling Thuria taking her mad way through the heavens. Here he found the dust upon the floor disturbed, and the imprint⁵ of sandals. They had come this way—Tara and whatever the creature was that had stolen her.

 

But what could it have been? Gahan, a man of culture and high intelligence, held few if any superstitions⁶. In common with nearly all races of Barsoom he clung, more or less inherently, to a certain exalted⁷ form of ancestor worship, though it was rather the memory or legends of the virtues⁸ and heroic deeds of his forebears that he deified rather than themselves. He never expected any tangible⁹ evidence of their existence after death; he did not believe that they had the power either for good or for evil other than the effect that their example while living might have had upon following generations; he did not believe therefore in the materialization of dead spirits. If there was a life hereafter he knew nothing of it, for he knew that science had demonstrated the existence of some material cause for every seemingly supernatural phenomenon of ancient religions and superstitions. Yet he was at a loss to know what power might have removed Tara so suddenly and mysteriously from his side in a chamber that had not known the presence of man for five thousand years.

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