Her stern buoyancy tanks prevented her dropping with great rapidity;
but Thurid was firing rapidly now in an attempt to burst these
also, that I might be dashed to death in the swift fall that would
instantly follow a successful shot.
Shot after shot tore past or into us, but by a miracle neither
Woola nor I was hit, nor were the after tanks punctured. This
good fortune could not last indefinitely, and, assured that Thurid
would not again leave me alive, I awaited the bursting of the next
shell that hit; and then, throwing my hands above my head, I let go
my hold and crumpled, limp and inert, dangling in my harness like
a corpse.
The ruse worked, and Thurid fired no more at us. Presently I heard
the diminishing sound of whirring propellers and realized that
again I was safe.
Slowly the stricken flier sank to the ground, and when I had freed
myself and Woola from the entangling wreckage I found that we were
upon the verge of a natural forest--so rare a thing upon the bosom
of dying Mars that, outside of the forest in the Valley Dor beside
the Lost Sea of Korus, I never before had seen its like upon the
planet.
From books and travelers I had learned something of the little-known
land of Kaol, which lies along the equator almost halfway round
the planet to the east of Helium.
It comprises a sunken area of extreme tropical heat, and is inhabited
by a nation of red men varying but little in manners, customs, and
appearance from the balance of the red men of Barsoom.
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