"Now I am different. Now could I love as Dejah Thoris loves, and
so my only happiness can be to know that you and she are once more
united, for in her alone can you find true happiness.
"But I am unhappy because of the wickedness that I have wrought. I
have many sins to expiate, and though I be deathless, life is all
too short for the atonement.
"But there is another way, and if Phaidor, daughter of the Holy
Hekkador of the Holy Therns, has sinned she has this day already
made partial reparation, and lest you doubt the sincerity of her
protestations and her avowal of a new love that embraces Dejah
Thoris also, she will prove her sincerity in the only way that
lies open--having saved you for another, Phaidor leaves you to her
embraces."
With her last word she turned and leaped from the vessel's deck
into the abyss below.
With a cry of horror I sprang forward in a vain attempt to save the
life that for two years I would so gladly have seen extinguished.
I was too late.
With tear-dimmed eyes I turned away that I might not see the awful
sight beneath.
A moment later I had struck the bonds from Dejah Thoris, and as her
dear arms went about my neck and her perfect lips pressed to mine
I forgot the horrors that I had witnessed and the suffering that
I had endured in the rapture of my reward.
THE NEW RULER
The flier upon whose deck Dejah Thoris and I found ourselves after
twelve long years of separation proved entirely useless.
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