"Where am I?" she asked. The voice was that of an old woman-high and harsh. A startled expression filled her eyes. "What is the matter with me? What is wrong with my voice? What has happened?"
I laid a hand upon her forehead. "Don't bother about it now," I said, soothingly. "Wait until sometime when you are stronger. Then I will tell you."
She sat up. "I am strong," she said, and then her eyes swept her lower body and limbs and a look of utter horror crossed her face. "What has happened to me? In the name of my first ancestor, what has happened to me?"
The shrill, harsh voice grated upon me. It was the voice of Xaxa and Xaxa now must possess the sweet musical tones that alone would have harmonized with the beautiful face she had stolen. I tried to forget those strident notes and think only of the pulchritude of the envelope that had once graced the soul within this old and withered carcass.
She extended a hand and laid it gently upon mine. The act was beautiful, the movements graceful. The brain of the girl directed the muscles, but the old, rough vocal cords of Xaxa could give forth no sweeter notes. "Tell me, please!" she begged. There were tears in the old eyes, I'll venture for the first time in many years. "Tell me! You do not seem unkind."
And so I told her. She listened intently and when I was through she sighed.
"After all," she said, "it is not so dreadful, now that I really know. It is better than being dead." That made me glad that I had pressed the button. She was glad to be alive, even draped in the hideous carcass of Xaxa. I told her as much.
"You were so beautiful," I told her.
"And now I am so ugly?" I made no answer.
"After all, what difference does it make?" she inquired presently. "This old body cannot change me, or make me different from what I have always been. The good in me remains and whatever of sweetness and kindness, and I can be happy to be alive and perhaps to do some good. I was terrified at first, because I did not know what had happened to me. I thought that maybe I had contracted some terrible disease that had so altered me-that horrified me; but now that I know-pouf! what of it?"
"You are wonderful," I said. "Most women would have gone mad with the horror and grief of it-to lose such wondrous beauty as was yours- and you do not care."
"Oh, yes, I care, my friend," she corrected me, "but I do not care enough to ruin my life in all other respects because of it, or to cast a shadow upon the lives of those around me. I have had my beauty and enjoyed it. It is not an unalloyed happiness I can assure you. Men killed one another because of it; two great nations went to war because of it; and perhaps my father lost his throne or his life-I do not know, for I was captured by the enemy while the war still raged. It may be raging yet and men dying because I was too beautiful. No one will fight for me now, though," she added, with a rueful smile.
"Do you know how long you have been here?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied. "It was the day before yesterday that they brought me hither."
"It was ten years ago," I told her.
"Ten years! Impossible."
I pointed to the corpses around us. "You have lain like this for ten years," I explained. "There are subjects here who have lain thus for fifty, Ras Thavas tells me."
"Ten years! Ten years! What may not have happened in ten years! It is better thus. I should fear to go back now. I should not want to know that my father, my mother too, perhaps, were gone. It is better thus. Perhaps you will let me sleep again? May I not?"
"That remains with Ras Thavas," I replied; "but for a while I am to observe you."
"Observe me?"
"Study you-your reactions."
"Ah! and what good will that do?"
"It may do some good in the world."
"It may give this horrid Ras Thavas some new ideas for his torture chamber-some new scheme for coining money from the suffering of his victims," she said, her harsh voice saddened.
"Some of his works are good," I told her. "The money he makes permits him to maintain this wonderful establishment where he constantly carries on countless experiments. Many of his operations are beneficent. Yesterday a warrior was brought in whose arm was crushed beyond repair. Ras Thavas gave him a new arm. A demented child was brought. Ras Thavas gave her a new brain. The arm and the brain were taken from two who had met violent deaths. Through Ras Thavas they were permitted, after death, to give life and happiness to others."
She thought for a moment. "I am content," she said. "I only hope that you will always be the observer."
Presently Ras Thavas came and examined her. "A good subject," he said. He looked at the chart where I had made a very brief record following the other entries relative to the history of Case No. 4296-E-2631-H. Of course this is, naturally, a rather free translation of this particular identification number. The Barsoomians have no alphabet such as ours and their numbering system is quite different. The thirteen characters above were represented by four Toonolian characters, yet the meaning was quite the same-they represented, in contracted form, the case number, the room, the table and the building.
"The subject will be quartered near you where you may regularly observe it," continued Ras Thavas. "There is a chamber adjoining yours. I will see that it is unlocked. Take the subject there. When not under your observation, lock it in."
It was only another case to him.
I took the girl, if I may so call her, to her quarters. On the way I asked her her name, for it seemed to me an unnecessary discourtesy always to address her and refer to her as 4296-E-2631-H, and this I explained to her.
"It is considerate of you to think of that," she said, "but really that is all that I am here-just another subject for vivisection."
"You are more than that to me," I told her. "You are friendless and helpless. I want to be of service to you-to make your lot easier if I can."
"Thank you again," she said. "My name is Valla Dia, and yours?"
"Ras Thavas calls me Vad Varo," I told her.
But that is not your name?"
"My name is Ulysses Paxton."
"It is a strange name, unlike any that I have ever heard, but you are unlike any man I have ever seen-you do not seem Barsoomian. Your colour is unlike that of any race."
"I am not of Barsoom, but from Earth, the planet you sometimes call Jasoom. That is why I differ in appearance from any you have known before."
"Jasoom! There is another Jasoomian here whose fame has reached to the remotest corners of Barsoom, but I never have seen him."
"John Carter?" I asked.
"Yes, The War Lord. He was of Helium and my people were not friendly with those of Helium. I never could understand how he came here. And now there is another from Jasoom-how can it be? How did you cross the great void?"
I shook my head. "I cannot even guess," I told her.
"Jasoom must be peopled with wonderful men," she said. It was a pretty compliment.
"As Barsoom is with beautiful women," I replied.
She glanced down ruefully at her old and wrinkled body.
"I have seen the real you," I said gently.
"I hate to think of my face," she said. "I know it is a frightful thing."
"It is not you, remember that when you see it and do not feel too bad."