Page:The gods of Mars.djvu/336

318 Dejah Thoris for the sacrilege of her son and her husband.

"And where is Dejah Thoris now?" I asked, knowing that he would say the words I most dreaded, but yet I loved her so that I could not refrain from hearing even the worst about her fate so that it fell from the lips of one who had seen her but recently. It was to me as though it brought her closer to me.

"Yesterday the monthly rites of Issus were held," replied Yersted, "and I saw her then sitting in her accustomed place at the foot of Issus."

"What," I cried, "she is not dead, then?"

"Why, no," replied the black, "it has been no year since she gazed upon the divine glory of the radiant face of"

"No year?" I interrupted.

"Why, no," insisted Yersted. "It cannot have been upward of three hundred seventy or eighty days."

A great light burst upon me. How stupid I had been! I could scarce restrain an outward exhibition of my great joy. Why had I forgotten the great difference in the length of Martian and earthly years! The ten Earth years I had spent upon Barsoom had encompassed but five years and ninety-six days of Martian time, whose days are forty-one minutes longer than ours, and whose years number six hundred eighty-seven days.

I am in time! I am in time! The words surged