"The identity of the abductors of Sanoma Tora is established," I said, and then I turned to the majordomo. "Send a messenger at once to the Warlord informing him that the daughter of Tor Hatan was stolen by men from Jahar and that it is my belief that they are the emissaries of Tul Axtar, Jeddak of Jahar," and without more words I turned and left the palace, going directly to my flier. As I arose above the towers and domes and lofty landing stages of Greater Helium, I turned the prow of my flier toward the west and opening wide the throttle sped swiftly through the thin air of dying Barsoom toward that great unknown expanse of her remote southwestern hemisphere, somewhere within the vast reaches of which lay Jahar, toward which, I was now convinced, Sanoma Tora was being borne to become not the Jeddara of Tul Axtar, but his slave, for jeddaks take not their jeddaras by force upon Barsoom. I believe that I understood the explanation of Sanoma Tora's abduction, an explanation that would have caused her intensive chagrin since it was far from flattery. I believed that Tul Axtar's emissary had reported to his master the charm and beauty of the daughter of Tor Hatan, but that she was not of sufficiently noble birth to become his jeddara, and so he had adopted the only expedient by which he might possess her. My blood boiled at the suggestion, but my judgment told me that it was doubtless right. During the past years--I should say the last ten or twenty--greater strides have been taken in the advancement of aeronautics than had been previously achieved in the preceding five hundred years. The perfection of the destination control compass by Carthoris of Helium is considered by many authorities to have marked the beginning of a new era of invention. For centuries we seemed to have stagnated in a quiet pond of self sufficiency, as though we had reached the acme of perfection beyond which it was useless to seek for improvement upon what we considered the highest possible achievements of science. Carthoris of Helium, inheriting the restless, inquiring mind of his earth-born sire, awoke us. Our best minds took up the challenge and the result was rapid improvement in design and construction of air ships of all classes, leading to a revolution in motor building. We had thought that our light, compact, powerful radium motors never could be improved upon and that man never would travel, either safely or economically, at a speed greater than that attained by our swift one-man scout fliers--about eleven hundred haads per zode (_Note: Approximately one hundred and sixty-six earth miles per hour_), when a virtually unknown padwar in the navy of Helium announced that he had perfected a motor that, with one-half the weight of our present motors, would develop twice the speed.