Lean, broken ribs thrust upward rudely through the golden sands, wooden-pegged planks still clinging forlornly to their splintered shafts. There had been metal, too ... copper, bronze, iron bolts, and silver trim on the poop. All had long since been looted by the wandering desert tribes who wandered furtively through these tremendous monuments of their forgotten past. From mound to mound Thorne trudged with a weary indifference. As well to die thus on his feet as face up in the sun. For die he must. Water there was none, and the only vegetation an occasional low death-bush with utter agony buried in its flat, leprous leaf-pads. A cluster of brilliant t'ang sprays glittered savagely in the shady lee of a shattered wreck, and Thorne shuddered. Here, too, death crept in wait, a death already fastened fang-deep in his sodden, pain-wracked body from a score of dingy Vulhan t'ang-hells. But what odds? The death from those dark and crimson fruits was quick and terrible, perhaps, but only quicker than the fate already lying in his veins. Let there be an end, even to this aimless wandering. Slowly Thorne walked up to the bush. There were many, growing in strange luxuriance along the dust-worn flanks of an ugly wreck half-buried in the sand. Other wrecks flanked it, three of them, lean, wicked skeletons of ancient Martian fighting ships, one with her broken prow yet buried in the freighter's bulging side. He touched the nearest plank and it drifted into powdered dust beneath his fingers, leaving a round hole in the grey wall. Again he put his hand through the ship's side. Another hole was puffed out as cleanly as by a dis-ray. Curiosity stirred in him once more. Picking up a stone, he broke open the wreck's side, bring down the entire flank in an almost soundless crash of powdering timbers and dissolving decks. The hold, pierced upon the farther side by the ram of the dead warship which had undoubtedly sunk the two of them, lay open to the sunlight, barred by the ragged shadows of the broken stern works. "Jars," muttered Thorne. The hold had been packed to the deck with fat, yet not ungraceful clay jars eight feet high and three wide. He lurched through the opening he had made. "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," he mumbled. Maxfield Parrish jars, Oriental and sinister enough to have held a pair of the ancient robber band. He patted one, and weak though the blow was, the jar dissolved into drifting mist. Thorne stared.