“Kar Komak—the man!” he shouted. “Grip yourself! Remember the days of the glory of the seafarers of Lothar. Fight! Fight, man! Fight as never man fought before. All that remains to us is to die fighting.” Kar Komak turned toward the Heliumite, a grim smile upon his lips. “Why should we fight,” he asked. “Against such fearful odds? There is another way—a better way. Look!” He pointed toward the companion-way that led below deck. The green men, a handful of them, had already reached the _Thuria_’s deck, as Carthoris glanced in the direction the Lotharian had indicated. The sight that met his eyes set his heart to thumping in joy and relief—Thuvia of Ptarth might yet be saved? For from below there poured a stream of giant bowmen, grim and terrible. Not the bowmen of Tario or Jav, but the bowmen of an odwar of bowmen—savage fighting men, eager for the fray. The green warriors paused in momentary surprise and consternation, but only for a moment. Then with horrid war-cries they leaped forward to meet these strange, new foemen. A volley of arrows stopped them in their tracks. In a moment the only green warriors upon the deck of the _Thuria_ were dead warriors, and the bowmen of Kar Komak were leaping over the vessel’s sides to charge the hordesmen upon the ground. Utan after utan tumbled from the bowels of the _Thuria_ to launch themselves upon the unfortunate green men. Kulan Tith and his Kaolians stood wide-eyed and speechless with amazement as they saw thousands of these strange, fierce warriors emerge from the companion-way of the small craft that could not comfortably have accommodated more than fifty. At last the green men could withstand the onslaught of overwhelming numbers no longer. Slowly, at first, they fell back across the ochre plain. The bowmen pursued them. Kar Komak, standing upon the deck of the _Thuria_, trembled with excitement. At the top of his lungs he voiced the savage war-cry of his forgotten day. He roared encouragement and commands at his battling utans, and then, as they charged further and further from the _Thuria_, he could no longer withstand the lure of battle. Leaping over the ship’s side to the ground, he joined the last of his bowmen as they raced off over the dead sea-bottom in pursuit of the fleeing green horde. Beyond a low promontory of what once had been an island the green men were disappearing toward the west. Close upon their heels raced the fleet bowmen of a bygone day, and forging steadily ahead among them Carthoris and Thuvia could see the mighty figure of Kar Komak, brandishing aloft the Torquasian short-sword with which he was armed, as he urged his creatures after the retreating enemy. As the last of them disappeared behind the promontory, Carthoris turned toward Thuvia of Ptarth.