Momentarily stunned, Gahan’s fingers slipped from their hold upon the cordage and the man shot downward through the thin air of dying Mars toward the ground three thousand feet beneath, while upon the deck of the rolling Vanator his faithful warriors clung to their lashings all unconscious of the fate of their beloved leader; nor was it until more than an hour later, after the storm had materially subsided, that they realized he was lost, or knew the self-sacrificing heroism of the act that had sealed his doom.  The Vanator now rested upon an even keel as she was carried along by a strong, though steady, wind.  The warriors had cast off their deck lashings and the officers were taking account of losses and damage when a weak cry was heard from oversides, attracting their attention to the man hanging in the cordage beneath the keel.  Strong arms hoisted him to the deck and then it was that the crew of the Vanator learned of the heroism of their jed and his end.  How far they had traveled since his loss they could only vaguely guess, nor could they return in search of him in the disabled condition of the ship.  It was a saddened company that drifted onward through the air toward whatever destination Fate was to choose for them.

And Gahan, Jed of Gathol—­what of him?  Plummet-like he fell for a thousand feet and then the storm seized him in its giant clutch and bore him far aloft again.  As a bit of paper borne upon a gale he was tossed about in mid-air, the sport and plaything of the wind.  Over and over it turned him and upward and downward it carried him, but after each new sally of the element he was brought nearer to the ground.  The freaks of cyclonic storms are the rule of cyclonic storms, demolish giant trees, and in the same gust they transport frail infants for miles and deposit them unharmed in their wake.

And so it was with Gahan of Gathol.  Expecting momentarily to be dashed to destruction he presently found himself deposited gently upon the soft, ochre moss of a dead sea-bottom, bodily no worse off for his harrowing adventure than in the possession of a slight swelling upon his forehead where the metal hook had struck him.  Scarcely able to believe that Fate had dealt thus gently with him, the jed arose slowly, as though more than half convinced that he should discover crushed and splintered bones that would not support his weight.  But he was intact.  He looked about him in a vain effort at orientation.  The air was filled with flying dust and debris.  The Sun was obliterated.  His vision was confined to a radius of a few hundred yards of ochre moss and dust-filled air.  Five hundred yards away in any direction there might have arisen the walls of a great city and he not known it.  It was useless to move from where he was until the air cleared, since he could not know in what direction he was moving, and so he stretched himself upon the moss and waited, pondering the fate of his warriors and his ship, but giving little thought to his own precarious situation.