Kontos Kan infiltrates the palace to assassinate Sabu Tan

Kantos Kan’s attempt to reach Sab Than is a plan of rescue and political violence born from a private confession: he will enter the palace and kill the prince who stands between Dejah Thoris and John Carter. Its decisive significance lies in the way the escape becomes a two-pronged operation. Kantos Kan undertakes the palace attack, while John Carter sets out for Helium, and both risks converge in a flight through Zodanga’s guarded skies.

Causes and Commitment

Kantos Kan first learns that John Carter loves Dejah Thoris and asks whether she knows. John Carter answers that she does, but rejects him only because she is promised to Sab Than. The revelation changes the conversation from personal confidence to action. Kantos Kan springs to his feet, grips John Carter by the shoulder, raises his sword, and pledges that Sab Than will die by its point, for his love of Helium, Dejah Thoris, and John Carter.

The pledge carries more than a lover’s sympathy. Kantos Kan binds together his loyalty to Helium, his affection for Dejah Thoris, and his friendship with John Carter, making the proposed assassination serve all three. He promises to try to reach Sab Than’s quarters that very night. John Carter immediately questions how he can do so: the palace is strongly guarded, and a quadruple force patrols the sky.

The Secret Passage and the Escape Plan

Kantos Kan’s answer rests on knowledge acquired during his air-scout patrol duty. He had once noticed a face peering from the pinnacle of the palace’s highest tower and investigated the unusual sight. The face belonged to Sab Than, who, after being discovered, ordered him to keep the matter secret and explained that a passage from the tower led directly to his apartments. Sab Than claimed that only he knew of it; Kantos Kan’s accidental discovery gives the intended attacker an entrance into the prince’s private quarters.

The passage alone cannot solve the problem of reaching the palace. Kantos Kan says he could get there in five minutes if he could reach the roof of the barracks and take his machine, but worries about escaping the building where he and John Carter are held. Asked about the machine sheds, he says only one man is usually on duty there at night. John Carter tells him to wait on the building’s roof, then leaves without explaining his plan.

John Carter retraces his way to the street and hurries to the barracks, avoiding entry because it is filled with air-scout squadron members and Zodanga is watching for him. The structure rises about a thousand feet; only a few buildings in the city are taller, including battleship docks at roughly fifteen hundred feet and merchant-squadron stations that rise nearly as high. John Carter climbs the ornate exterior, using its ledges and projections like a ladder. At the eaves, which project nearly twenty feet from the wall, he finds no opening and circles the building without discovering a way through.

The Barracks Roof and the Divided Mission

The account supplied here does not detail how John Carter overcomes the eaves. It does record the rooftop guard’s defeat: drawn by curiosity, the man steps beside John Carter to look over the edge. John Carter seizes him by the throat and pistol arm, throws him onto the roof, suppresses his cry, and binds and gags him. He hangs the guard over the roof’s edge as he himself had been hanging moments earlier, expecting the man will not be discovered until morning and buying time for the escape.

John Carter puts on his trappings and weapons, takes out both his own machine and Kantos Kan’s, and secures Kantos Kan’s behind his. He starts his engine and dives from the roof into streets below the level usually occupied by the air patrol. In less than a minute he lands safely on the roof of their apartment, where Kantos Kan is astonished to see him return with both machines. The difficult climb has become the means to recover the mobility needed for their plan.

They quickly settle their immediate objectives. John Carter will try to make Helium; Kantos Kan will enter the palace and dispatch Sab Than, then follow John Carter if successful. Kantos Kan sets John Carter’s compass toward a chosen point on the surface of Barsoom. They bid each other farewell and rise together, heading toward the palace, which lies along John Carter’s route to Helium. Their departure makes the split in their mission literal: they travel together only until the attack and the journey onward diverge.

Pursuit and Outcome in the Supplied Scene

As they approach the high tower, a patrol drops from above, throws its searchlight across John Carter’s craft, and orders him to halt. When he ignores the hail, the patrol fires. Kantos Kan drops quickly into darkness while John Carter climbs at speed, pursued by a dozen air-scout craft and later by a swift cruiser carrying a hundred men and rapid-fire guns. John Carter evades the searchlights by twisting, rising, and falling, but loses ground in the process; he finally chooses a straight course and entrusts the outcome to fate and his machine’s speed.

That machine has a further advantage: Kantos Kan has shown John Carter a gearing trick known only to Helium’s navy, greatly increasing its speed. John Carter believes he can outdistance the pursuers if he can dodge their projectiles for a few moments. The episode leaves the assassination at the threshold of its execution. Kantos Kan has separated into the darkness to carry out the palace mission, while the supplied scene follows John Carter’s flight; it does not establish whether Kantos Kan reaches Sab Than, whether the prince is killed, or whether Kantos Kan later catches up with John Carter.

Narrative Role

The plan joins personal loyalty to the larger conflict between Helium and Zodanga without treating them as separate motives. Kantos Kan’s knowledge of the secret passage turns a chance discovery into a tactical opportunity, while John Carter’s climb, seizure of the guard, and recovery of the machines make that opportunity usable. The scene moves through successive obstacles—surveillance, a sheer wall, obstructing eaves, a rooftop guard, and an air pursuit—so that escape is not a single break from confinement but a chain of improvised actions.

The contrast between the two men’s tasks gives the departure its tension. Kantos Kan heads toward a concealed entrance and a direct attempt on Sab Than; John Carter must survive the visible pursuit and continue toward Helium. Their farewell is therefore both an act of trust and the point at which the plan divides. Because the supplied episode ends with John Carter under fire rather than with the palace attack, Kantos Kan’s vow remains a commitment and intended objective here, not a confirmed killing.