The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: in another moment the three stood behind solid ranks
of huge bowmen who hurled taunts and menaces at the
advancing company emerging from the walled city.
Jav was a new man the moment his battalions stood
between him and Tario. One could almost have sworn
the man believed these creatures of his strange hypnotic
power to be real flesh and blood.
With hoarse battle cries they charged the bowmen of Tario.
Barbed shafts flew thick and fast. Men fell, and the
ground was red with gore.
Carthoris and Thuvia had difficulty in reconciling the
 Thuvia, Maid of Mars |