Title: Warlord of Mars
Author: Burroughs, Edgar Rice
Language: English
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The Warlord of Mars

by Edgar Rice Burroughs


Contents

 On the River Iss
 Under the Mountains
 The Temple of the Sun
 The Secret Tower
 On the Kaolian Road
 A Hero in Kaol
 New Allies
 Through the Carrion Caves
 With the Yellow Men
 In Durance
 The Pit of Plenty
 “Follow the Rope!”
 The Magnet Switch
 The Tide of Battle
 Rewards
 The New Ruler



ON THE RIVER ISS


In the shadows of the forest that flanks the crimson plain by the side
of the Lost Sea of Korus in the Valley Dor, beneath the hurtling moons
of Mars, speeding their meteoric way close above the bosom of the dying
planet, I crept stealthily along the trail of a shadowy form that
hugged the darker places with a persistency that proclaimed the
sinister nature of its errand.

For six long Martian months I had haunted the vicinity of the hateful
Temple of the Sun, within whose slow-revolving shaft, far beneath the
surface of Mars, my princess lay entombed—but whether alive or dead I
knew not. Had Phaidor’s slim blade found that beloved heart? Time only
would reveal the truth.

Six hundred and eighty-seven Martian days must come and go before the
cell’s door would again come opposite the tunnel’s end where last I had
seen my ever-beautiful Dejah Thoris.

Half of them had passed, or would on the morrow, yet vivid in my
memory, obliterating every event that had come before or after, there
remained the last scene before the gust of smoke blinded my eyes and
the narrow slit that had given me sight of the interior of her cell
closed between me and the Princess of Helium for a long Martian year.

As if it were yesterday, I still saw the beautiful face of Phaidor,
daughter of Matai Shang, distorted with jealous rage and hatred as she
sprang forward with raised dagger upon the woman I loved.

I saw the red girl, Thuvia of Ptarth, leap forward to prevent the
hideous deed.

The smoke from the burning temple had come then to blot out the
tragedy, but in my ears rang the single shriek as the knife fell. Then
silence, and when the smoke had cleared, the revolving temple had shut
off all sight or sound from the chamber in which the three beautiful
women were imprisoned.

Much there had been to occupy my attention since that terrible moment;
but never for an instant had the memory of the thing faded, and all the
time that I could spare from the numerous duties that had devolved upon
me in the reconstruction of the government of the First Born since our
victorious fleet and land forces had overwhelmed them, had been spent
close to the grim shaft that held the mother of my boy, Carthoris of
Helium.

The race of blacks that for ages had worshiped Issus, the false deity
of Mars, had been left in a state of chaos by my revealment of her as
naught more than a wicked old woman. In their rage they had torn her to
pieces.

From the high pinnacle of their egotism the First Born had been plunged
to the depths of humiliation. Their deity was gone, and with her the
whole false fabric of their religion. Their vaunted navy had fallen in
defeat before the superior ships and fighting men of the red men of
Helium.

Fierce green warriors from the ocher sea bottoms of outer Mars had
ridden their wild thoats across the sacred gardens of the Temple of
Issus, and Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, fiercest of them all, had sat
upon the throne of Issus and ruled the First Born while the allies were
deciding the conquered nation’s fate.

Almost unanimous was the request that I ascend the ancient throne of
the black men, even the First Born themselves concurring in it; but I
would have none of it. My heart could never be with the race that had
heaped indignities upon my princess and my son.

At my suggestion Xodar became Jeddak of the First Born. He had been a
dator, or prince, until Issus had degraded him, so that his fitness for
the high office bestowed was unquestioned.

The peace of the Valley Dor thus assured, the green warriors dispersed
to their desolate sea bottoms, while we of Helium returned to our own
country. Here again was a throne offered me, since no word had been
received from the missing Jeddak of Helium, Tardos Mors, grandfather of
Dejah Thoris, or his son, Mors Kajak, Jed of Helium, her father.

Over a year had elapsed since they had set out to explore the northern
hemisphere in search of Carthoris, and at last their disheartened
people had accepted as truth the vague rumors of their death that had
filtered in from the frozen region of the pole.

Once again I refused a throne, for I would not believe that the mighty
Tardos Mors, or his no less redoubtable son, was dead.

“Let one of their own blood rule you until they return,” I said to the
assembled nobles of Helium, as I addressed them from the Pedestal of
Truth beside the Throne of Righteousness in the Temple of Reward, from
the very spot where I had stood a year before when Zat Arras pronounced
the sentence of death upon me.

As I spoke I stepped forward and laid my hand upon the shoulder of
Carthoris where he stood in the front rank of the circle of nobles
about me.

As one, the nobles and the people lifted their voices in a long cheer
of approbation. Ten thousand swords sprang on high from as many
scabbards, and the glorious fighting men of ancient Helium hailed
Carthoris Jeddak of Helium.

His tenure of office was to be for life or until his great-grandfather,
or grandfather, should return. Having thus satisfactorily arranged this
important duty for Helium, I started the following day for the Valley
Dor that I might remain close to the Temple of the Sun until the
fateful day that should see the opening of the prison cell where my
lost love lay buried.

Hor Vastus and Kantos Kan, with my other noble lieutenants, I left with
Carthoris at Helium, that he might have the benefit of their wisdom,
bravery, and loyalty in the performance of the arduous duties which had
devolved upon him. Only Woola, my Martian hound, accompanied me.

At my heels tonight the faithful beast moved softly in my tracks. As
large as a Shetland pony, with hideous head and frightful fangs, he was
indeed an awesome spectacle, as he crept after me on his ten short,
muscular legs; but to me he was the embodiment of love and loyalty.

The figure ahead was that of the black dator of the First Born, Thurid,
whose undying enmity I had earned that time I laid him low with my bare
hands in the courtyard of the Temple of Issus, and bound him with his
own harness before the noble men and women who had but a moment before
been extolling his prowess.

Like many of his fellows, he had apparently accepted the new order of
things with good grace, and had sworn fealty to Xodar, his new ruler;
but I knew that he hated me, and I was sure that in his heart he envied
and hated Xodar, so I had kept a watch upon his comings and goings, to
the end that of late I had become convinced that he was occupied with
some manner of intrigue.

Several times I had observed him leaving the walled city of the First
Born after dark, taking his way out into the cruel and horrible Valley
Dor, where no honest business could lead any man.

Tonight he moved quickly along the edge of the forest until well beyond
sight or sound of the city, then he turned across the crimson sward
toward the shore of the Lost Sea of Korus.

The rays of the nearer moon, swinging low across the valley, touched
his jewel-incrusted harness with a thousand changing lights and glanced
from the glossy ebony of his smooth hide. Twice he turned his head back
toward the forest, after the manner of one who is upon an evil errand,
though he must have felt quite safe from pursuit.

I did not dare follow him there beneath the moonlight, since it best
suited my plans not to interrupt his—I wished him to reach his
destination unsuspecting, that I might learn just where that
destination lay and the business that awaited the night prowler there.

So it was that I remained hidden until after Thurid had disappeared
over the edge of the steep bank beside the sea a quarter of a mile
away. Then, with Woola following, I hastened across the open after the
black dator.

The quiet of the tomb lay upon the mysterious valley of death,
crouching deep in its warm nest within the sunken area at the south
pole of the dying planet. In the far distance the Golden Cliffs raised
their mighty barrier faces far into the starlit heavens, the precious
metals and scintillating jewels that composed them sparkling in the
brilliant light of Mars’s two gorgeous moons.

At my back was the forest, pruned and trimmed like the sward to
parklike symmetry by the browsing of the ghoulish plant men.

Before me lay the Lost Sea of Korus, while farther on I caught the
shimmering ribbon of Iss, the River of Mystery, where it wound out from
beneath the Golden Cliffs to empty into Korus, to which for countless
ages had been borne the deluded and unhappy Martians of the outer world
upon the voluntary pilgrimage to this false heaven.

The plant men, with their blood-sucking hands, and the monstrous white
apes that make Dor hideous by day, were hidden in their lairs for the
night.

There was no longer a Holy Thern upon the balcony in the Golden Cliffs
above the Iss to summon them with weird cry to the victims floating
down to their maws upon the cold, broad bosom of ancient Iss.

The navies of Helium and the First Born had cleared the fortresses and
the temples of the therns when they had refused to surrender and accept
the new order of things that had swept their false religion from
long-suffering Mars.

In a few isolated countries they still retained their age-old power;
but Matai Shang, their hekkador, Father of Therns, had been driven from
his temple. Strenuous had been our endeavors to capture him; but with a
few of the faithful he had escaped, and was in hiding—where we knew
not.

As I came cautiously to the edge of the low cliff overlooking the Lost
Sea of Korus I saw Thurid pushing out upon the bosom of the shimmering
water in a small skiff—one of those strangely wrought craft of
unthinkable age which the Holy Therns, with their organization of
priests and lesser therns, were wont to distribute along the banks of
the Iss, that the long journey of their victims might be facilitated.

Drawn up on the beach below me were a score of similar boats, each with
its long pole, at one end of which was a pike, at the other a paddle.
Thurid was hugging the shore, and as he passed out of sight round a
near-by promontory I shoved one of the boats into the water and,
calling Woola into it, pushed out from shore.

The pursuit of Thurid carried me along the edge of the sea toward the
mouth of the Iss. The farther moon lay close to the horizon, casting a
dense shadow beneath the cliffs that fringed the water. Thuria, the
nearer moon, had set, nor would it rise again for near four hours, so
that I was ensured concealing darkness for that length of time at
least.

On and on went the black warrior. Now he was opposite the mouth of the
Iss. Without an instant’s hesitation he turned up the grim river,
paddling hard against the strong current.

After him came Woola and I, closer now, for the man was too intent upon
forcing his craft up the river to have any eyes for what might be
transpiring behind him. He hugged the shore where the current was less
strong.

Presently he came to the dark cavernous portal in the face of the
Golden Cliffs, through which the river poured. On into the Stygian
darkness beyond he urged his craft.

It seemed hopeless to attempt to follow him here where I could not see
my hand before my face, and I was almost on the point of giving up the
pursuit and drifting back to the mouth of the river, there to await his
return, when a sudden bend showed a faint luminosity ahead.

My quarry was plainly visible again, and in the increasing light from
the phosphorescent rock that lay embedded in great patches in the
roughly arched roof of the cavern I had no difficulty in following him.

It was my first trip upon the bosom of Iss, and the things I saw there
will live forever in my memory.

Terrible as they were, they could not have commenced to approximate the
horrible conditions which must have obtained before Tars Tarkas, the
great green warrior, Xodar, the black dator, and I brought the light of
truth to the outer world and stopped the mad rush of millions upon the
voluntary pilgrimage to what they believed would end in a beautiful
valley of peace and happiness and love.

Even now the low islands which dotted the broad stream were choked with
the skeletons and half devoured carcasses of those who, through fear or
a sudden awakening to the truth, had halted almost at the completion of
their journey.

In the awful stench of these frightful charnel isles haggard maniacs
screamed and gibbered and fought among the torn remnants of their
grisly feasts; while on those which contained but clean-picked bones
they battled with one another, the weaker furnishing sustenance for the
stronger; or with clawlike hands clutched at the bloated bodies that
drifted down with the current.

Thurid paid not the slightest attention to the screaming things that
either menaced or pleaded with him as the mood directed them—evidently
he was familiar with the horrid sights that surrounded him. He
continued up the river for perhaps a mile; and then, crossing over to
the left bank, drew his craft up on a low ledge that lay almost on a
level with the water.

I dared not follow across the stream, for he most surely would have
seen me. Instead I stopped close to the opposite wall beneath an
overhanging mass of rock that cast a dense shadow beneath it. Here I
could watch Thurid without danger of discovery.

The black was standing upon the ledge beside his boat, looking up the
river, as though he were awaiting one whom he expected from that
direction.

As I lay there beneath the dark rocks I noticed that a strong current
seemed to flow directly toward the center of the river, so that it was
difficult to hold my craft in its position. I edged farther into the
shadow that I might find a hold upon the bank; but, though I proceeded
several yards, I touched nothing; and then, finding that I would soon
reach a point from where I could no longer see the black man, I was
compelled to remain where I was, holding my position as best I could by
paddling strongly against the current which flowed from beneath the
rocky mass behind me.

I could not imagine what might cause this strong lateral flow, for the
main channel of the river was plainly visible to me from where I sat,
and I could see the rippling junction of it and the mysterious current
which had aroused my curiosity.

While I was still speculating upon the phenomenon, my attention was
suddenly riveted upon Thurid, who had raised both palms forward above
his head in the universal salute of Martians, and a moment later his
“Kaor!” the Barsoomian word of greeting, came in low but distinct
tones.

I turned my eyes up the river in the direction that his were bent, and
presently there came within my limited range of vision a long boat, in
which were six men. Five were at the paddles, while the sixth sat in
the seat of honor.

The white skins, the flowing yellow wigs which covered their bald
pates, and the gorgeous diadems set in circlets of gold about their
heads marked them as Holy Therns.

As they drew up beside the ledge upon which Thurid awaited them, he in
the bow of the boat arose to step ashore, and then I saw that it was
none other than Matai Shang, Father of Therns.

The evident cordiality with which the two men exchanged greetings
filled me with wonder, for the black and white men of Barsoom were
hereditary enemies—nor ever before had I known of two meeting other
than in battle.

Evidently the reverses that had recently overtaken both peoples had
resulted in an alliance between these two individuals—at least against
the common enemy—and now I saw why Thurid had come so often out into
the Valley Dor by night, and that the nature of his conspiring might be
such as to strike very close to me or to my friends.

I wished that I might have found a point closer to the two men from
which to have heard their conversation; but it was out of the question
now to attempt to cross the river, and so I lay quietly watching them,
who would have given so much to have known how close I lay to them, and
how easily they might have overcome and killed me with their superior
force.

Several times Thurid pointed across the river in my direction, but that
his gestures had any reference to me I did not for a moment believe.
Presently he and Matai Shang entered the latter’s boat, which turned
out into the river and, swinging round, forged steadily across in my
direction.

As they advanced I moved my boat farther and farther in beneath the
overhanging wall, but at last it became evident that their craft was
holding the same course. The five paddlers sent the larger boat ahead
at a speed that taxed my energies to equal.

Every instant I expected to feel my prow crash against solid rock. The
light from the river was no longer visible, but ahead I saw the faint
tinge of a distant radiance, and still the water before me was open.

At last the truth dawned upon me—I was following a subterranean river
which emptied into the Iss at the very point where I had hidden.

The rowers were now quite close to me. The noise of their own paddles
drowned the sound of mine, but in another instant the growing light
ahead would reveal me to them.

There was no time to be lost. Whatever action I was to take must be
taken at once. Swinging the prow of my boat toward the right, I sought
the river’s rocky side, and there I lay while Matai Shang and Thurid
approached up the center of the stream, which was much narrower than
the Iss.

As they came nearer I heard the voices of Thurid and the Father of
Therns raised in argument.

“I tell you, Thern,” the black dator was saying, “that I wish only
vengeance upon John Carter, Prince of Helium. I am leading you into no
trap. What could I gain by betraying you to those who have ruined my
nation and my house?”

“Let us stop here a moment that I may hear your plans,” replied the
hekkador, “and then we may proceed with a better understanding of our
duties and obligations.”

To the rowers he issued the command that brought their boat in toward
the bank not a dozen paces beyond the spot where I lay.

Had they pulled in below me they must surely have seen me against the
faint glow of light ahead, but from where they finally came to rest I
was as secure from detection as though miles separated us.

The few words I had already overheard whetted my curiosity, and I was
anxious to learn what manner of vengeance Thurid was planning against
me. Nor had I long to wait. I listened intently.

“There are no obligations, Father of Therns,” continued the First Born.
“Thurid, Dator of Issus, has no price. When the thing has been
accomplished I shall be glad if you will see to it that I am well
received, as is befitting my ancient lineage and noble rank, at some
court that is yet loyal to thy ancient faith, for I cannot return to
the Valley Dor or elsewhere within the power of the Prince of Helium;
but even that I do not demand—it shall be as your own desire in the
matter directs.”

“It shall be as you wish, Dator,” replied Matai Shang; “nor is that
all—power and riches shall be yours if you restore my daughter,
Phaidor, to me, and place within my power Dejah Thoris, Princess of
Helium.

“Ah,” he continued with a malicious snarl, “but the Earth man shall
suffer for the indignities he has put upon the holy of holies, nor
shall any vileness be too vile to inflict upon his princess. Would that
it were in my power to force him to witness the humiliation and
degradation of the red woman.”

“You shall have your way with her before another day has passed, Matai
Shang,” said Thurid, “if you but say the word.”

“I have heard of the Temple of the Sun, Dator,” replied Matai Shang,
“but never have I heard that its prisoners could be released before the
allotted year of their incarceration had elapsed. How, then, may you
accomplish the impossible?”

“Access may be had to any cell of the temple at any time,” replied
Thurid. “Only Issus knew this; nor was it ever Issus’ way to divulge
more of her secrets than were necessary. By chance, after her death, I
came upon an ancient plan of the temple, and there I found, plainly
writ, the most minute directions for reaching the cells at any time.

“And more I learned—that many men had gone thither for Issus in the
past, always on errands of death and torture to the prisoners; but
those who thus learned the secret way were wont to die mysteriously
immediately they had returned and made their reports to cruel Issus.”

“Let us proceed, then,” said Matai Shang at last. “I must trust you,
yet at the same time you must trust me, for we are six to your one.”

“I do not fear,” replied Thurid, “nor need you. Our hatred of the
common enemy is sufficient bond to insure our loyalty to each other,
and after we have defiled the Princess of Helium there will be still
greater reason for the maintenance of our allegiance—unless I greatly
mistake the temper of her lord.”

Matai Shang spoke to the paddlers. The boat moved on up the tributary.

It was with difficulty that I restrained myself from rushing upon them
and slaying the two vile plotters; but quickly I saw the mad rashness
of such an act, which would cut down the only man who could lead the
way to Dejah Thoris’ prison before the long Martian year had swung its
interminable circle.

If he should lead Matai Shang to that hallowed spot, then, too, should
he lead John Carter, Prince of Helium.

With silent paddle I swung slowly into the wake of the larger craft.



UNDER THE MOUNTAINS


As we advanced up the river which winds beneath the Golden Cliffs out
of the bowels of the Mountains of Otz to mingle its dark waters with
the grim and mysterious Iss the faint glow which had appeared before us
grew gradually into an all-enveloping radiance.

The river widened until it presented the aspect of a large lake whose
vaulted dome, lighted by glowing phosphorescent rock, was splashed with
the vivid rays of the diamond, the sapphire, the ruby, and the
countless, nameless jewels of Barsoom which lay incrusted in the virgin
gold which forms the major portion of these magnificent cliffs.

Beyond the lighted chamber of the lake was darkness—what lay behind the
darkness I could not even guess.

To have followed the thern boat across the gleaming water would have
been to invite instant detection, and so, though I was loath to permit
Thurid to pass even for an instant beyond my sight, I was forced to
wait in the shadows until the other boat had passed from my sight at
the far extremity of the lake.

Then I paddled out upon the brilliant surface in the direction they had
taken.

When, after what seemed an eternity, I reached the shadows at the upper
end of the lake I found that the river issued from a low aperture, to
pass beneath which it was necessary that I compel Woola to lie flat in
the boat, and I, myself, must need bend double before the low roof
cleared my head.

Immediately the roof rose again upon the other side, but no longer was
the way brilliantly lighted. Instead only a feeble glow emanated from
small and scattered patches of phosphorescent rock in wall and roof.

Directly before me the river ran into this smaller chamber through
three separate arched openings.

Thurid and the therns were nowhere to be seen—into which of the dark
holes had they disappeared? There was no means by which I might know,
and so I chose the center opening as being as likely to lead me in the
right direction as another.

Here the way was through utter darkness. The stream was narrow—so
narrow that in the blackness I was constantly bumping first one rock
wall and then another as the river wound hither and thither along its
flinty bed.

Far ahead I presently heard a deep and sullen roar which increased in
volume as I advanced, and then broke upon my ears with all the
intensity of its mad fury as I swung round a sharp curve into a dimly
lighted stretch of water.

Directly before me the river thundered down from above in a mighty
waterfall that filled the narrow gorge from side to side, rising far
above me several hundred feet—as magnificent a spectacle as I ever had
seen.

But the roar—the awful, deafening roar of those tumbling waters penned
in the rocky, subterranean vault! Had the fall not entirely blocked my
further passage and shown me that I had followed the wrong course I
believe that I should have fled anyway before the maddening tumult.

Thurid and the therns could not have come this way. By stumbling upon
the wrong course I had lost the trail, and they had gained so much
ahead of me that now I might not be able to find them before it was too
late, if, in fact, I could find them at all.

It had taken several hours to force my way up to the falls against the
strong current, and other hours would be required for the descent,
although the pace would be much swifter.

With a sigh I turned the prow of my craft down stream, and with mighty
strokes hastened with reckless speed through the dark and tortuous
channel until once again I came to the chamber into which flowed the
three branches of the river.

Two unexplored channels still remained from which to choose; nor was
there any means by which I could judge which was the more likely to
lead me to the plotters.

Never in my life, that I can recall, have I suffered such an agony of
indecision. So much depended upon a correct choice; so much depended
upon haste.

The hours that I had already lost might seal the fate of the
incomparable Dejah Thoris were she not already dead—to sacrifice other
hours, and maybe days in a fruitless exploration of another blind lead
would unquestionably prove fatal.

Several times I essayed the right-hand entrance only to turn back as
though warned by some strange intuitive sense that this was not the
way. At last, convinced by the oft-recurring phenomenon, I cast my all
upon the left-hand archway; yet it was with a lingering doubt that I
turned a parting look at the sullen waters which rolled, dark and
forbidding, from beneath the grim, low archway on the right.

And as I looked there came bobbing out upon the current from the
Stygian darkness of the interior the shell of one of the great,
succulent fruits of the sorapus tree.

I could scarce restrain a shout of elation as this silent, insensate
messenger floated past me, on toward the Iss and Korus, for it told me
that journeying Martians were above me on that very stream.

They had eaten of this marvelous fruit which nature concentrates within
the hard shell of the sorapus nut, and having eaten had cast the husk
overboard. It could have come from no others than the party I sought.

Quickly I abandoned all thought of the left-hand passage, and a moment
later had turned into the right. The stream soon widened, and recurring
areas of phosphorescent rock lighted my way.

I made good time, but was convinced that I was nearly a day behind
those I was tracking. Neither Woola nor I had eaten since the previous
day, but in so far as he was concerned it mattered but little, since
practically all the animals of the dead sea bottoms of Mars are able to
go for incredible periods without nourishment.

Nor did I suffer. The water of the river was sweet and cold, for it was
unpolluted by decaying bodies—like the Iss—and as for food, why the
mere thought that I was nearing my beloved princess raised me above
every material want.

As I proceeded, the river became narrower and the current swift and
turbulent—so swift in fact that it was with difficulty that I forced my
craft upward at all. I could not have been making to exceed a hundred
yards an hour when, at a bend, I was confronted by a series of rapids
through which the river foamed and boiled at a terrific rate.

My heart sank within me. The sorapus nutshell had proved a false
prophet, and, after all, my intuition had been correct—it was the
left-hand channel that I should have followed.

Had I been a woman I should have wept. At my right was a great,
slow-moving eddy that circled far beneath the cliff’s overhanging side,
and to rest my tired muscles before turning back I let my boat drift
into its embrace.

I was almost prostrated by disappointment. It would mean another
half-day’s loss of time to retrace my way and take the only passage
that yet remained unexplored. What hellish fate had led me to select
from three possible avenues the two that were wrong?

As the lazy current of the eddy carried me slowly about the periphery
of the watery circle my boat twice touched the rocky side of the river
in the dark recess beneath the cliff. A third time it struck, gently as
it had before, but the contact resulted in a different sound—the sound
of wood scraping upon wood.

In an instant I was on the alert, for there could be no wood within
that buried river that had not been man brought. Almost coincidentally
with my first apprehension of the noise, my hand shot out across the
boat’s side, and a second later I felt my fingers gripping the gunwale
of another craft.

As though turned to stone I sat in tense and rigid silence, straining
my eyes into the utter darkness before me in an effort to discover if
the boat were occupied.

It was entirely possible that there might be men on board it who were
still ignorant of my presence, for the boat was scraping gently against
the rocks upon one side, so that the gentle touch of my boat upon the
other easily could have gone unnoticed.

Peer as I would I could not penetrate the darkness, and then I listened
intently for the sound of breathing near me; but except for the noise
of the rapids, the soft scraping of the boats, and the lapping of the
water at their sides I could distinguish no sound. As usual, I thought
rapidly.

A rope lay coiled in the bottom of my own craft. Very softly I gathered
it up, and making one end fast to the bronze ring in the prow I stepped
gingerly into the boat beside me. In one hand I grasped the rope, in
the other my keen long-sword.

For a full minute, perhaps, I stood motionless after entering the
strange craft. It had rocked a trifle beneath my weight, but it had
been the scraping of its side against the side of my own boat that had
seemed most likely to alarm its occupants, if there were any.

But there was no answering sound, and a moment later I had felt from
stem to stern and found the boat deserted.

Groping with my hands along the face of the rocks to which the craft
was moored, I discovered a narrow ledge which I knew must be the avenue
taken by those who had come before me. That they could be none other
than Thurid and his party I was convinced by the size and build of the
boat I had found.

Calling to Woola to follow me I stepped out upon the ledge. The great,
savage brute, agile as a cat, crept after me.

As he passed through the boat that had been occupied by Thurid and the
therns he emitted a single low growl, and when he came beside me upon
the ledge and my hand rested upon his neck I felt his short mane
bristling with anger. I think he sensed telepathically the recent
presence of an enemy, for I had made no effort to impart to him the
nature of our quest or the status of those we tracked.

This omission I now made haste to correct, and, after the manner of
green Martians with their beasts, I let him know partially by the weird
and uncanny telepathy of Barsoom and partly by word of mouth that we
were upon the trail of those who had recently occupied the boat through
which we had just passed.

A soft purr, like that of a great cat, indicated that Woola understood,
and then, with a word to him to follow, I turned to the right along the
ledge, but scarcely had I done so than I felt his mighty fangs tugging
at my leathern harness.

As I turned to discover the cause of his act he continued to pull me
steadily in the opposite direction, nor would he desist until I had
turned about and indicated that I would follow him voluntarily.

Never had I known him to be in error in a matter of tracking, so it was
with a feeling of entire security that I moved cautiously in the huge
beast’s wake. Through Cimmerian darkness he moved along the narrow
ledge beside the boiling rapids.

As we advanced, the way led from beneath the overhanging cliffs out
into a dim light, and then it was that I saw that the trail had been
cut from the living rock, and that it ran up along the river’s side
beyond the rapids.

For hours we followed the dark and gloomy river farther and farther
into the bowels of Mars. From the direction and distance I knew that we
must be well beneath the Valley Dor, and possibly beneath the Sea of
Omean as well—it could not be much farther now to the Temple of the
Sun.

Even as my mind framed the thought, Woola halted suddenly before a
narrow, arched doorway in the cliff by the trail’s side. Quickly he
crouched back away from the entrance, at the same time turning his eyes
toward me.

Words could not have more plainly told me that danger of some sort lay
near by, and so I pressed quietly forward to his side, and passing him
looked into the aperture at our right.

Before me was a fair-sized chamber that, from its appointments, I knew
must have at one time been a guardroom. There were racks for weapons,
and slightly raised platforms for the sleeping silks and furs of the
warriors, but now its only occupants were two of the therns who had
been of the party with Thurid and Matai Shang.

The men were in earnest conversation, and from their tones it was
apparent that they were entirely unaware that they had listeners.

“I tell you,” one of them was saying, “I do not trust the black one.
There was no necessity for leaving us here to guard the way. Against
what, pray, should we guard this long-forgotten, abysmal path? It was
but a ruse to divide our numbers.

“He will have Matai Shang leave others elsewhere on some pretext or
other, and then at last he will fall upon us with his confederates and
slay us all.”

“I believe you, Lakor,” replied the other, “there can never be aught
else than deadly hatred between thern and First Born. And what think
you of the ridiculous matter of the light? ‘Let the light shine with
the intensity of three radium units for fifty tals, and for one xat let
it shine with the intensity of one radium unit, and then for
twenty-five tals with nine units.’ Those were his very words, and to
think that wise old Matai Shang should listen to such foolishness.”

“Indeed, it is silly,” replied Lakor. “It will open nothing other than
the way to a quick death for us all. He had to make some answer when
Matai Shang asked him flatly what he should do when he came to the
Temple of the Sun, and so he made his answer quickly from his
imagination—I would wager a hekkador’s diadem that he could not now
repeat it himself.”

“Let us not remain here longer, Lakor,” spoke the other thern.
“Perchance if we hasten after them we may come in time to rescue Matai
Shang, and wreak our own vengeance upon the black dator. What say you?”

“Never in a long life,” answered Lakor, “have I disobeyed a single
command of the Father of Therns. I shall stay here until I rot if he
does not return to bid me elsewhere.”

Lakor’s companion shook his head.

“You are my superior,” he said; “I cannot do other than you sanction,
though I still believe that we are foolish to remain.”

I, too, thought that they were foolish to remain, for I saw from
Woola’s actions that the trail led through the room where the two
therns held guard. I had no reason to harbor any considerable love for
this race of self-deified demons, yet I would have passed them by were
it possible without molesting them.

It was worth trying anyway, for a fight might delay us considerably, or
even put an end entirely to my search—better men than I have gone down
before fighters of meaner ability than that possessed by the fierce
thern warriors.

Signaling Woola to heel I stepped suddenly into the room before the two
men. At sight of me their long-swords flashed from the harness at their
sides, but I raised my hand in a gesture of restraint.

“I seek Thurid, the black dator,” I said. “My quarrel is with him, not
with you. Let me pass then in peace, for if I mistake not he is as much
your enemy as mine, and you can have no cause to protect him.”

They lowered their swords and Lakor spoke.

“I know not whom you may be, with the white skin of a thern and the
black hair of a red man; but were it only Thurid whose safety were at
stake you might pass, and welcome, in so far as we be concerned.

“Tell us who you be, and what mission calls you to this unknown world
beneath the Valley Dor, then maybe we can see our way to let you pass
upon the errand which we should like to undertake would our orders
permit.”

I was surprised that neither of them had recognized me, for I thought
that I was quite sufficiently well known either by personal experience
or reputation to every thern upon Barsoom as to make my identity
immediately apparent in any part of the planet. In fact, I was the only
white man upon Mars whose hair was black and whose eyes were gray, with
the exception of my son, Carthoris.

To reveal my identity might be to precipitate an attack, for every
thern upon Barsoom knew that to me they owed the fall of their age-old
spiritual supremacy. On the other hand my reputation as a fighting man
might be sufficient to pass me by these two were their livers not of
the right complexion to welcome a battle to the death.

To be quite candid I did not attempt to delude myself with any such
sophistry, since I knew well that upon war-like Mars there are few
cowards, and that every man, whether prince, priest, or peasant,
glories in deadly strife. And so I gripped my long-sword the tighter as
I replied to Lakor.

“I believe that you will see the wisdom of permitting me to pass
unmolested,” I said, “for it would avail you nothing to die uselessly
in the rocky bowels of Barsoom merely to protect a hereditary enemy,
such as Thurid, Dator of the First Born.

“That you shall die should you elect to oppose me is evidenced by the
moldering corpses of all the many great Barsoomian warriors who have
gone down beneath this blade—I am John Carter, Prince of Helium.”

For a moment that name seemed to paralyze the two men; but only for a
moment, and then the younger of them, with a vile name upon his lips,
rushed toward me with ready sword.

He had been standing a little behind his companion, Lakor, during our
parley, and now, ere he could engage me, the older man grasped his
harness and drew him back.

“Hold!” commanded Lakor. “There will be plenty of time to fight if we
find it wise to fight at all. There be good reasons why every thern
upon Barsoom should yearn to spill the blood of the blasphemer, the
sacrilegist; but let us mix wisdom with our righteous hate. The Prince
of Helium is bound upon an errand which we ourselves, but a moment
since, were wishing that we might undertake.

“Let him go then and slay the black. When he returns we shall still be
here to bar his way to the outer world, and thus we shall have rid
ourselves of two enemies, nor have incurred the displeasure of the
Father of Therns.”

As he spoke I could not but note the crafty glint in his evil eyes, and
while I saw the apparent logic of his reasoning I felt, subconsciously
perhaps, that his words did but veil some sinister intent. The other
thern turned toward him in evident surprise, but when Lakor had
whispered a few brief words into his ear he, too, drew back and nodded
acquiescence to his superior’s suggestion.

“Proceed, John Carter,” said Lakor; “but know that if Thurid does not
lay you low there will be those awaiting your return who will see that
you never pass again into the sunlight of the upper world. Go!”

During our conversation Woola had been growling and bristling close to
my side. Occasionally he would look up into my face with a low,
pleading whine, as though begging for the word that would send him
headlong at the bare throats before him. He, too, sensed the villainy
behind the smooth words.

Beyond the therns several doorways opened off the guardroom, and toward
the one upon the extreme right Lakor motioned.

“That way leads to Thurid,” he said.

But when I would have called Woola to follow me there the beast whined
and held back, and at last ran quickly to the first opening at the
left, where he stood emitting his coughing bark, as though urging me to
follow him upon the right way.

I turned a questioning look upon Lakor.

“The brute is seldom wrong,” I said, “and while I do not doubt your
superior knowledge, Thern, I think that I shall do well to listen to
the voice of instinct that is backed by love and loyalty.”

As I spoke I smiled grimly that he might know without words that I
distrusted him.

“As you will,” the fellow replied with a shrug. “In the end it shall be
all the same.”

I turned and followed Woola into the left-hand passage, and though my
back was toward my enemies, my ears were on the alert; yet I heard no
sound of pursuit. The passageway was dimly lighted by occasional radium
bulbs, the universal lighting medium of Barsoom.

These same lamps may have been doing continuous duty in these
subterranean chambers for ages, since they require no attention and are
so compounded that they give off but the minutest of their substance in
the generation of years of luminosity.

We had proceeded for but a short distance when we commenced to pass the
mouths of diverging corridors, but not once did Woola hesitate. It was
at the opening to one of these corridors upon my right that I presently
heard a sound that spoke more plainly to John Carter, fighting man,
than could the words of my mother tongue—it was the clank of metal—the
metal of a warrior’s harness—and it came from a little distance up the
corridor upon my right.

Woola heard it, too, and like a flash he had wheeled and stood facing
the threatened danger, his mane all abristle and all his rows of
glistening fangs bared by snarling, backdrawn lips. With a gesture I
silenced him, and together we drew aside into another corridor a few
paces farther on.

Here we waited; nor did we have long to wait, for presently we saw the
shadows of two men fall upon the floor of the main corridor athwart the
doorway of our hiding place. Very cautiously they were moving now—the
accidental clank that had alarmed me was not repeated.

Presently they came opposite our station; nor was I surprised to see
that the two were Lakor and his companion of the guardroom.

They walked very softly, and in the right hand of each gleamed a keen
long-sword. They halted quite close to the entrance of our retreat,
whispering to each other.

“Can it be that we have distanced them already?” said Lakor.

“Either that or the beast has led the man upon a wrong trail,” replied
the other, “for the way which we took is by far the shorter to this
point—for him who knows it. John Carter would have found it a short
road to death had he taken it as you suggested to him.”

“Yes,” said Lakor, “no amount of fighting ability would have saved him
from the pivoted flagstone. He surely would have stepped upon it, and
by now, if the pit beneath it has a bottom, which Thurid denies, he
should have been rapidly approaching it. Curses on that calot of his
that warned him toward the safer avenue!”

“There be other dangers ahead of him, though,” spoke Lakor’s fellow,
“which he may not so easily escape—should he succeed in escaping our
two good swords. Consider, for example, what chance he will have,
coming unexpectedly into the chamber of—”

I would have given much to have heard the balance of that conversation
that I might have been warned of the perils that lay ahead, but fate
intervened, and just at the very instant of all other instants that I
would not have elected to do it, I sneezed.



THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN


There was nothing for it now other than to fight; nor did I have any
advantage as I sprang, sword in hand, into the corridor before the two
therns, for my untimely sneeze had warned them of my presence and they
were ready for me.

There were no words, for they would have been a waste of breath. The
very presence of the two proclaimed their treachery. That they were
following to fall upon me unawares was all too plain, and they, of
course, must have known that I understood their plan.

In an instant I was engaged with both, and though I loathe the very
name of thern, I must in all fairness admit that they are mighty
swordsmen; and these two were no exception, unless it were that they
were even more skilled and fearless than the average among their race.

While it lasted it was indeed as joyous a conflict as I ever had
experienced. Twice at least I saved my breast from the mortal thrust of
piercing steel only by the wondrous agility with which my earthly
muscles endow me under the conditions of lesser gravity and air
pressure upon Mars.

Yet even so I came near to tasting death that day in the gloomy
corridor beneath Mars’s southern pole, for Lakor played a trick upon me
that in all my experience of fighting upon two planets I never before
had witnessed the like of.

The other thern was engaging me at the time, and I was forcing him
back—touching him here and there with my point until he was bleeding
from a dozen wounds, yet not being able to penetrate his marvelous
guard to reach a vulnerable spot for the brief instant that would have
been sufficient to send him to his ancestors.

It was then that Lakor quickly unslung a belt from his harness, and as
I stepped back to parry a wicked thrust he lashed one end of it about
my left ankle so that it wound there for an instant, while he jerked
suddenly upon the other end, throwing me heavily upon my back.

Then, like leaping panthers, they were upon me; but they had reckoned
without Woola, and before ever a blade touched me, a roaring embodiment
of a thousand demons hurtled above my prostrate form and my loyal
Martian calot was upon them.

Imagine, if you can, a huge grizzly with ten legs armed with mighty
talons and an enormous froglike mouth splitting his head from ear to
ear, exposing three rows of long, white tusks. Then endow this creature
of your imagination with the agility and ferocity of a half-starved
Bengal tiger and the strength of a span of bulls, and you will have
some faint conception of Woola in action.

Before I could call him off he had crushed Lakor into a jelly with a
single blow of one mighty paw, and had literally torn the other thern
to ribbons; yet when I spoke to him sharply he cowed sheepishly as
though he had done a thing to deserve censure and chastisement.

Never had I had the heart to punish Woola during the long years that
had passed since that first day upon Mars when the green jed of the
Tharks had placed him on guard over me, and I had won his love and
loyalty from the cruel and loveless masters of his former life, yet I
believe he would have submitted to any cruelty that I might have
inflicted upon him, so wondrous was his affection for me.

The diadem in the center of the circlet of gold upon the brow of Lakor
proclaimed him a Holy Thern, while his companion, not thus adorned, was
a lesser thern, though from his harness I gleaned that he had reached
the Ninth Cycle, which is but one below that of the Holy Therns.

As I stood for a moment looking at the gruesome havoc Woola had
wrought, there recurred to me the memory of that other occasion upon
which I had masqueraded in the wig, diadem, and harness of Sator Throg,
the Holy Thern whom Thuvia of Ptarth had slain, and now it occurred to
me that it might prove of worth to utilize Lakor’s trappings for the
same purpose.

A moment later I had torn his yellow wig from his bald pate and
transferred it and the circlet, as well as all his harness, to my own
person.

Woola did not approve of the metamorphosis. He sniffed at me and
growled ominously, but when I spoke to him and patted his huge head he
at length became reconciled to the change, and at my command trotted
off along the corridor in the direction we had been going when our
progress had been interrupted by the therns.

We moved cautiously now, warned by the fragment of conversation I had
overheard. I kept abreast of Woola that we might have the benefit of
all our eyes for what might appear suddenly ahead to menace us, and
well it was that we were forewarned.

At the bottom of a flight of narrow steps the corridor turned sharply
back upon itself, immediately making another turn in the original
direction, so that at that point it formed a perfect letter S, the top
leg of which debouched suddenly into a large chamber, illy lighted, and
the floor of which was completely covered by venomous snakes and
loathsome reptiles.

To have attempted to cross that floor would have been to court instant
death, and for a moment I was almost completely discouraged. Then it
occurred to me that Thurid and Matai Shang with their party must have
crossed it, and so there was a way.

Had it not been for the fortunate accident by which I overheard even so
small a portion of the therns’ conversation we should have blundered at
least a step or two into that wriggling mass of destruction, and a
single step would have been all-sufficient to have sealed our doom.

These were the only reptiles I had ever seen upon Barsoom, but I knew
from their similarity to the fossilized remains of supposedly extinct
species I had seen in the museums of Helium that they comprised many of
the known prehistoric reptilian genera, as well as others undiscovered.

A more hideous aggregation of monsters had never before assailed my
vision. It would be futile to attempt to describe them to Earth men,
since substance is the only thing which they possess in common with any
creature of the past or present with which you are familiar—even their
venom is of an unearthly virulence that, by comparison, would make the
cobra de capello seem quite as harmless as an angleworm.

As they spied me there was a concerted rush by those nearest the
entrance where we stood, but a line of radium bulbs inset along the
threshold of their chamber brought them to a sudden halt—evidently they
dared not cross that line of light.

I had been quite sure that they would not venture beyond the room in
which I had discovered them, though I had not guessed at what deterred
them. The simple fact that we had found no reptiles in the corridor
through which we had just come was sufficient assurance that they did
not venture there.

I drew Woola out of harm’s way, and then began a careful survey of as
much of the Chamber of Reptiles as I could see from where I stood. As
my eyes became accustomed to the dim light of its interior I gradually
made out a low gallery at the far end of the apartment from which
opened several exits.

Coming as close to the threshold as I dared, I followed this gallery
with my eyes, discovering that it circled the room as far as I could
see. Then I glanced above me along the upper edge of the entrance to
which we had come, and there, to my delight, I saw an end of the
gallery not a foot above my head. In an instant I had leaped to it and
called Woola after me.

Here there were no reptiles—the way was clear to the opposite side of
the hideous chamber—and a moment later Woola and I dropped down to
safety in the corridor beyond.

Not ten minutes later we came into a vast circular apartment of white
marble, the walls of which were inlaid with gold in the strange
hieroglyphics of the First Born.

From the high dome of this mighty apartment a huge circular column
extended to the floor, and as I watched I saw that it slowly revolved.

I had reached the base of the Temple of the Sun!

Somewhere above me lay Dejah Thoris, and with her were Phaidor,
daughter of Matai Shang, and Thuvia of Ptarth. But how to reach them,
now that I had found the only vulnerable spot in their mighty prison,
was still a baffling riddle.

Slowly I circled the great shaft, looking for a means of ingress. Part
way around I found a tiny radium flash torch, and as I examined it in
mild curiosity as to its presence there in this almost inaccessible and
unknown spot, I came suddenly upon the insignia of the house of Thurid
jewel-inset in its metal case.

I am upon the right trail, I thought, as I slipped the bauble into the
pocket-pouch which hung from my harness. Then I continued my search for
the entrance, which I knew must be somewhere about; nor had I long to
search, for almost immediately thereafter I came upon a small door so
cunningly inlaid in the shaft’s base that it might have passed
unnoticed by a less keen or careful observer.

There was the door that would lead me within the prison, but where was
the means to open it? No button or lock were visible. Again and again I
went carefully over every square inch of its surface, but the most that
I could find was a tiny pinhole a little above and to the right of the
door’s center—a pinhole that seemed only an accident of manufacture or
an imperfection of material.

Into this minute aperture I attempted to peer, but whether it was but a
fraction of an inch deep or passed completely through the door I could
not tell—at least no light showed beyond it. I put my ear to it next
and listened, but again my efforts brought negligible results.

During these experiments Woola had been standing at my side gazing
intently at the door, and as my glance fell upon him it occurred to me
to test the correctness of my hypothesis, that this portal had been the
means of ingress to the temple used by Thurid, the black dator, and
Matai Shang, Father of Therns.

Turning away abruptly, I called to him to follow me. For a moment he
hesitated, and then leaped after me, whining and tugging at my harness
to draw me back. I walked on, however, some distance from the door
before I let him have his way, that I might see precisely what he would
do. Then I permitted him to lead me wherever he would.

Straight back to that baffling portal he dragged me, again taking up
his position facing the blank stone, gazing straight at its shining
surface. For an hour I worked to solve the mystery of the combination
that would open the way before me.

Carefully I recalled every circumstance of my pursuit of Thurid, and my
conclusion was identical with my original belief—that Thurid had come
this way without other assistance than his own knowledge and passed
through the door that barred my progress, unaided from within. But how
had he accomplished it?

I recalled the incident of the Chamber of Mystery in the Golden Cliffs
that time I had freed Thuvia of Ptarth from the dungeon of the therns,
and she had taken a slender, needle-like key from the keyring of her
dead jailer to open the door leading back into the Chamber of Mystery
where Tars Tarkas fought for his life with the great banths. Such a
tiny keyhole as now defied me had opened the way to the intricate lock
in that other door.

Hastily I dumped the contents of my pocket-pouch upon the ground before
me. Could I but find a slender bit of steel I might yet fashion a key
that would give me ingress to the temple prison.

As I examined the heterogeneous collection of odds and ends that is
always to be found in the pocket-pouch of a Martian warrior my hand
fell upon the emblazoned radium flash torch of the black dator.

As I was about to lay the thing aside as of no value in my present
predicament my eyes chanced upon a few strange characters roughly and
freshly scratched upon the soft gold of the case.

Casual curiosity prompted me to decipher them, but what I read carried
no immediate meaning to my mind. There were three sets of characters,
one below another:

3	|—|	50 T 1	|—|	  1 X 9	|—|	25 T

For only an instant my curiosity was piqued, and then I replaced the
torch in my pocket-pouch, but my fingers had not unclasped from it when
there rushed to my memory the recollection of the conversation between
Lakor and his companion when the lesser thern had quoted the words of
Thurid and scoffed at them: “And what think you of the ridiculous
matter of the light? Let the light shine with the intensity of three
radium units for fifty tals”—ah, there was the first line of characters
upon the torch’s metal case—3—50 T; “and for one xat let it shine with
the intensity of one radium unit”—there was the second line; “and then
for twenty-five tals with nine units.”

The formula was complete; but—what did it mean?

I thought I knew, and, seizing a powerful magnifying glass from the
litter of my pocket-pouch, I applied myself to a careful examination of
the marble immediately about the pinhole in the door. I could have
cried aloud in exultation when my scrutiny disclosed the almost
invisible incrustation of particles of carbonized electrons which are
thrown off by these Martian torches.

It was evident that for countless ages radium torches had been applied
to this pinhole, and for what purpose there could be but a single
answer—the mechanism of the lock was actuated by light rays; and I,
John Carter, Prince of Helium, held the combination in my
hand—scratched by the hand of my enemy upon his own torch case.

In a cylindrical bracelet of gold about my wrist was my Barsoomian
chronometer—a delicate instrument that records the tals and xats and
zodes of Martian time, presenting them to view beneath a strong crystal
much after the manner of an earthly odometer.

Timing my operations carefully, I held the torch to the small aperture
in the door, regulating the intensity of the light by means of the
thumb-lever upon the side of the case.

For fifty tals I let three units of light shine full in the pinhole,
then one unit for one xat, and for twenty-five tals nine units. Those
last twenty-five tals were the longest twenty-five seconds of my life.
Would the lock click at the end of those seemingly interminable
intervals of time?

Twenty-three! Twenty-four! Twenty-five!

I shut off the light with a snap. For seven tals I waited—there had
been no appreciable effect upon the lock’s mechanism. Could it be that
my theory was entirely wrong?

Hold! Had the nervous strain resulted in a hallucination, or did the
door really move? Slowly the solid stone sank noiselessly back into the
wall—there was no hallucination here.

Back and back it slid for ten feet until it had disclosed at its right
a narrow doorway leading into a dark and narrow corridor that
paralleled the outer wall. Scarcely was the entrance uncovered than
Woola and I had leaped through—then the door slipped quietly back into
place.

Down the corridor at some distance I saw the faint reflection of a
light, and toward this we made our way. At the point where the light
shone was a sharp turn, and a little distance beyond this a brilliantly
lighted chamber.

Here we discovered a spiral stairway leading up from the center of the
circular room.

Immediately I knew that we had reached the center of the base of the
Temple of the Sun—the spiral runway led upward past the inner walls of
the prison cells. Somewhere above me was Dejah Thoris, unless Thurid
and Matai Shang had already succeeded in stealing her.

We had scarcely started up the runway when Woola suddenly displayed the
wildest excitement. He leaped back and forth, snapping at my legs and
harness, until I thought that he was mad, and finally when I pushed him
from me and started once more to ascend he grasped my sword arm between
his jaws and dragged me back.

No amount of scolding or cuffing would suffice to make him release me,
and I was entirely at the mercy of his brute strength unless I cared to
use my dagger upon him with my left hand; but, mad or no, I had not the
heart to run the sharp blade into that faithful body.

Down into the chamber he dragged me, and across it to the side opposite
that at which we had entered. Here was another doorway leading into a
corridor which ran directly down a steep incline. Without a moment’s
hesitation Woola jerked me along this rocky passage.

Presently he stopped and released me, standing between me and the way
we had come, looking up into my face as though to ask if I would now
follow him voluntarily or if he must still resort to force.

Looking ruefully at the marks of his great teeth upon my bare arm I
decided to do as he seemed to wish me to do. After all, his strange
instinct might be more dependable than my faulty human judgment.

And well it was that I had been forced to follow him. But a short
distance from the circular chamber we came suddenly into a brilliantly
lighted labyrinth of crystal glass partitioned passages.

At first I thought it was one vast, unbroken chamber, so clear and
transparent were the walls of the winding corridors, but after I had
nearly brained myself a couple of times by attempting to pass through
solid vitreous walls I went more carefully.

We had proceeded but a few yards along the corridor that had given us
entrance to this strange maze when Woola gave mouth to a most frightful
roar, at the same time dashing against the clear partition at our left.

The resounding echoes of that fearsome cry were still reverberating
through the subterranean chambers when I saw the thing that had
startled it from the faithful beast.

Far in the distance, dimly through the many thicknesses of intervening
crystal, as in a haze that made them seem unreal and ghostly, I
discerned the figures of eight people—three females and five men.

At the same instant, evidently startled by Woola’s fierce cry, they
halted and looked about. Then, of a sudden, one of them, a woman, held
her arms out toward me, and even at that great distance I could see
that her lips moved—it was Dejah Thoris, my ever beautiful and ever
youthful Princess of Helium.

With her were Thuvia of Ptarth, Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang, and
Thurid, and the Father of Therns, and the three lesser therns that had
accompanied them.

Thurid shook his fist at me, and then two of the therns grasped Dejah
Thoris and Thuvia roughly by their arms and hurried them on. A moment
later they had disappeared into a stone corridor beyond the labyrinth
of glass.

They say that love is blind; but so great a love as that of Dejah
Thoris that knew me even beneath the thern disguise I wore and across
the misty vista of that crystal maze must indeed be far from blind.



THE SECRET TOWER


I have no stomach to narrate the monotonous events of the tedious days
that Woola and I spent ferreting our way across the labyrinth of glass,
through the dark and devious ways beyond that led beneath the Valley
Dor and Golden Cliffs to emerge at last upon the flank of the Otz
Mountains just above the Valley of Lost Souls—that pitiful purgatory
peopled by the poor unfortunates who dare not continue their abandoned
pilgrimage to Dor, or return to the various lands of the outer world
from whence they came.

Here the trail of Dejah Thoris’ abductors led along the mountains’
base, across steep and rugged ravines, by the side of appalling
precipices, and sometimes out into the valley, where we found fighting
aplenty with the members of the various tribes that make up the
population of this vale of hopelessness.

But through it all we came at last to where the way led up a narrow
gorge that grew steeper and more impracticable at every step until
before us loomed a mighty fortress buried beneath the side of an
overhanging cliff.

Here was the secret hiding place of Matai Shang, Father of Therns.
Here, surrounded by a handful of the faithful, the hekkador of the
ancient faith, who had once been served by millions of vassals and
dependents, dispensed the spiritual words among the half dozen nations
of Barsoom that still clung tenaciously to their false and discredited
religion.

Darkness was just falling as we came in sight of the seemingly
impregnable walls of this mountain stronghold, and lest we be seen I
drew back with Woola behind a jutting granite promontory, into a clump
of the hardy, purple scrub that thrives upon the barren sides of Otz.

Here we lay until the quick transition from daylight to darkness had
passed. Then I crept out to approach the fortress walls in search of a
way within.

Either through carelessness or over-confidence in the supposed
inaccessibility of their hiding place, the triple-barred gate stood
ajar. Beyond were a handful of guards, laughing and talking over one of
their incomprehensible Barsoomian games.

I saw that none of the guardsmen had been of the party that accompanied
Thurid and Matai Shang; and so, relying entirely upon my disguise, I
walked boldly through the gateway and up to the thern guard.

The men stopped their game and looked up at me, but there was no sign
of suspicion. Similarly they looked at Woola, growling at my heel.

“Kaor!” I said in true Martian greeting, and the warriors arose and
saluted me. “I have but just found my way hither from the Golden
Cliffs,” I continued, “and seek audience with the hekkador, Matai
Shang, Father of Therns. Where may he be found?”

“Follow me,” said one of the guard, and, turning, led me across the
outer courtyard toward a second buttressed wall.

Why the apparent ease with which I seemingly deceived them did not
rouse my suspicions I know not, unless it was that my mind was still so
full of that fleeting glimpse of my beloved princess that there was
room in it for naught else. Be that as it may, the fact is that I
marched buoyantly behind my guide straight into the jaws of death.

Afterward I learned that thern spies had been aware of my coming for
hours before I reached the hidden fortress.

The gate had been purposely left ajar to tempt me on. The guards had
been schooled well in their part of the conspiracy; and I, more like a
schoolboy than a seasoned warrior, ran headlong into the trap.

At the far side of the outer court a narrow door let into the angle
made by one of the buttresses with the wall. Here my guide produced a
key and opened the way within; then, stepping back, he motioned me to
enter.

“Matai Shang is in the temple court beyond,” he said; and as Woola and
I passed through, the fellow closed the door quickly upon us.

The nasty laugh that came to my ears through the heavy planking of the
door after the lock clicked was my first intimation that all was not as
it should be.

I found myself in a small, circular chamber within the buttress. Before
me a door opened, presumably, upon the inner court beyond. For a moment
I hesitated, all my suspicions now suddenly, though tardily, aroused;
then, with a shrug of my shoulders, I opened the door and stepped out
into the glare of torches that lighted the inner court.

Directly opposite me a massive tower rose to a height of three hundred
feet. It was of the strangely beautiful modern Barsoomian style of
architecture, its entire surface hand carved in bold relief with
intricate and fanciful designs. Thirty feet above the courtyard and
overlooking it was a broad balcony, and there, indeed, was Matai Shang,
and with him were Thurid and Phaidor, Thuvia, and Dejah Thoris—the last
two heavily ironed. A handful of thern warriors stood just behind the
little party.

As I entered the enclosure the eyes of those in the balcony were full
upon me.

An ugly smile distorted the cruel lips of Matai Shang. Thurid hurled a
taunt at me and placed a familiar hand upon the shoulder of my
princess. Like a tigress she turned upon him, striking the beast a
heavy blow with the manacles upon her wrist.

He would have struck back had not Matai Shang interfered, and then I
saw that the two men were not over-friendly; for the manner of the
thern was arrogant and domineering as he made it plain to the First
Born that the Princess of Helium was the personal property of the
Father of Therns. And Thurid’s bearing toward the ancient hekkador
savored not at all of liking or respect.

When the altercation in the balcony had subsided Matai Shang turned
again to me.

“Earth man,” he cried, “you have earned a more ignoble death than now
lies within our weakened power to inflict upon you; but that the death
you die tonight may be doubly bitter, know you that when you have
passed, your widow becomes the wife of Matai Shang, Hekkador of the
Holy Therns, for a Martian year.

“At the end of that time, as you know, she shall be discarded, as is
the law among us, but not, as is usual, to lead a quiet and honored
life as high priestess of some hallowed shrine. Instead, Dejah Thoris,
Princess of Helium, shall become the plaything of my
lieutenants—perhaps of thy most hated enemy, Thurid, the black dator.”

As he ceased speaking he awaited in silence evidently for some outbreak
of rage upon my part—something that would have added to the spice of
his revenge. But I did not give him the satisfaction that he craved.

Instead, I did the one thing of all others that might rouse his anger
and increase his hatred of me; for I knew that if I died Dejah Thoris,
too, would find a way to die before they could heap further tortures or
indignities upon her.

Of all the holy of holies which the thern venerates and worships none
is more revered than the yellow wig which covers his bald pate, and
next thereto comes the circlet of gold and the great diadem, whose
scintillant rays mark the attainment of the Tenth Cycle.

And, knowing this, I removed the wig and circlet from my head, tossing
them carelessly upon the flagging of the court. Then I wiped my feet
upon the yellow tresses; and as a groan of rage arose from the balcony
I spat full upon the holy diadem.

Matai Shang went livid with anger, but upon the lips of Thurid I could
see a grim smile of amusement, for to him these things were not holy;
so, lest he should derive too much amusement from my act, I cried: “And
thus did I with the holies of Issus, Goddess of Life Eternal, ere I
threw Issus herself to the mob that once had worshiped her, to be torn
to pieces in her own temple.”

That put an end to Thurid’s grinning, for he had been high in the favor
of Issus.

“Let us have an end to this blaspheming!” he cried, turning to the
Father of Therns.

Matai Shang rose and, leaning over the edge of the balcony, gave voice
to the weird call that I had heard from the lips of the priests upon
the tiny balcony upon the face of the Golden Cliffs overlooking the
Valley Dor, when, in times past, they called the fearsome white apes
and the hideous plant men to the feast of victims floating down the
broad bosom of the mysterious Iss toward the silian-infested waters of
the Lost Sea of Korus. “Let loose the death!” he cried, and immediately
a dozen doors in the base of the tower swung open, and a dozen grim and
terrible banths sprang into the arena.

This was not the first time that I had faced the ferocious Barsoomian
lion, but never had I been pitted, single-handed, against a full dozen
of them. Even with the assistance of the fierce Woola, there could be
but a single outcome to so unequal a struggle.

For a moment the beasts hesitated beneath the brilliant glare of the
torches; but presently their eyes, becoming accustomed to the light,
fell upon Woola and me, and with bristling manes and deep-throated
roars they advanced, lashing their tawny sides with their powerful
tails.

In the brief interval of life that was left me I shot a last, parting
glance toward my Dejah Thoris. Her beautiful face was set in an
expression of horror; and as my eyes met hers she extended both arms
toward me as, struggling with the guards who now held her, she
endeavored to cast herself from the balcony into the pit beneath, that
she might share my death with me. Then, as the banths were about to
close upon me, she turned and buried her dear face in her arms.

Suddenly my attention was drawn toward Thuvia of Ptarth. The beautiful
girl was leaning far over the edge of the balcony, her eyes bright with
excitement.

In another instant the banths would be upon me, but I could not force
my gaze from the features of the red girl, for I knew that her
expression meant anything but the enjoyment of the grim tragedy that
would so soon be enacted below her; there was some deeper, hidden
meaning which I sought to solve.

For an instant I thought of relying on my earthly muscles and agility
to escape the banths and reach the balcony, which I could easily have
done, but I could not bring myself to desert the faithful Woola and
leave him to die alone beneath the cruel fangs of the hungry banths;
that is not the way upon Barsoom, nor was it ever the way of John
Carter.

Then the secret of Thuvia’s excitement became apparent as from her lips
there issued the purring sound I had heard once before; that time that,
within the Golden Cliffs, she called the fierce banths about her and
led them as a shepherdess might lead her flock of meek and harmless
sheep.

At the first note of that soothing sound the banths halted in their
tracks, and every fierce head went high as the beasts sought the origin
of the familiar call. Presently they discovered the red girl in the
balcony above them, and, turning, roared out their recognition and
their greeting.

Guards sprang to drag Thuvia away, but ere they had succeeded she had
hurled a volley of commands at the listening brutes, and as one they
turned and marched back into their dens.

“You need not fear them now, John Carter!” cried Thuvia, before they
could silence her. “Those banths will never harm you now, nor Woola,
either.”

It was all I cared to know. There was naught to keep me from that
balcony now, and with a long, running leap I sprang far aloft until my
hands grasped its lowest sill.

In an instant all was wild confusion. Matai Shang shrank back. Thurid
sprang forward with drawn sword to cut me down.

Again Dejah Thoris wielded her heavy irons and fought him back. Then
Matai Shang grasped her about the waist and dragged her away through a
door leading within the tower.

For an instant Thurid hesitated, and then, as though fearing that the
Father of Therns would escape him with the Princess of Helium, he, too,
dashed from the balcony in their wake.

Phaidor alone retained her presence of mind. Two of the guards she
ordered to bear away Thuvia of Ptarth; the others she commanded to
remain and prevent me from following. Then she turned toward me.

“John Carter,” she cried, “for the last time I offer you the love of
Phaidor, daughter of the Holy Hekkador. Accept and your princess shall
be returned to the court of her grandfather, and you shall live in
peace and happiness. Refuse and the fate that my father has threatened
shall fall upon Dejah Thoris.

“You cannot save her now, for by this time they have reached a place
where even you may not follow. Refuse and naught can save you; for,
though the way to the last stronghold of the Holy Therns was made easy
for you, the way hence hath been made impossible. What say you?”

“You knew my answer, Phaidor,” I replied, “before ever you spoke. Make
way,” I cried to the guards, “for John Carter, Prince of Helium, would
pass!”

With that I leaped over the low baluster that surrounded the balcony,
and with drawn long-sword faced my enemies.

There were three of them; but Phaidor must have guessed what the
outcome of the battle would be, for she turned and fled from the
balcony the moment she saw that I would have none of her proposition.

The three guardsmen did not wait for my attack. Instead, they rushed
me—the three of them simultaneously; and it was that which gave me an
advantage, for they fouled one another in the narrow precincts of the
balcony, so that the foremost of them stumbled full upon my blade at
the first onslaught.

The red stain upon my point roused to its full the old blood-lust of
the fighting man that has ever been so strong within my breast, so that
my blade flew through the air with a swiftness and deadly accuracy that
threw the two remaining therns into wild despair.

When at last the sharp steel found the heart of one of them the other
turned to flee, and, guessing that his steps would lead him along the
way taken by those I sought, I let him keep ever far enough ahead to
think that he was safely escaping my sword.

Through several inner chambers he raced until he came to a spiral
runway. Up this he dashed, I in close pursuit. At the upper end we came
out into a small chamber, the walls of which were blank except for a
single window overlooking the slopes of Otz and the Valley of Lost
Souls beyond.

Here the fellow tore frantically at what appeared to be but a piece of
the blank wall opposite the single window. In an instant I guessed that
it was a secret exit from the room, and so I paused that he might have
an opportunity to negotiate it, for I cared nothing to take the life of
this poor servitor—all I craved was a clear road in pursuit of Dejah
Thoris, my long-lost princess.

But, try as he would, the panel would yield neither to cunning nor
force, so that eventually he gave it up and turned to face me.

“Go thy way, Thern,” I said to him, pointing toward the entrance to the
runway up which we had but just come. “I have no quarrel with you, nor
do I crave your life. Go!”

For answer he sprang upon me with his sword, and so suddenly, at that,
that I was like to have gone down before his first rush. So there was
nothing for it but to give him what he sought, and that as quickly as
might be, that I might not be delayed too long in this chamber while
Matai Shang and Thurid made way with Dejah Thoris and Thuvia of Ptarth.

The fellow was a clever swordsman—resourceful and extremely tricky. In
fact, he seemed never to have heard that there existed such a thing as
a code of honor, for he repeatedly outraged a dozen Barsoomian fighting
customs that an honorable man would rather die than ignore.

He even went so far as to snatch his holy wig from his head and throw
it in my face, so as to blind me for a moment while he thrust at my
unprotected breast.

When he thrust, however, I was not there, for I had fought with therns
before; and while none had ever resorted to precisely that same
expedient, I knew them to be the least honorable and most treacherous
fighters upon Mars, and so was ever on the alert for some new and
devilish subterfuge when I was engaged with one of their race.

But at length he overdid the thing; for, drawing his shortsword, he
hurled it, javelinwise, at my body, at the same instant rushing upon me
with his long-sword. A single sweeping circle of my own blade caught
the flying weapon and hurled it clattering against the far wall, and
then, as I sidestepped my antagonist’s impetuous rush, I let him have
my point full in the stomach as he hurtled by.

Clear to the hilt my weapon passed through his body, and with a
frightful shriek he sank to the floor, dead.

Halting only for the brief instant that was required to wrench my sword
from the carcass of my late antagonist, I sprang across the chamber to
the blank wall beyond, through which the thern had attempted to pass.
Here I sought for the secret of its lock, but all to no avail.

In despair I tried to force the thing, but the cold, unyielding stone
might well have laughed at my futile, puny endeavors. In fact, I could
have sworn that I caught the faint suggestion of taunting laughter from
beyond the baffling panel.

In disgust I desisted from my useless efforts and stepped to the
chamber’s single window.

The slopes of Otz and the distant Valley of Lost Souls held nothing to
compel my interest then; but, towering far above me, the tower’s carved
wall riveted my keenest attention.

Somewhere within that massive pile was Dejah Thoris. Above me I could
see windows. There, possibly, lay the only way by which I could reach
her. The risk was great, but not too great when the fate of a world’s
most wondrous woman was at stake.

I glanced below. A hundred feet beneath lay jagged granite boulders at
the brink of a frightful chasm upon which the tower abutted; and if not
upon the boulders, then at the chasm’s bottom, lay death, should a foot
slip but once, or clutching fingers loose their hold for the fraction
of an instant.

But there was no other way and with a shrug, which I must admit was
half shudder, I stepped to the window’s outer sill and began my
perilous ascent.

To my dismay I found that, unlike the ornamentation upon most
Heliumetic structures, the edges of the carvings were quite generally
rounded, so that at best my every hold was most precarious.

Fifty feet above me commenced a series of projecting cylindrical stones
some six inches in diameter. These apparently circled the tower at
six-foot intervals, in bands six feet apart; and as each stone cylinder
protruded some four or five inches beyond the surface of the other
ornamentation, they presented a comparatively easy mode of ascent could
I but reach them.

Laboriously I climbed toward them by way of some windows which lay
below them, for I hoped that I might find ingress to the tower through
one of these, and thence an easier avenue along which to prosecute my
search.

At times so slight was my hold upon the rounded surfaces of the
carving’s edges that a sneeze, a cough, or even a slight gust of wind
would have dislodged me and sent me hurtling to the depths below.

But finally I reached a point where my fingers could just clutch the
sill of the lowest window, and I was on the point of breathing a sigh
of relief when the sound of voices came to me from above through the
open window.

“He can never solve the secret of that lock.” The voice was Matai
Shang’s. “Let us proceed to the hangar above that we may be far to the
south before he finds another way—should that be possible.”

“All things seem possible to that vile calot,” replied another voice,
which I recognized as Thurid’s.

“Then let us haste,” said Matai Shang. “But to be doubly sure, I will
leave two who shall patrol this runway. Later they may follow us upon
another flier—overtaking us at Kaol.”

My upstretched fingers never reached the window’s sill. At the first
sound of the voices I drew back my hand and clung there to my perilous
perch, flattened against the perpendicular wall, scarce daring to
breathe.

What a horrible position, indeed, in which to be discovered by Thurid!
He had but to lean from the window to push me with his sword’s point
into eternity.

Presently the sound of the voices became fainter, and once again I took
up my hazardous ascent, now more difficult, since more circuitous, for
I must climb so as to avoid the windows.

Matai Shang’s reference to the hangar and the fliers indicated that my
destination lay nothing short of the roof of the tower, and toward this
seemingly distant goal I set my face.

The most difficult and dangerous part of the journey was accomplished
at last, and it was with relief that I felt my fingers close about the
lowest of the stone cylinders.

It is true that these projections were too far apart to make the
balance of the ascent anything of a sinecure, but I at least had always
within my reach a point of safety to which I might cling in case of
accident.

Some ten feet below the roof, the wall inclined slightly inward
possibly a foot in the last ten feet, and here the climbing was indeed
immeasurably easier, so that my fingers soon clutched the eaves.

As I drew my eyes above the level of the tower’s top I saw a flier all
but ready to rise.

Upon her deck were Matai Shang, Phaidor, Dejah Thoris, Thuvia of
Ptarth, and a few thern warriors, while near her was Thurid in the act
of clambering aboard.

He was not ten paces from me, facing in the opposite direction; and
what cruel freak of fate should have caused him to turn about just as
my eyes topped the roof’s edge I may not even guess.

But turn he did; and when his eyes met mine his wicked face lighted
with a malignant smile as he leaped toward me, where I was hastening to
scramble to the secure footing of the roof.

Dejah Thoris must have seen me at the same instant, for she screamed a
useless warning just as Thurid’s foot, swinging in a mighty kick,
landed full in my face.

Like a felled ox, I reeled and tumbled backward over the tower’s side.



ON THE KAOLIAN ROAD


If there be a fate that is sometimes cruel to me, there surely is a
kind and merciful Providence which watches over me.

As I toppled from the tower into the horrid abyss below I counted
myself already dead; and Thurid must have done likewise, for he
evidently did not even trouble himself to look after me, but must have
turned and mounted the waiting flier at once.

Ten feet only I fell, and then a loop of my tough, leathern harness
caught upon one of the cylindrical stone projections in the tower’s
surface—and held. Even when I had ceased to fall I could not believe
the miracle that had preserved me from instant death, and for a moment
I hung there, cold sweat exuding from every pore of my body.

But when at last I had worked myself back to a firm position I
hesitated to ascend, since I could not know that Thurid was not still
awaiting me above.

Presently, however, there came to my ears the whirring of the
propellers of a flier, and as each moment the sound grew fainter I
realized that the party had proceeded toward the south without assuring
themselves as to my fate.

Cautiously I retraced my way to the roof, and I must admit that it was
with no pleasant sensation that I raised my eyes once more above its
edge; but, to my relief, there was no one in sight, and a moment later
I stood safely upon its broad surface.

To reach the hangar and drag forth the only other flier which it
contained was the work of but an instant; and just as the two thern
warriors whom Matai Shang had left to prevent this very contingency
emerged upon the roof from the tower’s interior, I rose above them with
a taunting laugh.

Then I dived rapidly to the inner court where I had last seen Woola,
and to my immense relief found the faithful beast still there.

The twelve great banths lay in the doorways of their lairs, eyeing him
and growling ominously, but they had not disobeyed Thuvia’s injunction;
and I thanked the fate that had made her their keeper within the Golden
Cliffs, and endowed her with the kind and sympathetic nature that had
won the loyalty and affection of these fierce beasts for her.

Woola leaped in frantic joy when he discovered me; and as the flier
touched the pavement of the court for a brief instant he bounded to the
deck beside me, and in the bearlike manifestation of his exuberant
happiness all but caused me to wreck the vessel against the courtyard’s
rocky wall.

Amid the angry shouting of thern guardsmen we rose high above the last
fortress of the Holy Therns, and then raced straight toward the
northeast and Kaol, the destination which I had heard from the lips of
Matai Shang.

Far ahead, a tiny speck in the distance, I made out another flier late
in the afternoon. It could be none other than that which bore my lost
love and my enemies.

I had gained considerably on the craft by night; and then, knowing that
they must have sighted me and would show no lights after dark, I set my
destination compass upon her—that wonderful little Martian mechanism
which, once attuned to the object of destination, points away toward
it, irrespective of every change in its location.

All that night we raced through the Barsoomian void, passing over low
hills and dead sea bottoms; above long-deserted cities and populous
centers of red Martian habitation upon the ribbon-like lines of
cultivated land which border the globe-encircling waterways, which
Earth men call the canals of Mars.

Dawn showed that I had gained appreciably upon the flier ahead of me.
It was a larger craft than mine, and not so swift; but even so, it had
covered an immense distance since the flight began.

The change in vegetation below showed me that we were rapidly nearing
the equator. I was now near enough to my quarry to have used my bow
gun; but, though I could see that Dejah Thoris was not on deck, I
feared to fire upon the craft which bore her.

Thurid was deterred by no such scruples; and though it must have been
difficult for him to believe that it was really I who followed them, he
could not very well doubt the witness of his own eyes; and so he
trained their stern gun upon me with his own hands, and an instant
later an explosive radium projectile whizzed perilously close above my
deck.

The black’s next shot was more accurate, striking my flier full upon
the prow and exploding with the instant of contact, ripping wide open
the bow buoyancy tanks and disabling the engine.

So quickly did my bow drop after the shot that I scarce had time to
lash Woola to the deck and buckle my own harness to a gunwale ring
before the craft was hanging stern up and making her last long drop to
ground.

Her stern buoyancy tanks prevented her dropping with great rapidity;
but Thurid was firing rapidly now in an attempt to burst these also,
that I might be dashed to death in the swift fall that would instantly
follow a successful shot.

Shot after shot tore past or into us, but by a miracle neither Woola
nor I was hit, nor were the after tanks punctured. This good fortune
could not last indefinitely, and, assured that Thurid would not again
leave me alive, I awaited the bursting of the next shell that hit; and
then, throwing my hands above my head, I let go my hold and crumpled,
limp and inert, dangling in my harness like a corpse.

The ruse worked, and Thurid fired no more at us. Presently I heard the
diminishing sound of whirring propellers and realized that again I was
safe.

Slowly the stricken flier sank to the ground, and when I had freed
myself and Woola from the entangling wreckage I found that we were upon
the verge of a natural forest—so rare a thing upon the bosom of dying
Mars that, outside of the forest in the Valley Dor beside the Lost Sea
of Korus, I never before had seen its like upon the planet.

From books and travelers I had learned something of the little-known
land of Kaol, which lies along the equator almost halfway round the
planet to the east of Helium.

It comprises a sunken area of extreme tropical heat, and is inhabited
by a nation of red men varying but little in manners, customs, and
appearance from the balance of the red men of Barsoom.

I knew that they were among those of the outer world who still clung
tenaciously to the discredited religion of the Holy Therns, and that
Matai Shang would find a ready welcome and safe refuge among them;
while John Carter could look for nothing better than an ignoble death
at their hands.

The isolation of the Kaolians is rendered almost complete by the fact
that no waterway connects their land with that of any other nation, nor
have they any need of a waterway since the low, swampy land which
comprises the entire area of their domain self-waters their abundant
tropical crops.

For great distances in all directions rugged hills and arid stretches
of dead sea bottom discourage intercourse with them, and since there is
practically no such thing as foreign commerce upon warlike Barsoom,
where each nation is sufficient to itself, really little has been known
relative to the court of the Jeddak of Kaol and the numerous strange,
but interesting, people over whom he rules.

Occasional hunting parties have traveled to this out-of-the-way corner
of the globe, but the hostility of the natives has usually brought
disaster upon them, so that even the sport of hunting the strange and
savage creatures which haunt the jungle fastnesses of Kaol has of later
years proved insufficient lure even to the most intrepid warriors.

It was upon the verge of the land of the Kaols that I now knew myself
to be, but in what direction to search for Dejah Thoris, or how far
into the heart of the great forest I might have to penetrate I had not
the faintest idea.

But not so Woola.

Scarcely had I disentangled him than he raised his head high in air and
commenced circling about at the edge of the forest. Presently he
halted, and, turning to see if I were following, set off straight into
the maze of trees in the direction we had been going before Thurid’s
shot had put an end to our flier.

As best I could, I stumbled after him down a steep declivity beginning
at the forest’s edge.

Immense trees reared their mighty heads far above us, their broad
fronds completely shutting off the slightest glimpse of the sky. It was
easy to see why the Kaolians needed no navy; their cities, hidden in
the midst of this towering forest, must be entirely invisible from
above, nor could a landing be made by any but the smallest fliers, and
then only with the greatest risk of accident.

How Thurid and Matai Shang were to land I could not imagine, though
later I was to learn that to the level of the forest top there rises in
each city of Kaol a slender watchtower which guards the Kaolians by day
and by night against the secret approach of a hostile fleet. To one of
these the hekkador of the Holy Therns had no difficulty in approaching,
and by its means the party was safely lowered to the ground.

As Woola and I approached the bottom of the declivity the ground became
soft and mushy, so that it was with the greatest difficulty that we
made any headway whatever.

Slender purple grasses topped with red and yellow fern-like fronds grew
rankly all about us to the height of several feet above my head.

Myriad creepers hung festooned in graceful loops from tree to tree, and
among them were several varieties of the Martian “man-flower,” whose
blooms have eyes and hands with which to see and seize the insects
which form their diet.

The repulsive calot tree was, too, much in evidence. It is a
carnivorous plant of about the bigness of a large sage-brush such as
dots our western plains. Each branch ends in a set of strong jaws,
which have been known to drag down and devour large and formidable
beasts of prey.

Both Woola and I had several narrow escapes from these greedy,
arboreous monsters.

Occasional areas of firm sod gave us intervals of rest from the arduous
labor of traversing this gorgeous, twilight swamp, and it was upon one
of these that I finally decided to make camp for the night which my
chronometer warned me would soon be upon us.

Many varieties of fruit grew in abundance about us; and as Martian
calots are omnivorous, Woola had no difficulty in making a square meal
after I had brought down the viands for him. Then, having eaten, too, I
lay down with my back to that of my faithful hound, and dropped into a
deep and dreamless sleep.

The forest was shrouded in impenetrable darkness when a low growl from
Woola awakened me. All about us I could hear the stealthy movement of
great, padded feet, and now and then the wicked gleam of green eyes
upon us. Arising, I drew my long-sword and waited.

Suddenly a deep-toned, horrid roar burst from some savage throat almost
at my side. What a fool I had been not to have found safer lodgings for
myself and Woola among the branches of one of the countless trees that
surrounded us!

By daylight it would have been comparatively easy to have hoisted Woola
aloft in one manner or another, but now it was too late. There was
nothing for it but to stand our ground and take our medicine, though,
from the hideous racket which now assailed our ears, and for which that
first roar had seemed to be the signal, I judged that we must be in the
midst of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the fierce, man-eating
denizens of the Kaolian jungle.

All the balance of the night they kept up their infernal din, but why
they did not attack us I could not guess, nor am I sure to this day,
unless it is that none of them ever venture upon the patches of scarlet
sward which dot the swamp.

When morning broke they were still there, walking about as in a circle,
but always just beyond the edge of the sward. A more terrifying
aggregation of fierce and blood-thirsty monsters it would be difficult
to imagine.

Singly and in pairs they commenced wandering off into the jungle
shortly after sunrise, and when the last of them had departed Woola and
I resumed our journey.

Occasionally we caught glimpses of horrid beasts all during the day;
but, fortunately, we were never far from a sward island, and when they
saw us their pursuit always ended at the verge of the solid sod.

Toward noon we stumbled upon a well-constructed road running in the
general direction we had been pursuing. Everything about this highway
marked it as the work of skilled engineers, and I was confident, from
the indications of antiquity which it bore, as well as from the very
evident signs of its being still in everyday use, that it must lead to
one of the principal cities of Kaol.

Just as we entered it from one side a huge monster emerged from the
jungle upon the other, and at sight of us charged madly in our
direction.

Imagine, if you can, a bald-faced hornet of your earthly experience
grown to the size of a prize Hereford bull, and you will have some
faint conception of the ferocious appearance and awesome formidability
of the winged monster that bore down upon me.

Frightful jaws in front and mighty, poisoned sting behind made my
relatively puny long-sword seem a pitiful weapon of defense indeed. Nor
could I hope to escape the lightning-like movements or hide from those
myriad facet eyes which covered three-fourths of the hideous head,
permitting the creature to see in all directions at one and the same
time.

Even my powerful and ferocious Woola was as helpless as a kitten before
that frightful thing. But to flee were useless, even had it ever been
to my liking to turn my back upon a danger; so I stood my ground, Woola
snarling at my side, my only hope to die as I had always
lived—fighting.

The creature was upon us now, and at the instant there seemed to me a
single slight chance for victory. If I could but remove the terrible
menace of certain death hidden in the poison sacs that fed the sting
the struggle would be less unequal.

At the thought I called to Woola to leap upon the creature’s head and
hang there, and as his mighty jaws closed upon that fiendish face, and
glistening fangs buried themselves in the bone and cartilage and lower
part of one of the huge eyes, I dived beneath the great body as the
creature rose, dragging Woola from the ground, that it might bring its
sting beneath and pierce the body of the thing hanging to its head.

To put myself in the path of that poison-laden lance was to court
instant death, but it was the only way; and as the thing shot
lightning-like toward me I swung my long-sword in a terrific cut that
severed the deadly member close to the gorgeously marked body.

Then, like a battering-ram, one of the powerful hind legs caught me
full in the chest and hurled me, half stunned and wholly winded, clear
across the broad highway and into the underbrush of the jungle that
fringes it.

Fortunately, I passed between the boles of trees; had I struck one of
them I should have been badly injured, if not killed, so swiftly had I
been catapulted by that enormous hind leg.

Dazed though I was, I stumbled to my feet and staggered back to Woola’s
assistance, to find his savage antagonist circling ten feet above the
ground, beating madly at the clinging calot with all six powerful legs.

Even during my sudden flight through the air I had not once released my
grip upon my long-sword, and now I ran beneath the two battling
monsters, jabbing the winged terror repeatedly with its sharp point.

The thing might easily have risen out of my reach, but evidently it
knew as little concerning retreat in the face of danger as either Woola
or I, for it dropped quickly toward me, and before I could escape had
grasped my shoulder between its powerful jaws.

Time and again the now useless stub of its giant sting struck futilely
against my body, but the blows alone were almost as effective as the
kick of a horse; so that when I say futilely, I refer only to the
natural function of the disabled member—eventually the thing would have
hammered me to a pulp. Nor was it far from accomplishing this when an
interruption occurred that put an end forever to its hostilities.

From where I hung a few feet above the road I could see along the
highway a few hundred yards to where it turned toward the east, and
just as I had about given up all hope of escaping the perilous position
in which I now was I saw a red warrior come into view from around the
bend.

He was mounted on a splendid thoat, one of the smaller species used by
red men, and in his hand was a wondrous long, light lance.

His mount was walking sedately when I first perceived them, but the
instant that the red man’s eyes fell upon us a word to the thoat
brought the animal at full charge down upon us. The long lance of the
warrior dipped toward us, and as thoat and rider hurtled beneath, the
point passed through the body of our antagonist.

With a convulsive shudder the thing stiffened, the jaws relaxed,
dropping me to the ground, and then, careening once in mid air, the
creature plunged headforemost to the road, full upon Woola, who still
clung tenaciously to its gory head.

By the time I had regained my feet the red man had turned and ridden
back to us. Woola, finding his enemy inert and lifeless, released his
hold at my command and wriggled from beneath the body that had covered
him, and together we faced the warrior looking down upon us.

I started to thank the stranger for his timely assistance, but he cut
me off peremptorily.

“Who are you,” he asked, “who dare enter the land of Kaol and hunt in
the royal forest of the jeddak?”

Then, as he noted my white skin through the coating of grime and blood
that covered me, his eyes went wide and in an altered tone he
whispered: “Can it be that you are a Holy Thern?”

I might have deceived the fellow for a time, as I had deceived others,
but I had cast away the yellow wig and the holy diadem in the presence
of Matai Shang, and I knew that it would not be long ere my new
acquaintance discovered that I was no thern at all.

“I am not a thern,” I replied, and then, flinging caution to the winds,
I said: “I am John Carter, Prince of Helium, whose name may not be
entirely unknown to you.”

If his eyes had gone wide when he thought that I was a Holy Thern, they
fairly popped now that he knew that I was John Carter. I grasped my
long-sword more firmly as I spoke the words which I was sure would
precipitate an attack, but to my surprise they precipitated nothing of
the kind.

“John Carter, Prince of Helium,” he repeated slowly, as though he could
not quite grasp the truth of the statement. “John Carter, the mightiest
warrior of Barsoom!”

And then he dismounted and placed his hand upon my shoulder after the
manner of most friendly greeting upon Mars.

“It is my duty, and it should be my pleasure, to kill you, John
Carter,” he said, “but always in my heart of hearts have I admired your
prowess and believed in your sincerity the while I have questioned and
disbelieved the therns and their religion.

“It would mean my instant death were my heresy to be suspected in the
court of Kulan Tith, but if I may serve you, Prince, you have but to
command Torkar Bar, Dwar of the Kaolian Road.”

Truth and honesty were writ large upon the warrior’s noble countenance,
so that I could not but have trusted him, enemy though he should have
been. His title of Captain of the Kaolian Road explained his timely
presence in the heart of the savage forest, for every highway upon
Barsoom is patrolled by doughty warriors of the noble class, nor is
there any service more honorable than this lonely and dangerous duty in
the less frequented sections of the domains of the red men of Barsoom.

“Torkar Bar has already placed a great debt of gratitude upon my
shoulders,” I replied, pointing to the carcass of the creature from
whose heart he was dragging his long spear.

The red man smiled.

“It was fortunate that I came when I did,” he said. “Only this poisoned
spear pricking the very heart of a sith can kill it quickly enough to
save its prey. In this section of Kaol we are all armed with a long
sith spear, whose point is smeared with the poison of the creature it
is intended to kill; no other virus acts so quickly upon the beast as
its own.

“Look,” he continued, drawing his dagger and making an incision in the
carcass a foot above the root of the sting, from which he presently
drew forth two sacs, each of which held fully a gallon of the deadly
liquid.

“Thus we maintain our supply, though were it not for certain commercial
uses to which the virus is put, it would scarcely be necessary to add
to our present store, since the sith is almost extinct.

“Only occasionally do we now run upon one. Of old, however, Kaol was
overrun with the frightful monsters that often came in herds of twenty
or thirty, darting down from above into our cities and carrying away
women, children, and even warriors.”

As he spoke I had been wondering just how much I might safely tell this
man of the mission which brought me to his land, but his next words
anticipated the broaching of the subject on my part, and rendered me
thankful that I had not spoken too soon.

“And now as to yourself, John Carter,” he said, “I shall not ask your
business here, nor do I wish to hear it. I have eyes and ears and
ordinary intelligence, and yesterday morning I saw the party that came
to the city of Kaol from the north in a small flier. But one thing I
ask of you, and that is: the word of John Carter that he contemplates
no overt act against either the nation of Kaol or its jeddak.”

“You may have my word as to that, Torkar Bar,” I replied.

“My way leads along the Kaolian road, away from the city of Kaol,” he
continued. “I have seen no one—John Carter least of all. Nor have you
seen Torkar Bar, nor ever heard of him. You understand?”

“Perfectly,” I replied.

He laid his hand upon my shoulder.

“This road leads directly into the city of Kaol,” he said. “I wish you
fortune,” and vaulting to the back of his thoat he trotted away without
even a backward glance.

It was after dark when Woola and I spied through the mighty forest the
great wall which surrounds the city of Kaol.

We had traversed the entire way without mishap or adventure, and though
the few we had met had eyed the great calot wonderingly, none had
pierced the red pigment with which I had smoothly smeared every square
inch of my body.

But to traverse the surrounding country, and to enter the guarded city
of Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol, were two very different things. No man
enters a Martian city without giving a very detailed and satisfactory
account of himself, nor did I delude myself with the belief that I
could for a moment impose upon the acumen of the officers of the guard
to whom I should be taken the moment I applied at any one of the gates.

My only hope seemed to lie in entering the city surreptitiously under
cover of the darkness, and once in, trust to my own wits to hide myself
in some crowded quarter where detection would be less liable to occur.

With this idea in view I circled the great wall, keeping within the
fringe of the forest, which is cut away for a short distance from the
wall all about the city, that no enemy may utilize the trees as a means
of ingress.

Several times I attempted to scale the barrier at different points, but
not even my earthly muscles could overcome that cleverly constructed
rampart. To a height of thirty feet the face of the wall slanted
outward, and then for almost an equal distance it was perpendicular,
above which it slanted in again for some fifteen feet to the crest.

And smooth! Polished glass could not be more so. Finally I had to admit
that at last I had discovered a Barsoomian fortification which I could
not negotiate.

Discouraged, I withdrew into the forest beside a broad highway which
entered the city from the east, and with Woola beside me lay down to
sleep.



A HERO IN KAOL


It was daylight when I was awakened by the sound of stealthy movement
near by.

As I opened my eyes Woola, too, moved and, coming up to his haunches,
stared through the intervening brush toward the road, each hair upon
his neck stiffly erect.

At first I could see nothing, but presently I caught a glimpse of a bit
of smooth and glossy green moving among the scarlet and purple and
yellow of the vegetation.

Motioning Woola to remain quietly where he was, I crept forward to
investigate, and from behind the bole of a great tree I saw a long line
of the hideous green warriors of the dead sea bottoms hiding in the
dense jungle beside the road.

As far as I could see, the silent line of destruction and death
stretched away from the city of Kaol. There could be but one
explanation. The green men were expecting an exodus of a body of red
troops from the nearest city gate, and they were lying there in ambush
to leap upon them.

I owed no fealty to the Jeddak of Kaol, but he was of the same race of
noble red men as my own princess, and I would not stand supinely by and
see his warriors butchered by the cruel and heartless demons of the
waste places of Barsoom.

Cautiously I retraced my steps to where I had left Woola, and warning
him to silence, signaled him to follow me. Making a considerable detour
to avoid the chance of falling into the hands of the green men, I came
at last to the great wall.

A hundred yards to my right was the gate from which the troops were
evidently expected to issue, but to reach it I must pass the flank of
the green warriors within easy sight of them, and, fearing that my plan
to warn the Kaolians might thus be thwarted, I decided upon hastening
toward the left, where another gate a mile away would give me ingress
to the city.

I knew that the word I brought would prove a splendid passport to Kaol,
and I must admit that my caution was due more to my ardent desire to
make my way into the city than to avoid a brush with the green men. As
much as I enjoy a fight, I cannot always indulge myself, and just now I
had more weighty matters to occupy my time than spilling the blood of
strange warriors.

Could I but win beyond the city’s wall, there might be opportunity in
the confusion and excitement which were sure to follow my announcement
of an invading force of green warriors to find my way within the palace
of the jeddak, where I was sure Matai Shang and his party would be
quartered.

But scarcely had I taken a hundred steps in the direction of the
farther gate when the sound of marching troops, the clank of metal, and
the squealing of thoats just within the city apprised me of the fact
that the Kaolians were already moving toward the other gate.

There was no time to be lost. In another moment the gate would be
opened and the head of the column pass out upon the death-bordered
highway.

Turning back toward the fateful gate, I ran rapidly along the edge of
the clearing, taking the ground in the mighty leaps that had first made
me famous upon Barsoom. Thirty, fifty, a hundred feet at a bound are
nothing for the muscles of an athletic Earth man upon Mars.

As I passed the flank of the waiting green men they saw my eyes turned
upon them, and in an instant, knowing that all secrecy was at an end,
those nearest me sprang to their feet in an effort to cut me off before
I could reach the gate.

At the same instant the mighty portal swung wide and the head of the
Kaolian column emerged. A dozen green warriors had succeeded in
reaching a point between me and the gate, but they had but little idea
who it was they had elected to detain.

I did not slacken my speed an iota as I dashed among them, and as they
fell before my blade I could not but recall the happy memory of those
other battles when Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, mightiest of Martian
green men, had stood shoulder to shoulder with me through long, hot
Martian days, as together we hewed down our enemies until the pile of
corpses about us rose higher than a tall man’s head.

When several pressed me too closely, there before the carved gateway of
Kaol, I leaped above their heads, and fashioning my tactics after those
of the hideous plant men of Dor, struck down upon my enemies’ heads as
I passed above them.

From the city the red warriors were rushing toward us, and from the
jungle the savage horde of green men were coming to meet them. In a
moment I was in the very center of as fierce and bloody a battle as I
had ever passed through.

These Kaolians are most noble fighters, nor are the green men of the
equator one whit less warlike than their cold, cruel cousins of the
temperate zone. There were many times when either side might have
withdrawn without dishonor and thus ended hostilities, but from the mad
abandon with which each invariably renewed hostilities I soon came to
believe that what need not have been more than a trifling skirmish
would end only with the complete extermination of one force or the
other.

With the joy of battle once roused within me, I took keen delight in
the fray, and that my fighting was noted by the Kaolians was often
evidenced by the shouts of applause directed at me.

If I sometimes seem to take too great pride in my fighting ability, it
must be remembered that fighting is my vocation. If your vocation be
shoeing horses, or painting pictures, and you can do one or the other
better than your fellows, then you are a fool if you are not proud of
your ability. And so I am very proud that upon two planets no greater
fighter has ever lived than John Carter, Prince of Helium.

And I outdid myself that day to impress the fact upon the natives of
Kaol, for I wished to win a way into their hearts—and their city. Nor
was I to be disappointed in my desire.

All day we fought, until the road was red with blood and clogged with
corpses. Back and forth along the slippery highway the tide of battle
surged, but never once was the gateway to Kaol really in danger.

There were breathing spells when I had a chance to converse with the
red men beside whom I fought, and once the jeddak, Kulan Tith himself,
laid his hand upon my shoulder and asked my name.

“I am Dotar Sojat,” I replied, recalling a name given me by the Tharks
many years before, from the surnames of the first two of their warriors
I had killed, which is the custom among them.

“You are a mighty warrior, Dotar Sojat,” he replied, “and when this day
is done I shall speak with you again in the great audience chamber.”

And then the fight surged upon us once more and we were separated, but
my heart’s desire was attained, and it was with renewed vigor and a
joyous soul that I laid about me with my long-sword until the last of
the green men had had enough and had withdrawn toward their distant sea
bottom.

Not until the battle was over did I learn why the red troops had
sallied forth that day. It seemed that Kulan Tith was expecting a visit
from a mighty jeddak of the north—a powerful and the only ally of the
Kaolians, and it had been his wish to meet his guest a full day’s
journey from Kaol.

But now the march of the welcoming host was delayed until the following
morning, when the troops again set out from Kaol. I had not been bidden
to the presence of Kulan Tith after the battle, but he had sent an
officer to find me and escort me to comfortable quarters in that part
of the palace set aside for the officers of the royal guard.

There, with Woola, I had spent a comfortable night, and rose much
refreshed after the arduous labors of the past few days. Woola had
fought with me through the battle of the previous day, true to the
instincts and training of a Martian war dog, great numbers of which are
often to be found with the savage green hordes of the dead sea bottoms.

Neither of us had come through the conflict unscathed, but the
marvelous, healing salves of Barsoom had sufficed, overnight, to make
us as good as new.

I breakfasted with a number of the Kaolian officers, whom I found as
courteous and delightful hosts as even the nobles of Helium, who are
renowned for their ease of manners and excellence of breeding. The meal
was scarcely concluded when a messenger arrived from Kulan Tith
summoning me before him.

As I entered the royal presence the jeddak rose, and stepping from the
dais which supported his magnificent throne, came forward to meet me—a
mark of distinction that is seldom accorded to other than a visiting
ruler.

“Kaor, Dotar Sojat!” he greeted me. “I have summoned you to receive the
grateful thanks of the people of Kaol, for had it not been for your
heroic bravery in daring fate to warn us of the ambuscade we must
surely have fallen into the well-laid trap. Tell me more of
yourself—from what country you come, and what errand brings you to the
court of Kulan Tith.”

“I am from Hastor,” I said, for in truth I had a small palace in that
southern city which lies within the far-flung dominions of the
Heliumetic nation.

“My presence in the land of Kaol is partly due to accident, my flier
being wrecked upon the southern fringe of your great forest. It was
while seeking entrance to the city of Kaol that I discovered the green
horde lying in wait for your troops.”

If Kulan Tith wondered what business brought me in a flier to the very
edge of his domain he was good enough not to press me further for an
explanation, which I should indeed have had difficulty in rendering.

During my audience with the jeddak another party entered the chamber
from behind me, so that I did not see their faces until Kulan Tith
stepped past me to greet them, commanding me to follow and be
presented.

As I turned toward them it was with difficulty that I controlled my
features, for there, listening to Kulan Tith’s eulogistic words
concerning me, stood my arch-enemies, Matai Shang and Thurid.

“Holy Hekkador of the Holy Therns,” the jeddak was saying, “shower thy
blessings upon Dotar Sojat, the valorous stranger from distant Hastor,
whose wondrous heroism and marvelous ferocity saved the day for Kaol
yesterday.”

Matai Shang stepped forward and laid his hand upon my shoulder. No
slightest indication that he recognized me showed upon his
countenance—my disguise was evidently complete.

He spoke kindly to me and then presented me to Thurid. The black, too,
was evidently entirely deceived. Then Kulan Tith regaled them, much to
my amusement, with details of my achievements upon the field of battle.

The thing that seemed to have impressed him most was my remarkable
agility, and time and again he described the wondrous way in which I
had leaped completely over an antagonist, cleaving his skull wide open
with my long-sword as I passed above him.

I thought that I saw Thurid’s eyes widen a bit during the narrative,
and several times I surprised him gazing intently into my face through
narrowed lids. Was he commencing to suspect? And then Kulan Tith told
of the savage calot that fought beside me, and after that I saw
suspicion in the eyes of Matai Shang—or did I but imagine it?

At the close of the audience Kulan Tith announced that he would have me
accompany him upon the way to meet his royal guest, and as I departed
with an officer who was to procure proper trappings and a suitable
mount for me, both Matai Shang and Thurid seemed most sincere in
professing their pleasure at having had an opportunity to know me. It
was with a sigh of relief that I quitted the chamber, convinced that
nothing more than a guilty conscience had prompted my belief that
either of my enemies suspected my true identity.

A half-hour later I rode out of the city gate with the column that
accompanied Kulan Tith upon the way to meet his friend and ally. Though
my eyes and ears had been wide open during my audience with the jeddak
and my various passages through the palace, I had seen or heard nothing
of Dejah Thoris or Thuvia of Ptarth. That they must be somewhere within
the great rambling edifice I was positive, and I should have given much
to have found a way to remain behind during Kulan Tith’s absence, that
I might search for them.

Toward noon we came in touch with the head of the column we had set out
to meet.

It was a gorgeous train that accompanied the visiting jeddak, and for
miles it stretched along the wide, white road to Kaol. Mounted troops,
their trappings of jewel and metal-incrusted leather glistening in the
sunlight, formed the vanguard of the body, and then came a thousand
gorgeous chariots drawn by huge zitidars.

These low, commodious wagons moved two abreast, and on either side of
them marched solid ranks of mounted warriors, for in the chariots were
the women and children of the royal court. Upon the back of each
monster zitidar rode a Martian youth, and the whole scene carried me
back to my first days upon Barsoom, now twenty-two years in the past,
when I had first beheld the gorgeous spectacle of a caravan of the
green horde of Tharks.

Never before today had I seen zitidars in the service of red men. These
brutes are huge mastodonian animals that tower to an immense height
even beside the giant green men and their giant thoats; but when
compared to the relatively small red man and his breed of thoats they
assume Brobdingnagian proportions that are truly appalling.

The beasts were hung with jeweled trappings and saddlepads of gay silk,
embroidered in fanciful designs with strings of diamonds, pearls,
rubies, emeralds, and the countless unnamed jewels of Mars, while from
each chariot rose a dozen standards from which streamers, flags, and
pennons fluttered in the breeze.

Just in front of the chariots the visiting jeddak rode alone upon a
pure white thoat—another unusual sight upon Barsoom—and after them came
interminable ranks of mounted spearmen, riflemen, and swordsmen. It was
indeed a most imposing sight.

Except for the clanking of accouterments and the occasional squeal of
an angry thoat or the low guttural of a zitidar, the passage of the
cavalcade was almost noiseless, for neither thoat nor zitidar is a
hoofed animal, and the broad tires of the chariots are of an elastic
composition, which gives forth no sound.

Now and then the gay laughter of a woman or the chatter of children
could be heard, for the red Martians are a social, pleasure-loving
people—in direct antithesis to the cold and morbid race of green men.

The forms and ceremonials connected with the meeting of the two jeddaks
consumed an hour, and then we turned and retraced our way toward the
city of Kaol, which the head of the column reached just before dark,
though it must have been nearly morning before the rear guard passed
through the gateway.

Fortunately, I was well up toward the head of the column, and after the
great banquet, which I attended with the officers of the royal guard, I
was free to seek repose. There was so much activity and bustle about
the palace all during the night with the constant arrival of the noble
officers of the visiting jeddak’s retinue that I dared not attempt to
prosecute a search for Dejah Thoris, and so, as soon as it was seemly
for me to do so, I returned to my quarters.

As I passed along the corridors between the banquet hall and the
apartments that had been allotted me, I had a sudden feeling that I was
under surveillance, and, turning quickly in my tracks, caught a glimpse
of a figure which darted into an open doorway the instant I wheeled
about.

Though I ran quickly back to the spot where the shadower had
disappeared I could find no trace of him, yet in the brief glimpse that
I had caught I could have sworn that I had seen a white face surmounted
by a mass of yellow hair.

The incident gave me considerable food for speculation, since if I were
right in the conclusion induced by the cursory glimpse I had had of the
spy, then Matai Shang and Thurid must suspect my identity, and if that
were true not even the service I had rendered Kulan Tith could save me
from his religious fanaticism.

But never did vague conjecture or fruitless fears for the future lie
with sufficient weight upon my mind to keep me from my rest, and so
tonight I threw myself upon my sleeping silks and furs and passed at
once into dreamless slumber.

Calots are not permitted within the walls of the palace proper, and so
I had had to relegate poor Woola to quarters in the stables where the
royal thoats are kept. He had comfortable, even luxurious apartments,
but I would have given much to have had him with me; and if he had
been, the thing which happened that night would not have come to pass.

I could not have slept over a quarter of an hour when I was suddenly
awakened by the passing of some cold and clammy thing across my
forehead. Instantly I sprang to my feet, clutching in the direction I
thought the presence lay. For an instant my hand touched against human
flesh, and then, as I lunged headforemost through the darkness to seize
my nocturnal visitor, my foot became entangled in my sleeping silks and
I fell sprawling to the floor.

By the time I had resumed my feet and found the button which controlled
the light my caller had disappeared. Careful search of the room
revealed nothing to explain either the identity or business of the
person who had thus secretly sought me in the dead of night.

That the purpose might be theft I could not believe, since thieves are
practically unknown upon Barsoom. Assassination, however, is rampant,
but even this could not have been the motive of my stealthy friend, for
he might easily have killed me had he desired.

I had about given up fruitless conjecture and was on the point of
returning to sleep when a dozen Kaolian guardsmen entered my apartment.
The officer in charge was one of my genial hosts of the morning, but
now upon his face was no sign of friendship.

“Kulan Tith commands your presence before him,” he said. “Come!”



NEW ALLIES


Surrounded by guardsmen I marched back along the corridors of the
palace of Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol, to the great audience chamber in
the center of the massive structure.

As I entered the brilliantly lighted apartment, filled with the nobles
of Kaol and the officers of the visiting jeddak, all eyes were turned
upon me. Upon the great dais at the end of the chamber stood three
thrones, upon which sat Kulan Tith and his two guests, Matai Shang, and
the visiting jeddak.

Up the broad center aisle we marched beneath deadly silence, and at the
foot of the thrones we halted.

“Prefer thy charge,” said Kulan Tith, turning to one who stood among
the nobles at his right; and then Thurid, the black dator of the First
Born, stepped forward and faced me.

“Most noble Jeddak,” he said, addressing Kulan Tith, “from the first I
suspected this stranger within thy palace. Your description of his
fiendish prowess tallied with that of the arch-enemy of truth upon
Barsoom.

“But that there might be no mistake I despatched a priest of your own
holy cult to make the test that should pierce his disguise and reveal
the truth. Behold the result!” and Thurid pointed a rigid finger at my
forehead.

All eyes followed the direction of that accusing digit—I alone seemed
at a loss to guess what fatal sign rested upon my brow.

The officer beside me guessed my perplexity; and as the brows of Kulan
Tith darkened in a menacing scowl as his eyes rested upon me, the noble
drew a small mirror from his pocket-pouch and held it before my face.

One glance at the reflection it gave back to me was sufficient.

From my forehead the hand of the sneaking thern had reached out through
the concealing darkness of my bed-chamber and wiped away a patch of the
disguising red pigment as broad as my palm. Beneath showed the tanned
texture of my own white skin.

For a moment Thurid ceased speaking, to enhance, I suspect, the
dramatic effect of his disclosure. Then he resumed.

“Here, O Kulan Tith,” he cried, “is he who has desecrated the temples
of the Gods of Mars, who has violated the persons of the Holy Therns
themselves and turned a world against its age-old religion. Before you,
in your power, Jeddak of Kaol, Defender of the Holies, stands John
Carter, Prince of Helium!”

Kulan Tith looked toward Matai Shang as though for corroboration of
these charges. The Holy Thern nodded his head.

“It is indeed the arch-blasphemer,” he said. “Even now he has followed
me to the very heart of thy palace, Kulan Tith, for the sole purpose of
assassinating me. He—”

“He lies!” I cried. “Kulan Tith, listen that you may know the truth.
Listen while I tell you why John Carter has followed Matai Shang to the
heart of thy palace. Listen to me as well as to them, and then judge if
my acts be not more in accord with true Barsoomian chivalry and honor
than those of these revengeful devotees of the spurious creeds from
whose cruel bonds I have freed your planet.”

“Silence!” roared the jeddak, leaping to his feet and laying his hand
upon the hilt of his sword. “Silence, blasphemer! Kulan Tith need not
permit the air of his audience chamber to be defiled by the heresies
that issue from your polluted throat to judge you.

“You stand already self-condemned. It but remains to determine the
manner of your death. Even the service that you rendered the arms of
Kaol shall avail you naught; it was but a base subterfuge whereby you
might win your way into my favor and reach the side of this holy man
whose life you craved. To the pits with him!” he concluded, addressing
the officer of my guard.

Here was a pretty pass, indeed! What chance had I against a whole
nation? What hope for me of mercy at the hands of the fanatical Kulan
Tith with such advisers as Matai Shang and Thurid. The black grinned
malevolently in my face.

“You shall not escape this time, Earth man,” he taunted.

The guards closed toward me. A red haze blurred my vision. The fighting
blood of my Virginian sires coursed hot through my veins. The lust of
battle in all its mad fury was upon me.

With a leap I was beside Thurid, and ere the devilish smirk had faded
from his handsome face I had caught him full upon the mouth with my
clenched fist; and as the good, old American blow landed, the black
dator shot back a dozen feet, to crumple in a heap at the foot of Kulan
Tith’s throne, spitting blood and teeth from his hurt mouth.

Then I drew my sword and swung round, on guard, to face a nation.

In an instant the guardsmen were upon me, but before a blow had been
struck a mighty voice rose above the din of shouting warriors, and a
giant figure leaped from the dais beside Kulan Tith and, with drawn
long-sword, threw himself between me and my adversaries.

It was the visiting jeddak.

“Hold!” he cried. “If you value my friendship, Kulan Tith, and the
age-old peace that has existed between our peoples, call off your
swordsmen; for wherever or against whomsoever fights John Carter,
Prince of Helium, there beside him and to the death fights Thuvan Dihn,
Jeddak of Ptarth.”

The shouting ceased and the menacing points were lowered as a thousand
eyes turned first toward Thuvan Dihn in surprise and then toward Kulan
Tith in question. At first the Jeddak of Kaol went white in rage, but
before he spoke he had mastered himself, so that his tone was calm and
even as befitted intercourse between two great jeddaks.

“Thuvan Dihn,” he said slowly, “must have great provocation thus to
desecrate the ancient customs which inspire the deportment of a guest
within the palace of his host. Lest I, too, should forget myself as has
my royal friend, I should prefer to remain silent until the Jeddak of
Ptarth has won from me applause for his action by relating the causes
which provoked it.”

I could see that the Jeddak of Ptarth was of half a mind to throw his
metal in Kulan Tith’s face, but he controlled himself even as well as
had his host.

“None knows better than Thuvan Dihn,” he said, “the laws which govern
the acts of men in the domains of their neighbors; but Thuvan Dihn owes
allegiance to a higher law than these—the law of gratitude. Nor to any
man upon Barsoom does he owe a greater debt of gratitude than to John
Carter, Prince of Helium.

“Years ago, Kulan Tith,” he continued, “upon the occasion of your last
visit to me, you were greatly taken with the charms and graces of my
only daughter, Thuvia. You saw how I adored her, and later you learned
that, inspired by some unfathomable whim, she had taken the last, long,
voluntary pilgrimage upon the cold bosom of the mysterious Iss, leaving
me desolate.

“Some months ago I first heard of the expedition which John Carter had
led against Issus and the Holy Therns. Faint rumors of the atrocities
reported to have been committed by the therns upon those who for
countless ages have floated down the mighty Iss came to my ears.

“I heard that thousands of prisoners had been released, few of whom
dared to return to their own countries owing to the mandate of terrible
death which rests against all who return from the Valley Dor.

“For a time I could not believe the heresies which I heard, and I
prayed that my daughter Thuvia might have died before she ever
committed the sacrilege of returning to the outer world. But then my
father’s love asserted itself, and I vowed that I would prefer eternal
damnation to further separation from her if she could be found.

“So I sent emissaries to Helium, and to the court of Xodar, Jeddak of
the First Born, and to him who now rules those of the thern nation that
have renounced their religion; and from each and all I heard the same
story of unspeakable cruelties and atrocities perpetrated upon the poor
defenseless victims of their religion by the Holy Therns.

“Many there were who had seen or known my daughter, and from therns who
had been close to Matai Shang I learned of the indignities that he
personally heaped upon her; and I was glad when I came here to find
that Matai Shang was also your guest, for I should have sought him out
had it taken a lifetime.

“More, too, I heard, and that of the chivalrous kindness that John
Carter had accorded my daughter. They told me how he fought for her and
rescued her, and how he spurned escape from the savage Warhoons of the
south, sending her to safety upon his own thoat and remaining upon foot
to meet the green warriors.

“Can you wonder, Kulan Tith, that I am willing to jeopardize my life,
the peace of my nation, or even your friendship, which I prize more
than aught else, to champion the Prince of Helium?”

For a moment Kulan Tith was silent. I could see by the expression of
his face that he was sore perplexed. Then he spoke.

“Thuvan Dihn,” he said, and his tone was friendly though sad, “who am I
to judge my fellow-man? In my eyes the Father of Therns is still holy,
and the religion which he teaches the only true religion, but were I
faced by the same problem that has vexed you I doubt not that I should
feel and act precisely as you have.

“In so far as the Prince of Helium is concerned I may act, but between
you and Matai Shang my only office can be one of conciliation. The
Prince of Helium shall be escorted in safety to the boundary of my
domain ere the sun has set again, where he shall be free to go whither
he will; but upon pain of death must he never again enter the land of
Kaol.

“If there be a quarrel between you and the Father of Therns, I need not
ask that the settlement of it be deferred until both have passed beyond
the limits of my power. Are you satisfied, Thuvan Dihn?”

The Jeddak of Ptarth nodded his assent, but the ugly scowl that he bent
upon Matai Shang harbored ill for that pasty-faced godling.

“The Prince of Helium is far from satisfied,” I cried, breaking rudely
in upon the beginnings of peace, for I had no stomach for peace at the
price that had been named.

“I have escaped death in a dozen forms to follow Matai Shang and
overtake him, and I do not intend to be led, like a decrepit thoat to
the slaughter, from the goal that I have won by the prowess of my sword
arm and the might of my muscles.

“Nor will Thuvan Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth, be satisfied when he has heard
me through. Do you know why I have followed Matai Shang and Thurid, the
black dator, from the forests of the Valley Dor across half a world
through almost insurmountable difficulties?

“Think you that John Carter, Prince of Helium, would stoop to
assassination? Can Kulan Tith be such a fool as to believe that lie,
whispered in his ear by the Holy Thern or Dator Thurid?

“I do not follow Matai Shang to kill him, though the God of mine own
planet knows that my hands itch to be at his throat. I follow him,
Thuvan Dihn, because with him are two prisoners—my wife, Dejah Thoris,
Princess of Helium, and your daughter, Thuvia of Ptarth.

“Now think you that I shall permit myself to be led beyond the walls of
Kaol unless the mother of my son accompanies me, and thy daughter be
restored?”

Thuvan Dihn turned upon Kulan Tith. Rage flamed in his keen eyes; but
by the masterfulness of his self-control he kept his tones level as he
spoke.

“Knew you this thing, Kulan Tith?” he asked. “Knew you that my daughter
lay a prisoner in your palace?”

“He could not know it,” interrupted Matai Shang, white with what I am
sure was more fear than rage. “He could not know it, for it is a lie.”

I would have had his life for that upon the spot, but even as I sprang
toward him Thuvan Dihn laid a heavy hand upon my shoulder.

“Wait,” he said to me, and then to Kulan Tith. “It is not a lie. This
much have I learned of the Prince of Helium—he does not lie. Answer me,
Kulan Tith—I have asked you a question.”

“Three women came with the Father of Therns,” replied Kulan Tith.
“Phaidor, his daughter, and two who were reported to be her slaves. If
these be Thuvia of Ptarth and Dejah Thoris of Helium I did not know
it—I have seen neither. But if they be, then shall they be returned to
you on the morrow.”

As he spoke he looked straight at Matai Shang, not as a devotee should
look at a high priest, but as a ruler of men looks at one to whom he
issues a command.

It must have been plain to the Father of Therns, as it was to me, that
the recent disclosures of his true character had done much already to
weaken the faith of Kulan Tith, and that it would require but little
more to turn the powerful jeddak into an avowed enemy; but so strong
are the seeds of superstition that even the great Kaolian still
hesitated to cut the final strand that bound him to his ancient
religion.

Matai Shang was wise enough to seem to accept the mandate of his
follower, and promised to bring the two slave women to the audience
chamber on the morrow.

“It is almost morning now,” he said, “and I should dislike to break in
upon the slumber of my daughter, or I would have them fetched at once
that you might see that the Prince of Helium is mistaken,” and he
emphasized the last word in an effort to affront me so subtlely that I
could not take open offense.

I was about to object to any delay, and demand that the Princess of
Helium be brought to me forthwith, when Thuvan Dihn made such
insistence seem unnecessary.

“I should like to see my daughter at once,” he said, “but if Kulan Tith
will give me his assurance that none will be permitted to leave the
palace this night, and that no harm shall befall either Dejah Thoris or
Thuvia of Ptarth between now and the moment they are brought into our
presence in this chamber at daylight I shall not insist.”

“None shall leave the palace tonight,” replied the Jeddak of Kaol, “and
Matai Shang will give us assurance that no harm will come to the two
women?”

The thern assented with a nod. A few moments later Kulan Tith indicated
that the audience was at an end, and at Thuvan Dihn’s invitation I
accompanied the Jeddak of Ptarth to his own apartments, where we sat
until daylight, while he listened to the account of my experiences upon
his planet and to all that had befallen his daughter during the time
that we had been together.

I found the father of Thuvia a man after my own heart, and that night
saw the beginning of a friendship which has grown until it is second
only to that which obtains between Tars Tarkas, the green Jeddak of
Thark, and myself.

The first burst of Mars’s sudden dawn brought messengers from Kulan
Tith, summoning us to the audience chamber where Thuvan Dihn was to
receive his daughter after years of separation, and I was to be
reunited with the glorious daughter of Helium after an almost unbroken
separation of twelve years.

My heart pounded within my bosom until I looked about me in
embarrassment, so sure was I that all within the room must hear. My
arms ached to enfold once more the divine form of her whose eternal
youth and undying beauty were but outward manifestations of a perfect
soul.

At last the messenger despatched to fetch Matai Shang returned. I
craned my neck to catch the first glimpse of those who should be
following, but the messenger was alone.

Halting before the throne he addressed his jeddak in a voice that was
plainly audible to all within the chamber.

“O Kulan Tith, Mightiest of Jeddaks,” he cried, after the fashion of
the court, “your messenger returns alone, for when he reached the
apartments of the Father of Therns he found them empty, as were those
occupied by his suite.”

Kulan Tith went white.

A low groan burst from the lips of Thuvan Dihn who stood next me, not
having ascended the throne which awaited him beside his host. For a
moment the silence of death reigned in the great audience chamber of
Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol. It was he who broke the spell.

Rising from his throne he stepped down from the dais to the side of
Thuvan Dihn. Tears dimmed his eyes as he placed both his hands upon the
shoulders of his friend.

“O Thuvan Dihn,” he cried, “that this should have happened in the
palace of thy best friend! With my own hands would I have wrung the
neck of Matai Shang had I guessed what was in his foul heart. Last
night my life-long faith was weakened—this morning it has been
shattered; but too late, too late.

“To wrest your daughter and the wife of this royal warrior from the
clutches of these archfiends you have but to command the resources of a
mighty nation, for all Kaol is at your disposal. What may be done? Say
the word!”

“First,” I suggested, “let us find those of your people who be
responsible for the escape of Matai Shang and his followers. Without
assistance on the part of the palace guard this thing could not have
come to pass. Seek the guilty, and from them force an explanation of
the manner of their going and the direction they have taken.”

Before Kulan Tith could issue the commands that would initiate the
investigation a handsome young officer stepped forward and addressed
his jeddak.

“O Kulan Tith, Mightiest of Jeddaks,” he said, “I alone be responsible
for this grievous error. Last night it was I who commanded the palace
guard. I was on duty in other parts of the palace during the audience
of the early morning, and knew nothing of what transpired then, so that
when the Father of Therns summoned me and explained that it was your
wish that his party be hastened from the city because of the presence
here of a deadly enemy who sought the Holy Hekkador’s life I did only
what a lifetime of training has taught me was the proper thing to do—I
obeyed him whom I believed to be the ruler of us all, mightier even
than thou, mightiest of jeddaks.

“Let the consequences and the punishment fall on me alone, for I alone
am guilty. Those others of the palace guard who assisted in the flight
did so under my instructions.”

Kulan Tith looked first at me and then at Thuvan Dihn, as though to ask
our judgment upon the man, but the error was so evidently excusable
that neither of us had any mind to see the young officer suffer for a
mistake that any might readily have made.

“How left they,” asked Thuvan Dihn, “and what direction did they take?”

“They left as they came,” replied the officer, “upon their own flier.
For some time after they had departed I watched the vessel’s lights,
which vanished finally due north.”

“Where north could Matai Shang find an asylum?” asked Thuvan Dihn of
Kulan Tith.

For some moments the Jeddak of Kaol stood with bowed head, apparently
deep in thought. Then a sudden light brightened his countenance.

“I have it!” he cried. “Only yesterday Matai Shang let drop a hint of
his destination, telling me of a race of people unlike ourselves who
dwell far to the north. They, he said, had always been known to the
Holy Therns and were devout and faithful followers of the ancient cult.
Among them would he find a perpetual haven of refuge, where no ‘lying
heretics’ might seek him out. It is there that Matai Shang has gone.”

“And in all Kaol there be no flier wherein to follow,” I cried.

“Nor nearer than Ptarth,” replied Thuvan Dihn.

“Wait!” I exclaimed, “beyond the southern fringe of this great forest
lies the wreck of the thern flier which brought me that far upon my
way. If you will loan me men to fetch it, and artificers to assist me,
I can repair it in two days, Kulan Tith.”

I had been more than half suspicious of the seeming sincerity of the
Kaolian jeddak’s sudden apostasy, but the alacrity with which he
embraced my suggestion, and the despatch with which a force of officers
and men were placed at my disposal entirely removed the last vestige of
my doubts.

Two days later the flier rested upon the top of the watchtower, ready
to depart. Thuvan Dihn and Kulan Tith had offered me the entire
resources of two nations—millions of fighting men were at my disposal;
but my flier could hold but one other than myself and Woola.

As I stepped aboard her, Thuvan Dihn took his place beside me. I cast a
look of questioning surprise upon him. He turned to the highest of his
own officers who had accompanied him to Kaol.

“To you I entrust the return of my retinue to Ptarth,” he said. “There
my son rules ably in my absence. The Prince of Helium shall not go
alone into the land of his enemies. I have spoken. Farewell!”



THROUGH THE CARRION CAVES


Straight toward the north, day and night, our destination compass led
us after the fleeing flier upon which it had remained set since I first
attuned it after leaving the thern fortress.

Early in the second night we noticed the air becoming perceptibly
colder, and from the distance we had come from the equator were assured
that we were rapidly approaching the north arctic region.

My knowledge of the efforts that had been made by countless expeditions
to explore that unknown land bade me to caution, for never had flier
returned who had passed to any considerable distance beyond the mighty
ice-barrier that fringes the southern hem of the frigid zone.

What became of them none knew—only that they passed forever out of the
sight of man into that grim and mysterious country of the pole.

The distance from the barrier to the pole was no more than a swift
flier should cover in a few hours, and so it was assumed that some
frightful catastrophe awaited those who reached the “forbidden land,”
as it had come to be called by the Martians of the outer world.

Thus it was that I went more slowly as we approached the barrier, for
it was my intention to move cautiously by day over the ice-pack that I
might discover, before I had run into a trap, if there really lay an
inhabited country at the north pole, for there only could I imagine a
spot where Matai Shang might feel secure from John Carter, Prince of
Helium.

We were flying at a snail’s pace but a few feet above the
ground—literally feeling our way along through the darkness, for both
moons had set, and the night was black with the clouds that are to be
found only at Mars’s two extremities.

Suddenly a towering wall of white rose directly in our path, and though
I threw the helm hard over, and reversed our engine, I was too late to
avoid collision. With a sickening crash we struck the high looming
obstacle three-quarters on.

The flier reeled half over; the engine stopped; as one, the patched
buoyancy tanks burst, and we plunged, headforemost, to the ground
twenty feet beneath.

Fortunately none of us was injured, and when we had disentangled
ourselves from the wreckage, and the lesser moon had burst again from
below the horizon, we found that we were at the foot of a mighty
ice-barrier, from which outcropped great patches of the granite hills
which hold it from encroaching farther toward the south.

What fate! With the journey all but completed to be thus wrecked upon
the wrong side of that precipitous and unscalable wall of rock and ice!

I looked at Thuvan Dihn. He but shook his head dejectedly.

The balance of the night we spent shivering in our inadequate sleeping
silks and furs upon the snow that lies at the foot of the ice-barrier.

With daylight my battered spirits regained something of their
accustomed hopefulness, though I must admit that there was little
enough for them to feed upon.

“What shall we do?” asked Thuvan Dihn. “How may we pass that which is
impassable?”

“First we must disprove its impassability,” I replied. “Nor shall I
admit that it is impassable before I have followed its entire circle
and stand again upon this spot, defeated. The sooner we start, the
better, for I see no other way, and it will take us more than a month
to travel the weary, frigid miles that lie before us.”

For five days of cold and suffering and privation we traversed the
rough and frozen way which lies at the foot of the ice-barrier. Fierce,
fur-bearing creatures attacked us by daylight and by dark. Never for a
moment were we safe from the sudden charge of some huge demon of the
north.

The apt was our most consistent and dangerous foe.

It is a huge, white-furred creature with six limbs, four of which,
short and heavy, carry it swiftly over the snow and ice; while the
other two, growing forward from its shoulders on either side of its
long, powerful neck, terminate in white, hairless hands, with which it
seizes and holds its prey.

Its head and mouth are more similar in appearance to those of a
hippopotamus than to any other earthly animal, except that from the
sides of the lower jawbone two mighty horns curve slightly downward
toward the front.

Its two huge eyes inspired my greatest curiosity. They extend in two
vast, oval patches from the center of the top of the cranium down
either side of the head to below the roots of the horns, so that these
weapons really grow out from the lower part of the eyes, which are
composed of several thousand ocelli each.

This eye structure seemed remarkable in a beast whose haunts were upon
a glaring field of ice and snow, and though I found upon minute
examination of several that we killed that each ocellus is furnished
with its own lid, and that the animal can at will close as many of the
facets of his huge eyes as he chooses, yet I was positive that nature
had thus equipped him because much of his life was to be spent in dark,
subterranean recesses.

Shortly after this we came upon the hugest apt that we had seen. The
creature stood fully eight feet at the shoulder, and was so sleek and
clean and glossy that I could have sworn that he had but recently been
groomed.

He stood head-on eyeing us as we approached him, for we had found it a
waste of time to attempt to escape the perpetual bestial rage which
seems to possess these demon creatures, who rove the dismal north
attacking every living thing that comes within the scope of their
far-seeing eyes.

Even when their bellies are full and they can eat no more, they kill
purely for the pleasure which they derive from taking life, and so when
this particular apt failed to charge us, and instead wheeled and
trotted away as we neared him, I should have been greatly surprised had
I not chanced to glimpse the sheen of a golden collar about its neck.

Thuvan Dihn saw it, too, and it carried the same message of hope to us
both. Only man could have placed that collar there, and as no race of
Martians of which we knew aught ever had attempted to domesticate the
ferocious apt, he must belong to a people of the north of whose very
existence we were ignorant—possibly to the fabled yellow men of
Barsoom; that once powerful race which was supposed to be extinct,
though sometimes, by theorists, thought still to exist in the frozen
north.

Simultaneously we started upon the trail of the great beast. Woola was
quickly made to understand our desires, so that it was unnecessary to
attempt to keep in sight of the animal whose swift flight over the
rough ground soon put him beyond our vision.

For the better part of two hours the trail paralleled the barrier, and
then suddenly turned toward it through the roughest and seemingly most
impassable country I ever had beheld.

Enormous granite boulders blocked the way on every hand; deep rifts in
the ice threatened to engulf us at the least misstep; and from the
north a slight breeze wafted to our nostrils an unspeakable stench that
almost choked us.

For another two hours we were occupied in traversing a few hundred
yards to the foot of the barrier.

Then, turning about the corner of a wall-like outcropping of granite,
we came upon a smooth area of two or three acres before the base of the
towering pile of ice and rock that had baffled us for days, and before
us beheld the dark and cavernous mouth of a cave.

From this repelling portal the horrid stench was emanating, and as
Thuvan Dihn espied the place he halted with an exclamation of profound
astonishment.

“By all my ancestors!” he ejaculated. “That I should have lived to
witness the reality of the fabled Carrion Caves! If these indeed be
they, we have found a way beyond the ice-barrier.

“The ancient chronicles of the first historians of Barsoom—so ancient
that we have for ages considered them mythology—record the passing of
the yellow men from the ravages of the green hordes that overran
Barsoom as the drying up of the great oceans drove the dominant races
from their strongholds.

“They tell of the wanderings of the remnants of this once powerful
race, harassed at every step, until at last they found a way through
the ice-barrier of the north to a fertile valley at the pole.

“At the opening to the subterranean passage that led to their haven of
refuge a mighty battle was fought in which the yellow men were
victorious, and within the caves that gave ingress to their new home
they piled the bodies of the dead, both yellow and green, that the
stench might warn away their enemies from further pursuit.

“And ever since that long-gone day have the dead of this fabled land
been carried to the Carrion Caves, that in death and decay they might
serve their country and warn away invading enemies. Here, too, is
brought, so the fable runs, all the waste stuff of the
nation—everything that is subject to rot, and that can add to the foul
stench that assails our nostrils.

“And death lurks at every step among rotting dead, for here the fierce
apts lair, adding to the putrid accumulation with the fragments of
their own prey which they cannot devour. It is a horrid avenue to our
goal, but it is the only one.”

“You are sure, then, that we have found the way to the land of the
yellow men?” I cried.

“As sure as may be,” he replied; “having only ancient legend to support
my belief. But see how closely, so far, each detail tallies with the
world-old story of the hegira of the yellow race. Yes, I am sure that
we have discovered the way to their ancient hiding place.”

“If it be true, and let us pray that such may be the case,” I said,
“then here may we solve the mystery of the disappearance of Tardos
Mors, Jeddak of Helium, and Mors Kajak, his son, for no other spot upon
Barsoom has remained unexplored by the many expeditions and the
countless spies that have been searching for them for nearly two years.
The last word that came from them was that they sought Carthoris, my
own brave son, beyond the ice-barrier.”

As we talked we had been approaching the entrance to the cave, and as
we crossed the threshold I ceased to wonder that the ancient green
enemies of the yellow men had been halted by the horrors of that awful
way.

The bones of dead men lay man high upon the broad floor of the first
cave, and over all was a putrid mush of decaying flesh, through which
the apts had beaten a hideous trail toward the entrance to the second
cave beyond.

The roof of this first apartment was low, like all that we traversed
subsequently, so that the foul odors were confined and condensed to
such an extent that they seemed to possess tangible substance. One was
almost tempted to draw his short-sword and hew his way through in
search of pure air beyond.

“Can man breathe this polluted air and live?” asked Thuvan Dihn,
choking.

“Not for long, I imagine,” I replied; “so let us make haste. I will go
first, and you bring up the rear, with Woola between. Come,” and with
the words I dashed forward, across the fetid mass of putrefaction.

It was not until we had passed through seven caves of different sizes
and varying but little in the power and quality of their stenches that
we met with any physical opposition. Then, within the eighth cave, we
came upon a lair of apts.

A full score of the mighty beasts were disposed about the chamber. Some
were sleeping, while others tore at the fresh-killed carcasses of
new-brought prey, or fought among themselves in their love-making.

Here in the dim light of their subterranean home the value of their
great eyes was apparent, for these inner caves are shrouded in
perpetual gloom that is but little less than utter darkness.

To attempt to pass through the midst of that fierce herd seemed, even
to me, the height of folly, and so I proposed to Thuvan Dihn that he
return to the outer world with Woola, that the two might find their way
to civilization and come again with a sufficient force to overcome not
only the apts, but any further obstacles that might lie between us and
our goal.

“In the meantime,” I continued, “I may discover some means of winning
my way alone to the land of the yellow men, but if I am unsuccessful
one life only will have been sacrificed. Should we all go on and
perish, there will be none to guide a succoring party to Dejah Thoris
and your daughter.”

“I shall not return and leave you here alone, John Carter,” replied
Thuvan Dihn. “Whether you go on to victory or death, the Jeddak of
Ptarth remains at your side. I have spoken.”

I knew from his tone that it were useless to attempt to argue the
question, and so I compromised by sending Woola back with a hastily
penned note enclosed in a small metal case and fastened about his neck.
I commanded the faithful creature to seek Carthoris at Helium, and
though half a world and countless dangers lay between I knew that if
the thing could be done Woola would do it.

Equipped as he was by nature with marvelous speed and endurance, and
with frightful ferocity that made him a match for any single enemy of
the way, his keen intelligence and wondrous instinct should easily
furnish all else that was needed for the successful accomplishment of
his mission.

It was with evident reluctance that the great beast turned to leave me
in compliance with my command, and ere he had gone I could not resist
the inclination to throw my arms about his great neck in a parting hug.
He rubbed his cheek against mine in a final caress, and a moment later
was speeding through the Carrion Caves toward the outer world.

In my note to Carthoris I had given explicit directions for locating
the Carrion Caves, impressing upon him the necessity for making
entrance to the country beyond through this avenue, and not to attempt
under any circumstances to cross the ice-barrier with a fleet. I told
him that what lay beyond the eighth cave I could not even guess; but I
was sure that somewhere upon the other side of the ice-barrier his
mother lay in the power of Matai Shang, and that possibly his
grandfather and great-grandfather as well, if they lived.

Further, I advised him to call upon Kulan Tith and the son of Thuvan
Dihn for warriors and ships that the expedition might be sufficiently
strong to insure success at the first blow.

“And,” I concluded, “if there be time bring Tars Tarkas with you, for
if I live until you reach me I can think of few greater pleasures than
to fight once more, shoulder to shoulder, with my old friend.”

When Woola had left us Thuvan Dihn and I, hiding in the seventh cave,
discussed and discarded many plans for crossing the eighth chamber.
From where we stood we saw that the fighting among the apts was growing
less, and that many that had been feeding had ceased and lain down to
sleep.

Presently it became apparent that in a short time all the ferocious
monsters might be peacefully slumbering, and thus a hazardous
opportunity be presented to us to cross through their lair.

One by one the remaining brutes stretched themselves upon the bubbling
decomposition that covered the mass of bones upon the floor of their
den, until but a single apt remained awake. This huge fellow roamed
restlessly about, nosing among his companions and the abhorrent litter
of the cave.

Occasionally he would stop to peer intently toward first one of the
exits from the chamber and then the other. His whole demeanor was as of
one who acts as sentry.

We were at last forced to the belief that he would not sleep while the
other occupants of the lair slept, and so cast about in our minds for
some scheme whereby we might trick him. Finally I suggested a plan to
Thuvan Dihn, and as it seemed as good as any that we had discussed we
decided to put it to the test.

To this end Thuvan Dihn placed himself close against the cave’s wall,
beside the entrance to the eighth chamber, while I deliberately showed
myself to the guardian apt as he looked toward our retreat. Then I
sprang to the opposite side of the entrance, flattening my body close
to the wall.

Without a sound the great beast moved rapidly toward the seventh cave
to see what manner of intruder had thus rashly penetrated so far within
the precincts of his habitation.

As he poked his head through the narrow aperture that connects the two
caves a heavy long-sword was awaiting him upon either hand, and before
he had an opportunity to emit even a single growl his severed head
rolled at our feet.

Quickly we glanced into the eighth chamber—not an apt had moved.
Crawling over the carcass of the huge beast that blocked the doorway
Thuvan Dihn and I cautiously entered the forbidding and dangerous den.

Like snails we wound our silent and careful way among the huge,
recumbent forms. The only sound above our breathing was the sucking
noise of our feet as we lifted them from the ooze of decaying flesh
through which we crept.

Halfway across the chamber and one of the mighty beasts directly before
me moved restlessly at the very instant that my foot was poised above
his head, over which I must step.

Breathlessly I waited, balancing upon one foot, for I did not dare move
a muscle. In my right hand was my keen short-sword, the point hovering
an inch above the thick fur beneath which beat the savage heart.

Finally the apt relaxed, sighing, as with the passing of a bad dream,
and resumed the regular respiration of deep slumber. I planted my
raised foot beyond the fierce head and an instant later had stepped
over the beast.

Thuvan Dihn followed directly after me, and another moment found us at
the further door, undetected.

The Carrion Caves consist of a series of twenty-seven connecting
chambers, and present the appearance of having been eroded by running
water in some far-gone age when a mighty river found its way to the
south through this single breach in the barrier of rock and ice that
hems the country of the pole.

Thuvan Dihn and I traversed the remaining nineteen caverns without
adventure or mishap.

We were afterward to learn that but once a month is it possible to find
all the apts of the Carrion Caves in a single chamber.

At other times they roam singly or in pairs in and out of the caves, so
that it would have been practically impossible for two men to have
passed through the entire twenty-seven chambers without encountering an
apt in nearly every one of them. Once a month they sleep for a full
day, and it was our good fortune to stumble by accident upon one of
these occasions.

Beyond the last cave we emerged into a desolate country of snow and
ice, but found a well-marked trail leading north. The way was
boulder-strewn, as had been that south of the barrier, so that we could
see but a short distance ahead of us at any time.

After a couple of hours we passed round a huge boulder to come to a
steep declivity leading down into a valley.

Directly before us we saw a half dozen men—fierce, black-bearded
fellows, with skins the color of a ripe lemon.

“The yellow men of Barsoom!” ejaculated Thuvan Dihn, as though even now
that he saw them he found it scarce possible to believe that the very
race we expected to find hidden in this remote and inaccessible land
did really exist.

We withdrew behind an adjacent boulder to watch the actions of the
little party, which stood huddled at the foot of another huge rock,
their backs toward us.

One of them was peering round the edge of the granite mass as though
watching one who approached from the opposite side.

Presently the object of his scrutiny came within the range of my vision
and I saw that it was another yellow man. All were clothed in
magnificent furs—the six in the black and yellow striped hide of the
orluk, while he who approached alone was resplendent in the pure white
skin of an apt.

The yellow men were armed with two swords, and a short javelin was
slung across the back of each, while from their left arms hung cuplike
shields no larger than a dinner plate, the concave sides of which
turned outward toward an antagonist.

They seemed puny and futile implements of safety against an even
ordinary swordsman, but I was later to see the purpose of them and with
what wondrous dexterity the yellow men manipulate them.

One of the swords which each of the warriors carried caught my
immediate attention. I call it a sword, but really it was a sharp-edged
blade with a complete hook at the far end.

The other sword was of about the same length as the hooked instrument,
and somewhere between that of my long-sword and my short-sword. It was
straight and two-edged. In addition to the weapons I have enumerated
each man carried a dagger in his harness.

As the white-furred one approached, the six grasped their swords more
firmly—the hooked instrument in the left hand, the straight sword in
the right, while above the left wrist the small shield was held rigid
upon a metal bracelet.

As the lone warrior came opposite them the six rushed out upon him with
fiendish yells that resembled nothing more closely than the savage war
cry of the Apaches of the South-west.

Instantly the attacked drew both his swords, and as the six fell upon
him I witnessed as pretty fighting as one might care to see.

With their sharp hooks the combatants attempted to take hold of an
adversary, but like lightning the cupshaped shield would spring before
the darting weapon and into its hollow the hook would plunge.

Once the lone warrior caught an antagonist in the side with his hook,
and drawing him close ran his sword through him.

But the odds were too unequal, and, though he who fought alone was by
far the best and bravest of them all, I saw that it was but a question
of time before the remaining five would find an opening through his
marvelous guard and bring him down.

Now my sympathies have ever been with the weaker side of an argument,
and though I knew nothing of the cause of the trouble I could not stand
idly by and see a brave man butchered by superior numbers.

As a matter of fact I presume I gave little attention to seeking an
excuse, for I love a good fight too well to need any other reason for
joining in when one is afoot.

So it was that before Thuvan Dihn knew what I was about he saw me
standing by the side of the white-clad yellow man, battling like mad
with his five adversaries.



WITH THE YELLOW MEN


Thuvan Dihn was not long in joining me; and, though we found the hooked
weapon a strange and savage thing with which to deal, the three of us
soon despatched the five black-bearded warriors who opposed us.

When the battle was over our new acquaintance turned to me, and
removing the shield from his wrist, held it out. I did not know the
significance of his act, but judged that it was but a form of
expressing his gratitude to me.

I afterward learned that it symbolized the offering of a man’s life in
return for some great favor done him; and my act of refusing, which I
had immediately done, was what was expected of me.

“Then accept from Talu, Prince of Marentina,” said the yellow man,
“this token of my gratitude,” and reaching beneath one of his wide
sleeves he withdrew a bracelet and placed it upon my arm. He then went
through the same ceremony with Thuvan Dihn.

Next he asked our names, and from what land we hailed. He seemed quite
familiar with the geography of the outerworld, and when I said I was
from Helium he raised his brows.

“Ah,” he said, “you seek your ruler and his company?”

“Know you of them?” I asked.

“But little more than that they were captured by my uncle, Salensus
Oll, Jeddak of Jeddaks, Ruler of Okar, land of the yellow men of
Barsoom. As to their fate I know nothing, for I am at war with my
uncle, who would crush my power in the principality of Marentina.

“These from whom you have just saved me are warriors he has sent out to
find and slay me, for they know that often I come alone to hunt and
kill the sacred apt which Salensus Oll so much reveres. It is partly
because I hate his religion that Salensus Oll hates me; but mostly does
he fear my growing power and the great faction which has arisen
throughout Okar that would be glad to see me ruler of Okar and Jeddak
of Jeddaks in his place.

“He is a cruel and tyrannous master whom all hate, and were it not for
the great fear they have of him I could raise an army overnight that
would wipe out the few that might remain loyal to him. My own people
are faithful to me, and the little valley of Marentina has paid no
tribute to the court of Salensus Oll for a year.

“Nor can he force us, for a dozen men may hold the narrow way to
Marentina against a million. But now, as to thine own affairs. How may
I aid you? My palace is at your disposal, if you wish to honor me by
coming to Marentina.”

“When our work is done we shall be glad to accept your invitation,” I
replied. “But now you can assist us most by directing us to the court
of Salensus Oll, and suggesting some means by which we may gain
admission to the city and the palace, or whatever other place we find
our friends to be confined.”

Talu gazed ruefully at our smooth faces and at Thuvan Dihn’s red skin
and my white one.

“First you must come to Marentina,” he said, “for a great change must
be wrought in your appearance before you can hope to enter any city in
Okar. You must have yellow faces and black beards, and your apparel and
trappings must be those least likely to arouse suspicion. In my palace
is one who can make you appear as truly yellow men as does Salensus Oll
himself.”

His counsel seemed wise; and as there was apparently no other way to
insure a successful entry to Kadabra, the capital city of Okar, we set
out with Talu, Prince of Marentina, for his little, rock-bound country.

The way was over some of the worst traveling I have ever seen, and I do
not wonder that in this land where there are neither thoats nor fliers
that Marentina is in little fear of invasion; but at last we reached
our destination, the first view of which I had from a slight elevation
a half-mile from the city.

Nestled in a deep valley lay a city of Martian concrete, whose every
street and plaza and open space was roofed with glass. All about lay
snow and ice, but there was none upon the rounded, domelike, crystal
covering that enveloped the whole city.

Then I saw how these people combated the rigors of the arctic, and
lived in luxury and comfort in the midst of a land of perpetual ice.
Their cities were veritable hothouses, and when I had come within this
one my respect and admiration for the scientific and engineering skill
of this buried nation was unbounded.

The moment we entered the city Talu threw off his outer garments of
fur, as did we, and I saw that his apparel differed but little from
that of the red races of Barsoom. Except for his leathern harness,
covered thick with jewels and metal, he was naked, nor could one have
comfortably worn apparel in that warm and humid atmosphere.

For three days we remained the guests of Prince Talu, and during that
time he showered upon us every attention and courtesy within his power.
He showed us all that was of interest in his great city.

The Marentina atmosphere plant will maintain life indefinitely in the
cities of the north pole after all life upon the balance of dying Mars
is extinct through the failure of the air supply, should the great
central plant again cease functioning as it did upon that memorable
occasion that gave me the opportunity of restoring life and happiness
to the strange world that I had already learned to love so well.

He showed us the heating system that stores the sun’s rays in great
reservoirs beneath the city, and how little is necessary to maintain
the perpetual summer heat of the glorious garden spot within this
arctic paradise.

Broad avenues of sod sewn with the seed of the ocher vegetation of the
dead sea bottoms carried the noiseless traffic of light and airy ground
fliers that are the only form of artificial transportation used north
of the gigantic ice-barrier.

The broad tires of these unique fliers are but rubber-like gas bags
filled with the eighth Barsoomian ray, or ray of propulsion—that
remarkable discovery of the Martians that has made possible the great
fleets of mighty airships that render the red man of the outer world
supreme. It is this ray which propels the inherent or reflected light
of the planet off into space, and when confined gives to the Martian
craft their airy buoyancy.

The ground fliers of Marentina contain just sufficient buoyancy in
their automobile-like wheels to give the cars traction for steering
purposes; and though the hind wheels are geared to the engine, and aid
in driving the machine, the bulk of this work is carried by a small
propeller at the stern.

I know of no more delightful sensation than that of riding in one of
these luxuriously appointed cars which skim, light and airy as
feathers, along the soft, mossy avenues of Marentina. They move with
absolute noiselessness between borders of crimson sward and beneath
arching trees gorgeous with the wondrous blooms that mark so many of
the highly cultivated varieties of Barsoomian vegetation.

By the end of the third day the court barber—I can think of no other
earthly appellation by which to describe him—had wrought so remarkable
a transformation in both Thuvan Dihn and myself that our own wives
would never have known us. Our skins were of the same lemon color as
his own, and great, black beards and mustaches had been deftly affixed
to our smooth faces. The trappings of warriors of Okar aided in the
deception; and for wear beyond the hothouse cities we each had suits of
the black- and yellow-striped orluk.

Talu gave us careful directions for the journey to Kadabra, the capital
city of the Okar nation, which is the racial name of the yellow men.
This good friend even accompanied us part way, and then, promising to
aid us in any way that he found possible, bade us adieu.

On parting he slipped upon my finger a curiously wrought ring set with
a dead-black, lusterless stone, which appeared more like a bit of
bituminous coal than the priceless Barsoomian gem which in reality it
is.

“There had been but three others cut from the mother stone,” he said,
“which is in my possession. These three are worn by nobles high in my
confidence, all of whom have been sent on secret missions to the court
of Salensus Oll.

“Should you come within fifty feet of any of these three you will feel
a rapid, pricking sensation in the finger upon which you wear this
ring. He who wears one of its mates will experience the same feeling;
it is caused by an electrical action that takes place the moment two of
these gems cut from the same mother stone come within the radius of
each other’s power. By it you will know that a friend is at hand upon
whom you may depend for assistance in time of need.

“Should another wearer of one of these gems call upon you for aid do
not deny him, and should death threaten you swallow the ring rather
than let it fall into the hands of enemies. Guard it with your life,
John Carter, for some day it may mean more than life to you.”

With this parting admonition our good friend turned back toward
Marentina, and we set our faces in the direction of the city of Kadabra
and the court of Salensus Oll, Jeddak of Jeddaks.

That very evening we came within sight of the walled and glass-roofed
city of Kadabra. It lies in a low depression near the pole, surrounded
by rocky, snow-clad hills. From the pass through which we entered the
valley we had a splendid view of this great city of the north. Its
crystal domes sparkled in the brilliant sunlight gleaming above the
frost-covered outer wall that circles the entire one hundred miles of
its circumference.

At regular intervals great gates give entrance to the city; but even at
the distance from which we looked upon the massive pile we could see
that all were closed, and, in accordance with Talu’s suggestion, we
deferred attempting to enter the city until the following morning.

As he had said, we found numerous caves in the hillsides about us, and
into one of these we crept for the night. Our warm orluk skins kept us
perfectly comfortable, and it was only after a most refreshing sleep
that we awoke shortly after daylight on the following morning.

Already the city was astir, and from several of the gates we saw
parties of yellow men emerging. Following closely each detail of the
instructions given us by our good friend of Marentina, we remained
concealed for several hours until one party of some half dozen warriors
had passed along the trail below our hiding place and entered the hills
by way of the pass along which we had come the previous evening.

After giving them time to get well out of sight of our cave, Thuvan
Dihn and I crept out and followed them, overtaking them when they were
well into the hills.

When we had come almost to them I called aloud to their leader, when
the whole party halted and turned toward us. The crucial test had come.
Could we but deceive these men the rest would be comparatively easy.

“Kaor!” I cried as I came closer to them.

“Kaor!” responded the officer in charge of the party.

“We be from Illall,” I continued, giving the name of the most remote
city of Okar, which has little or no intercourse with Kadabra. “Only
yesterday we arrived, and this morning the captain of the gate told us
that you were setting out to hunt orluks, which is a sport we do not
find in our own neighborhood. We have hastened after you to pray that
you allow us to accompany you.”

The officer was entirely deceived, and graciously permitted us to go
with them for the day. The chance guess that they were bound upon an
orluk hunt proved correct, and Talu had said that the chances were ten
to one that such would be the mission of any party leaving Kadabra by
the pass through which we entered the valley, since that way leads
directly to the vast plains frequented by this elephantine beast of
prey.

In so far as the hunt was concerned, the day was a failure, for we did
not see a single orluk; but this proved more than fortunate for us,
since the yellow men were so chagrined by their misfortune that they
would not enter the city by the same gate by which they had left it in
the morning, as it seemed that they had made great boasts to the
captain of that gate about their skill at this dangerous sport.

We, therefore, approached Kadabra at a point several miles from that at
which the party had quitted it in the morning, and so were relieved of
the danger of embarrassing questions and explanations on the part of
the gate captain, whom we had said had directed us to this particular
hunting party.

We had come quite close to the city when my attention was attracted
toward a tall, black shaft that reared its head several hundred feet
into the air from what appeared to be a tangled mass of junk or
wreckage, now partially snow-covered.

I did not dare venture an inquiry for fear of arousing suspicion by
evident ignorance of something which as a yellow man I should have
known; but before we reached the city gate I was to learn the purpose
of that grim shaft and the meaning of the mighty accumulation beneath
it.

We had come almost to the gate when one of the party called to his
fellows, at the same time pointing toward the distant southern horizon.
Following the direction he indicated, my eyes descried the hull of a
large flier approaching rapidly from above the crest of the encircling
hills.

“Still other fools who would solve the mysteries of the forbidden
north,” said the officer, half to himself. “Will they never cease their
fatal curiosity?”

“Let us hope not,” answered one of the warriors, “for then what should
we do for slaves and sport?”

“True; but what stupid beasts they are to continue to come to a region
from whence none of them ever has returned.”

“Let us tarry and watch the end of this one,” suggested one of the men.

The officer looked toward the city.

“The watch has seen him,” he said; “we may remain, for we may be
needed.”

I looked toward the city and saw several hundred warriors issuing from
the nearest gate. They moved leisurely, as though there were no need
for haste—nor was there, as I was presently to learn.

Then I turned my eyes once more toward the flier. She was moving
rapidly toward the city, and when she had come close enough I was
surprised to see that her propellers were idle.

Straight for that grim shaft she bore. At the last minute I saw the
great blades move to reverse her, yet on she came as though drawn by
some mighty, irresistible power.

Intense excitement prevailed upon her deck, where men were running
hither and thither, manning the guns and preparing to launch the small,
one-man fliers, a fleet of which is part of the equipment of every
Martian war vessel. Closer and closer to the black shaft the ship sped.
In another instant she must strike, and then I saw the familiar signal
flown that sends the lesser boats in a great flock from the deck of the
mother ship.

Instantly a hundred tiny fliers rose from her deck, like a swarm of
huge dragon flies; but scarcely were they clear of the battleship than
the nose of each turned toward the shaft, and they, too, rushed on at
frightful speed toward the same now seemingly inevitable end that
menaced the larger vessel.

A moment later the collision came. Men were hurled in every direction
from the ship’s deck, while she, bent and crumpled, took the last, long
plunge to the scrap-heap at the shaft’s base.

With her fell a shower of her own tiny fliers, for each of them had
come in violent collision with the solid shaft.

I noticed that the wrecked fliers scraped down the shaft’s side, and
that their fall was not as rapid as might have been expected; and then
suddenly the secret of the shaft burst upon me, and with it an
explanation of the cause that prevented a flier that passed too far
across the ice-barrier ever returning.

The shaft was a mighty magnet, and when once a vessel came within the
radius of its powerful attraction for the aluminum steel that enters so
largely into the construction of all Barsoomian craft, no power on
earth could prevent such an end as we had just witnessed.

I afterward learned that the shaft rests directly over the magnetic
pole of Mars, but whether this adds in any way to its incalculable
power of attraction I do not know. I am a fighting man, not a
scientist.

Here, at last, was an explanation of the long absence of Tardos Mors
and Mors Kajak. These valiant and intrepid warriors had dared the
mysteries and dangers of the frozen north to search for Carthoris,
whose long absence had bowed in grief the head of his beautiful mother,
Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium.

The moment that the last of the fliers came to rest at the base of the
shaft the black-bearded, yellow warriors swarmed over the mass of
wreckage upon which they lay, making prisoners of those who were
uninjured and occasionally despatching with a sword-thrust one of the
wounded who seemed prone to resent their taunts and insults.

A few of the uninjured red men battled bravely against their cruel
foes, but for the most part they seemed too overwhelmed by the horror
of the catastrophe that had befallen them to do more than submit
supinely to the golden chains with which they were manacled.

When the last of the prisoners had been confined, the party returned to
the city, at the gate of which we met a pack of fierce, gold-collared
apts, each of which marched between two warriors, who held them with
strong chains of the same metal as their collars.

Just beyond the gate the attendants loosened the whole terrible herd,
and as they bounded off toward the grim, black shaft I did not need to
ask to know their mission. Had there not been those within the cruel
city of Kadabra who needed succor far worse than the poor unfortunate
dead and dying out there in the cold upon the bent and broken carcasses
of a thousand fliers I could not have restrained my desire to hasten
back and do battle with those horrid creatures that had been despatched
to rend and devour them.

As it was I could but follow the yellow warriors, with bowed head, and
give thanks for the chance that had given Thuvan Dihn and me such easy
ingress to the capital of Salensus Oll.

Once within the gates, we had no difficulty in eluding our friends of
the morning, and presently found ourselves in a Martian hostelry.



IN DURANCE


The public houses of Barsoom, I have found, vary but little. There is
no privacy for other than married couples.

Men without their wives are escorted to a large chamber, the floor of
which is usually of white marble or heavy glass, kept scrupulously
clean. Here are many small, raised platforms for the guest’s sleeping
silks and furs, and if he have none of his own clean, fresh ones are
furnished at a nominal charge.

Once a man’s belongings have been deposited upon one of these platforms
he is a guest of the house, and that platform his own until he leaves.
No one will disturb or molest his belongings, as there are no thieves
upon Mars.

As assassination is the one thing to be feared, the proprietors of the
hostelries furnish armed guards, who pace back and forth through the
sleeping-rooms day and night. The number of guards and gorgeousness of
their trappings quite usually denote the status of the hotel.

No meals are served in these houses, but generally a public eating
place adjoins them. Baths are connected with the sleeping chambers, and
each guest is required to bathe daily or depart from the hotel.

Usually on a second or third floor there is a large sleeping-room for
single women guests, but its appointments do not vary materially from
the chamber occupied by men. The guards who watch the women remain in
the corridor outside the sleeping chamber, while female slaves pace
back and forth among the sleepers within, ready to notify the warriors
should their presence be required.

I was surprised to note that all the guards with the hotel at which we
stopped were red men, and on inquiring of one of them I learned that
they were slaves purchased by the proprietors of the hotels from the
government. The man whose post was past my sleeping platform had been
commander of the navy of a great Martian nation; but fate had carried
his flagship across the ice-barrier within the radius of power of the
magnetic shaft, and now for many tedious years he had been a slave of
the yellow men.

He told me that princes, jeds, and even jeddaks of the outer world,
were among the menials who served the yellow race; but when I asked him
if he had heard of the fate of Mors Kajak or Tardos Mors he shook his
head, saying that he never had heard of their being prisoners here,
though he was very familiar with the reputations and fame they bore in
the outer world.

Neither had he heard any rumor of the coming of the Father of Therns
and the black dator of the First Born, but he hastened to explain that
he knew little of what took place within the palace. I could see that
he wondered not a little that a yellow man should be so inquisitive
about certain red prisoners from beyond the ice-barrier, and that I
should be so ignorant of customs and conditions among my own race.

In fact, I had forgotten my disguise upon discovering a red man pacing
before my sleeping platform; but his growing expression of surprise
warned me in time, for I had no mind to reveal my identity to any
unless some good could come of it, and I did not see how this poor
fellow could serve me yet, though I had it in my mind that later I
might be the means of serving him and all the other thousands of
prisoners who do the bidding of their stern masters in Kadabra.

Thuvan Dihn and I discussed our plans as we sat together among our
sleeping silks and furs that night in the midst of the hundreds of
yellow men who occupied the apartment with us. We spoke in low
whispers, but, as that is only what courtesy demands in a public
sleeping place, we roused no suspicion.

At last, determining that all must be but idle speculation until after
we had had a chance to explore the city and attempt to put into
execution the plan Talu had suggested, we bade each other good night
and turned to sleep.

After breakfasting the following morning we set out to see Kadabra, and
as, through the generosity of the prince of Marentina, we were well
supplied with the funds current in Okar we purchased a handsome ground
flier. Having learned to drive them while in Marentina, we spent a
delightful and profitable day exploring the city, and late in the
afternoon at the hour Talu told us we would find government officials
in their offices, we stopped before a magnificent building on the plaza
opposite the royal grounds and the palace.

Here we walked boldly in past the armed guard at the door, to be met by
a red slave within who asked our wishes.

“Tell Sorav, your master, that two warriors from Illall wish to take
service in the palace guard,” I said.

Sorav, Talu had told us, was the commander of the forces of the palace,
and as men from the further cities of Okar—and especially Illall—were
less likely to be tainted with the germ of intrigue which had for years
infected the household of Salensus Oll, he was sure that we would be
welcomed and few questions asked us.

He had primed us with such general information as he thought would be
necessary for us to pass muster before Sorav, after which we would have
to undergo a further examination before Salensus Oll that he might
determine our physical fitness and our ability as warriors.

The little experience we had had with the strange hooked sword of the
yellow man and his cuplike shield made it seem rather unlikely that
either of us could pass this final test, but there was the chance that
we might be quartered in the palace of Salensus Oll for several days
after being accepted by Sorav before the Jeddak of Jeddaks would find
time to put us to the final test.

After a wait of several minutes in an ante-chamber we were summoned
into the private office of Sorav, where we were courteously greeted by
this ferocious-appearing, black-bearded officer. He asked us our names
and stations in our own city, and having received replies that were
evidently satisfactory to him, he put certain questions to us that Talu
had foreseen and prepared us for.

The interview could not have lasted over ten minutes when Sorav
summoned an aid whom he instructed to record us properly, and then
escort us to the quarters in the palace which are set aside for
aspirants to membership in the palace guard.

The aid took us to his own office first, where he measured and weighed
and photographed us simultaneously with a machine ingeniously devised
for that purpose, five copies being instantly reproduced in five
different offices of the government, two of which are located in other
cities miles distant. Then he led us through the palace grounds to the
main guardroom of the palace, there turning us over to the officer in
charge.

This individual again questioned us briefly, and finally despatched a
soldier to guide us to our quarters. These we found located upon the
second floor of the palace in a semi-detached tower at the rear of the
edifice.

When we asked our guide why we were quartered so far from the guardroom
he replied that the custom of the older members of the guard of picking
quarrels with aspirants to try their metal had resulted in so many
deaths that it was found difficult to maintain the guard at its full
strength while this custom prevailed. Salensus Oll had, therefore, set
apart these quarters for aspirants, and here they were securely locked
against the danger of attack by members of the guard.

This unwelcome information put a sudden check to all our well-laid
plans, for it meant that we should virtually be prisoners in the palace
of Salensus Oll until the time that he should see fit to give us the
final examination for efficiency.

As it was this interval upon which we had banked to accomplish so much
in our search for Dejah Thoris and Thuvia of Ptarth, our chagrin was
unbounded when we heard the great lock click behind our guide as he had
quitted us after ushering us into the chambers we were to occupy.

With a wry face I turned to Thuvan Dihn. My companion but shook his
head disconsolately and walked to one of the windows upon the far side
of the apartment.

Scarcely had he gazed beyond them than he called to me in a tone of
suppressed excitement and surprise. In an instant I was by his side.

“Look!” said Thuvan Dihn, pointing toward the courtyard below.

As my eyes followed the direction indicated I saw two women pacing back
and forth in an enclosed garden.

At the same moment I recognized them—they were Dejah Thoris and Thuvia
of Ptarth!

There were they whom I had trailed from one pole to another, the length
of a world. Only ten feet of space and a few metal bars separated me
from them.

With a cry I attracted their attention, and as Dejah Thoris looked up
full into my eyes I made the sign of love that the men of Barsoom make
to their women.

To my astonishment and horror her head went high, and as a look of
utter contempt touched her finely chiseled features she turned her back
full upon me. My body is covered with the scars of a thousand
conflicts, but never in all my long life have I suffered such anguish
from a wound, for this time the steel of a woman’s look had entered my
heart.

With a groan I turned away and buried my face in my arms. I heard
Thuvan Dihn call aloud to Thuvia, but an instant later his exclamation
of surprise betokened that he, too, had been repulsed by his own
daughter.

“They will not even listen,” he cried to me. “They have put their hands
over their ears and walked to the farther end of the garden. Ever heard
you of such mad work, John Carter? The two must be bewitched.”

Presently I mustered the courage to return to the window, for even
though she spurned me I loved her, and could not keep my eyes from
feasting upon her divine face and figure, but when she saw me looking
she again turned away.

I was at my wit’s end to account for her strange actions, and that
Thuvia, too, had turned against her father seemed incredible. Could it
be that my incomparable princess still clung to the hideous faith from
which I had rescued her world? Could it be that she looked upon me with
loathing and contempt because I had returned from the Valley Dor, or
because I had desecrated the temples and persons of the Holy Therns?

To naught else could I ascribe her strange deportment, yet it seemed
far from possible that such could be the case, for the love of Dejah
Thoris for John Carter had been a great and wondrous love—far above
racial distinctions, creed, or religion.

As I gazed ruefully at the back of her haughty, royal head a gate at
the opposite end of the garden opened and a man entered. As he did so
he turned and slipped something into the hand of the yellow guardsman
beyond the gate, nor was the distance too great that I might not see
that money had passed between them.

Instantly I knew that this newcomer had bribed his way within the
garden. Then he turned in the direction of the two women, and I saw
that he was none other than Thurid, the black dator of the First Born.

He approached quite close to them before he spoke, and as they turned
at the sound of his voice I saw Dejah Thoris shrink from him.

There was a nasty leer upon his face as he stepped close to her and
spoke again. I could not hear his words, but her answer came clearly.

“The granddaughter of Tardos Mors can always die,” she said, “but she
could never live at the price you name.”

Then I saw the black scoundrel go upon his knees beside her, fairly
groveling in the dirt, pleading with her. Only part of what he said
came to me, for though he was evidently laboring under the stress of
passion and excitement, it was equally apparent that he did not dare
raise his voice for fear of detection.

“I would save you from Matai Shang,” I heard him say. “You know the
fate that awaits you at his hands. Would you not choose me rather than
the other?”

“I would choose neither,” replied Dejah Thoris, “even were I free to
choose, as you know well I am not.”

“You ARE free!” he cried. “John Carter, Prince of Helium, is dead.”

“I know better than that; but even were he dead, and I must needs
choose another mate, it should be a plant man or a great white ape in
preference to either Matai Shang or you, black calot,” she answered
with a sneer of contempt.

Of a sudden the vicious beast lost all control of himself, as with a
vile oath he leaped at the slender woman, gripping her tender throat in
his brute clutch. Thuvia screamed and sprang to aid her
fellow-prisoner, and at the same instant I, too, went mad, and tearing
at the bars that spanned my window I ripped them from their sockets as
they had been but copper wire.

Hurling myself through the aperture I reached the garden, but a hundred
feet from where the black was choking the life from my Dejah Thoris,
and with a single great bound I was upon him. I spoke no word as I tore
his defiling fingers from that beautiful throat, nor did I utter a
sound as I hurled him twenty feet from me.

Foaming with rage, Thurid regained his feet and charged me like a mad
bull.

“Yellow man,” he shrieked, “you knew not upon whom you had laid your
vile hands, but ere I am done with you, you will know well what it
means to offend the person of a First Born.”

Then he was upon me, reaching for my throat, and precisely as I had
done that day in the courtyard of the Temple of Issus I did here in the
garden of the palace of Salensus Oll. I ducked beneath his outstretched
arms, and as he lunged past me I planted a terrific right upon the side
of his jaw.

Just as he had done upon that other occasion he did now. Like a top he
spun round, his knees gave beneath him, and he crumpled to the ground
at my feet. Then I heard a voice behind me.

It was the deep voice of authority that marks the ruler of men, and
when I turned to face the resplendent figure of a giant yellow man I
did not need to ask to know that it was Salensus Oll. At his right
stood Matai Shang, and behind them a score of guardsmen.

“Who are you,” he cried, “and what means this intrusion within the
precincts of the women’s garden? I do not recall your face. How came
you here?”

But for his last words I should have forgotten my disguise entirely and
told him outright that I was John Carter, Prince of Helium; but his
question recalled me to myself. I pointed to the dislodged bars of the
window above.

“I am an aspirant to membership in the palace guard,” I said, “and from
yonder window in the tower where I was confined awaiting the final test
for fitness I saw this brute attack the—this woman. I could not stand
idly by, O Jeddak, and see this thing done within the very palace
grounds, and yet feel that I was fit to serve and guard your royal
person.”

I had evidently made an impression upon the ruler of Okar by my fair
words, and when he had turned to Dejah Thoris and Thuvia of Ptarth, and
both had corroborated my statements it began to look pretty dark for
Thurid.

I saw the ugly gleam in Matai Shang’s evil eyes as Dejah Thoris
narrated all that had passed between Thurid and herself, and when she
came to that part which dealt with my interference with the dator of
the First Born her gratitude was quite apparent, though I could see by
her eyes that something puzzled her strangely.

I did not wonder at her attitude toward me while others were present;
but that she should have denied me while she and Thuvia were the only
occupants of the garden still cut me sorely.

As the examination proceeded I cast a glance at Thurid and startled him
looking wide-eyed and wonderingly at me, and then of a sudden he
laughed full in my face.

A moment later Salensus Oll turned toward the black.

“What have you to say in explanation of these charges?” he asked in a
deep and terrible voice. “Dare you aspire to one whom the Father of
Therns has chosen—one who might even be a fit mate for the Jeddak of
Jeddaks himself?”

And then the black-bearded tyrant turned and cast a sudden greedy look
upon Dejah Thoris, as though with the words a new thought and a new
desire had sprung up within his mind and breast.

Thurid had been about to reply and, with a malicious grin upon his
face, was pointing an accusing finger at me, when Salensus Oll’s words
and the expression of his face cut him short.

A cunning look crept into his eyes, and I knew from the expression of
his face that his next words were not the ones he had intended to
speak.

“O Mightiest of Jeddaks,” he said, “the man and the women do not speak
the truth. The fellow had come into the garden to assist them to
escape. I was beyond and overheard their conversation, and when I
entered, the woman screamed and the man sprang upon me and would have
killed me.

“What know you of this man? He is a stranger to you, and I dare say
that you will find him an enemy and a spy. Let him be put on trial,
Salensus Oll, rather than your friend and guest, Thurid, Dator of the
First Born.”

Salensus Oll looked puzzled. He turned again and looked upon Dejah
Thoris, and then Thurid stepped quite close to him and whispered
something in his ear—what, I know not.

Presently the yellow ruler turned to one of his officers.

“See that this man be securely confined until we have time to go deeper
into this affair,” he commanded, “and as bars alone seem inadequate to
restrain him, let chains be added.”

Then he turned and left the garden, taking Dejah Thoris with him—his
hand upon her shoulder. Thurid and Matai Shang went also, and as they
reached the gateway the black turned and laughed again aloud in my
face.

What could be the meaning of his sudden change toward me? Could he
suspect my true identity? It must be that, and the thing that had
betrayed me was the trick and blow that had laid him low for the second
time.

As the guards dragged me away my heart was very sad and bitter indeed,
for now to the two relentless enemies that had hounded her for so long
another and a more powerful one had been added, for I would have been
but a fool had I not recognized the sudden love for Dejah Thoris that
had just been born in the terrible breast of Salensus Oll, Jeddak of
Jeddaks, ruler of Okar.



THE PIT OF PLENTY


I did not languish long within the prison of Salensus Oll. During the
short time that I lay there, fettered with chains of gold, I often
wondered as to the fate of Thuvan Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth.

My brave companion had followed me into the garden as I attacked
Thurid, and when Salensus Oll had left with Dejah Thoris and the
others, leaving Thuvia of Ptarth behind, he, too, had remained in the
garden with his daughter, apparently unnoticed, for he was appareled
similarly to the guards.

The last I had seen of him he stood waiting for the warriors who
escorted me to close the gate behind them, that he might be alone with
Thuvia. Could it be possible that they had escaped? I doubted it, and
yet with all my heart I hoped that it might be true.

The third day of my incarceration brought a dozen warriors to escort me
to the audience chamber, where Salensus Oll himself was to try me. A
great number of nobles crowded the room, and among them I saw Thurid,
but Matai Shang was not there.

Dejah Thoris, as radiantly beautiful as ever, sat upon a small throne
beside Salensus Oll. The expression of sad hopelessness upon her dear
face cut deep into my heart.

Her position beside the Jeddak of Jeddaks boded ill for her and me, and
on the instant that I saw her there, there sprang to my mind the firm
intention never to leave that chamber alive if I must leave her in the
clutches of this powerful tyrant.

I had killed better men than Salensus Oll, and killed them with my bare
hands, and now I swore to myself that I should kill him if I found that
the only way to save the Princess of Helium. That it would mean almost
instant death for me I cared not, except that it would remove me from
further efforts in behalf of Dejah Thoris, and for this reason alone I
would have chosen another way, for even though I should kill Salensus
Oll that act would not restore my beloved wife to her own people. I
determined to wait the final outcome of the trial, that I might learn
all that I could of the Okarian ruler’s intentions, and then act
accordingly.

Scarcely had I come before him than Salensus Oll summoned Thurid also.

“Dator Thurid,” he said, “you have made a strange request of me; but,
in accordance with your wishes and your promise that it will result
only to my interests, I have decided to accede.

“You tell me that a certain announcement will be the means of
convicting this prisoner and, at the same time, open the way to the
gratification of my dearest wish.”

Thurid nodded.

“Then shall I make the announcement here before all my nobles,”
continued Salensus Oll. “For a year no queen has sat upon the throne
beside me, and now it suits me to take to wife one who is reputed the
most beautiful woman upon Barsoom. A statement which none may
truthfully deny.

“Nobles of Okar, unsheathe your swords and do homage to Dejah Thoris,
Princess of Helium and future Queen of Okar, for at the end of the
allotted ten days she shall become the wife of Salensus Oll.”

As the nobles drew their blades and lifted them on high, in accordance
with the ancient custom of Okar when a jeddak announces his intention
to wed, Dejah Thoris sprang to her feet and, raising her hand aloft,
cried in a loud voice that they desist.

“I may not be the wife of Salensus Oll,” she pleaded, “for already I be
a wife and mother. John Carter, Prince of Helium, still lives. I know
it to be true, for I overheard Matai Shang tell his daughter Phaidor
that he had seen him in Kaor, at the court of Kulan Tith, Jeddak. A
jeddak does not wed a married woman, nor will Salensus Oll thus violate
the bonds of matrimony.”

Salensus Oll turned upon Thurid with an ugly look.

“Is this the surprise you held in store for me?” he cried. “You assured
me that no obstacle which might not be easily overcome stood between me
and this woman, and now I find that the one insuperable obstacle
intervenes. What mean you, man? What have you to say?”

“And should I deliver John Carter into your hands, Salensus Oll, would
you not feel that I had more than satisfied the promise that I made
you?” answered Thurid.

“Talk not like a fool,” cried the enraged jeddak. “I am no child to be
thus played with.”

“I am talking only as a man who knows,” replied Thurid. “Knows that he
can do all that he claims.”

“Then turn John Carter over to me within ten days or yourself suffer
the end that I should mete out to him were he in my power!” snapped the
Jeddak of Jeddaks, with an ugly scowl.

“You need not wait ten days, Salensus Oll,” replied Thurid; and then,
turning suddenly upon me as he extended a pointing finger, he cried:
“There stands John Carter, Prince of Helium!”

“Fool!” shrieked Salensus Oll. “Fool! John Carter is a white man. This
fellow be as yellow as myself. John Carter’s face is smooth—Matai Shang
has described him to me. This prisoner has a beard and mustache as
large and black as any in Okar. Quick, guardsmen, to the pits with the
black maniac who wishes to throw his life away for a poor joke upon
your ruler!”

“Hold!” cried Thurid, and springing forward before I could guess his
intention, he had grasped my beard and ripped the whole false fabric
from my face and head, revealing my smooth, tanned skin beneath and my
close-cropped black hair.

Instantly pandemonium reigned in the audience chamber of Salensus Oll.
Warriors pressed forward with drawn blades, thinking that I might be
contemplating the assassination of the Jeddak of Jeddaks; while others,
out of curiosity to see one whose name was familiar from pole to pole,
crowded behind their fellows.

As my identity was revealed I saw Dejah Thoris spring to her
feet—amazement writ large upon her face—and then through that jam of
armed men she forced her way before any could prevent. A moment only
and she was before me with outstretched arms and eyes filled with the
light of her great love.

“John Carter! John Carter!” she cried as I folded her to my breast, and
then of a sudden I knew why she had denied me in the garden beneath the
tower.

What a fool I had been! Expecting that she would penetrate the
marvelous disguise that had been wrought for me by the barber of
Marentina! She had not known me, that was all; and when she saw the
sign of love from a stranger she was offended and righteously
indignant. Indeed, but I had been a fool.

“And it was you,” she cried, “who spoke to me from the tower! How could
I dream that my beloved Virginian lay behind that fierce beard and that
yellow skin?”

She had been wont to call me her Virginian as a term of endearment, for
she knew that I loved the sound of that beautiful name, made a thousand
times more beautiful and hallowed by her dear lips, and as I heard it
again after all those long years my eyes became dimmed with tears and
my voice choked with emotion.

But an instant did I crush that dear form to me ere Salensus Oll,
trembling with rage and jealousy, shouldered his way to us.

“Seize the man,” he cried to his warriors, and a hundred ruthless hands
tore us apart.

Well it was for the nobles of the court of Okar that John Carter had
been disarmed. As it was, a dozen of them felt the weight of my
clenched fists, and I had fought my way half up the steps before the
throne to which Salensus Oll had carried Dejah Thoris ere ever they
could stop me.

Then I went down, fighting, beneath a half-hundred warriors; but before
they had battered me into unconsciousness I heard that from the lips of
Dejah Thoris that made all my suffering well worth while.

Standing there beside the great tyrant, who clutched her by the arm,
she pointed to where I fought alone against such awful odds.

“Think you, Salensus Oll, that the wife of such as he is,” she cried,
“would ever dishonor his memory, were he a thousand times dead, by
mating with a lesser mortal? Lives there upon any world such another as
John Carter, Prince of Helium? Lives there another man who could fight
his way back and forth across a warlike planet, facing savage beasts
and hordes of savage men, for the love of a woman?

“I, Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, am his. He fought for me and won
me. If you be a brave man you will honor the bravery that is his, and
you will not kill him. Make him a slave if you will, Salensus Oll; but
spare his life. I would rather be a slave with such as he than be Queen
of Okar.”

“Neither slave nor queen dictates to Salensus Oll,” replied the Jeddak
of Jeddaks. “John Carter shall die a natural death in the Pit of
Plenty, and the day he dies Dejah Thoris shall become my queen.”

I did not hear her reply, for it was then that a blow upon my head
brought unconsciousness, and when I recovered my senses only a handful
of guardsmen remained in the audience chamber with me. As I opened my
eyes they goaded me with the points of their swords and bade me rise.

Then they led me through long corridors to a court far toward the
center of the palace.

In the center of the court was a deep pit, near the edge of which stood
half a dozen other guardsmen, awaiting me. One of them carried a long
rope in his hands, which he commenced to make ready as we approached.

We had come to within fifty feet of these men when I felt a sudden
strange and rapid pricking sensation in one of my fingers.

For a moment I was nonplused by the odd feeling, and then there came to
me recollection of that which in the stress of my adventure I had
entirely forgotten—the gift ring of Prince Talu of Marentina.

Instantly I looked toward the group we were nearing, at the same time
raising my left hand to my forehead, that the ring might be visible to
one who sought it. Simultaneously one of the waiting warriors raised
his left hand, ostensibly to brush back his hair, and upon one of his
fingers I saw the duplicate of my own ring.

A quick look of intelligence passed between us, after which I kept my
eyes turned away from the warrior and did not look at him again, for
fear that I might arouse the suspicion of the Okarians. When we reached
the edge of the pit I saw that it was very deep, and presently I
realized I was soon to judge just how far it extended below the surface
of the court, for he who held the rope passed it about my body in such
a way that it could be released from above at any time; and then, as
all the warriors grasped it, he pushed me forward, and I fell into the
yawning abyss.

After the first jerk as I reached the end of the rope that had been
paid out to let me fall below the pit’s edge they lowered me quickly
but smoothly. The moment before the plunge, while two or three of the
men had been assisting in adjusting the rope about me, one of them had
brought his mouth close to my cheek, and in the brief interval before I
was cast into the forbidding hole he breathed a single word into my
ear:

“Courage!”

The pit, which my imagination had pictured as bottomless, proved to be
not more than a hundred feet in depth; but as its walls were smoothly
polished it might as well have been a thousand feet, for I could never
hope to escape without outside assistance.

For a day I was left in darkness; and then, quite suddenly, a brilliant
light illumined my strange cell. I was reasonably hungry and thirsty by
this time, not having tasted food or drink since the day prior to my
incarceration.

To my amazement I found the sides of the pit, that I had thought
smooth, lined with shelves, upon which were the most delicious viands
and liquid refreshments that Okar afforded.

With an exclamation of delight I sprang forward to partake of some of
the welcome food, but ere ever I reached it the light was extinguished,
and, though I groped my way about the chamber, my hands came in contact
with nothing beside the smooth, hard wall that I had felt on my first
examination of my prison.

Immediately the pangs of hunger and thirst began to assail me. Where
before I had had but a mild craving for food and drink, I now actually
suffered for want of it, and all because of the tantalizing sight that
I had had of food almost within my grasp.

Once more darkness and silence enveloped me, a silence that was broken
only by a single mocking laugh.

For another day nothing occurred to break the monotony of my
imprisonment or relieve the suffering superinduced by hunger and
thirst. Slowly the pangs became less keen, as suffering deadened the
activity of certain nerves; and then the light flashed on once again,
and before me stood an array of new and tempting dishes, with great
bottles of clear water and flagons of refreshing wine, upon the outside
of which the cold sweat of condensation stood.

Again, with the hunger madness of a wild beast, I sprang forward to
seize those tempting dishes; but, as before, the light went out and I
came to a sudden stop against a hard wall.

Then the mocking laugh rang out for a second time.

The Pit of Plenty!

Ah, what a cruel mind must have devised this exquisite, hellish
torture! Day after day was the thing repeated, until I was on the verge
of madness; and then, as I had done in the pits of the Warhoons, I took
a new, firm hold upon my reason and forced it back into the channels of
sanity.

By sheer will-power I regained control over my tottering mentality, and
so successful was I that the next time that the light came I sat quite
still and looked indifferently at the fresh and tempting food almost
within my reach. Glad I was that I had done so, for it gave me an
opportunity to solve the seeming mystery of those vanishing banquets.

As I made no move to reach the food, the torturers left the light
turned on in the hope that at last I could refrain no longer from
giving them the delicious thrill of enjoyment that my former futile
efforts to obtain it had caused.

And as I sat scrutinizing the laden shelves I presently saw how the
thing was accomplished, and so simple was it that I wondered I had not
guessed it before. The wall of my prison was of clearest glass—behind
the glass were the tantalizing viands.

After nearly an hour the light went out, but this time there was no
mocking laughter—at least not upon the part of my tormentors; but I, to
be at quits with them, gave a low laugh that none might mistake for the
cackle of a maniac.

Nine days passed, and I was weak from hunger and thirst, but no longer
suffering—I was past that. Then, down through the darkness above, a
little parcel fell to the floor at my side.

Indifferently I groped for it, thinking it but some new invention of my
jailers to add to my sufferings.

At last I found it—a tiny package wrapped in paper, at the end of a
strong and slender cord. As I opened it a few lozenges fell to the
floor. As I gathered them up, feeling of them and smelling of them, I
discovered that they were tablets of concentrated food such as are
quite common in all parts of Barsoom.

Poison! I thought.

Well, what of it? Why not end my misery now rather than drag out a few
more wretched days in this dark pit? Slowly I raised one of the little
pellets to my lips.

“Good-bye, my Dejah Thoris!” I breathed. “I have lived for you and
fought for you, and now my next dearest wish is to be realized, for I
shall die for you,” and, taking the morsel in my mouth, I devoured it.

One by one I ate them all, nor ever did anything taste better than
those tiny bits of nourishment, within which I knew must lie the seeds
of death—possibly of some hideous, torturing death.

As I sat quietly upon the floor of my prison, waiting for the end, my
fingers by accident came in contact with the bit of paper in which the
things had been wrapped; and as I idly played with it, my mind roaming
far back into the past, that I might live again for a few brief moments
before I died some of the many happy moments of a long and happy life,
I became aware of strange protuberances upon the smooth surface of the
parchment-like substance in my hands.

For a time they carried no special significance to my mind—I merely was
mildly wondrous that they were there; but at last they seemed to take
form, and then I realized that there was but a single line of them,
like writing.

Now, more interestedly, my fingers traced and retraced them. There were
four separate and distinct combinations of raised lines. Could it be
that these were four words, and that they were intended to carry a
message to me?

The more I thought of it the more excited I became, until my fingers
raced madly back and forth over those bewildering little hills and
valleys upon that bit of paper.

But I could make nothing of them, and at last I decided that my very
haste was preventing me from solving the mystery. Then I took it more
slowly. Again and again my forefinger traced the first of those four
combinations.

Martian writing is rather difficult to explain to an Earth man—it is
something of a cross between shorthand and picture-writing, and is an
entirely different language from the spoken language of Mars.

Upon Barsoom there is but a single oral language.

It is spoken today by every race and nation, just as it was at the
beginning of human life upon Barsoom. It has grown with the growth of
the planet’s learning and scientific achievements, but so ingenious a
thing it is that new words to express new thoughts or describe new
conditions or discoveries form themselves—no other word could explain
the thing that a new word is required for other than the word that
naturally falls to it, and so, no matter how far removed two nations or
races, their spoken languages are identical.

Not so their written languages, however. No two nations have the same
written language, and often cities of the same nation have a written
language that differs greatly from that of the nation to which they
belong.

Thus it was that the signs upon the paper, if in reality they were
words, baffled me for some time; but at last I made out the first one.

It was “courage,” and it was written in the letters of Marentina.

Courage!

That was the word the yellow guardsman had whispered in my ear as I
stood upon the verge of the Pit of Plenty.

The message must be from him, and he I knew was a friend.

With renewed hope I bent my every energy to the deciphering of the
balance of the message, and at last success rewarded my endeavor—I had
read the four words:

“Courage! Follow the rope.”



“FOLLOW THE ROPE”


What could it mean?

“Follow the rope.” What rope?

Presently I recalled the cord that had been attached to the parcel when
it fell at my side, and after a little groping my hand came in contact
with it again. It depended from above, and when I pulled upon it I
discovered that it was rigidly fastened, possibly at the pit’s mouth.

Upon examination I found that the cord, though small, was amply able to
sustain the weight of several men. Then I made another discovery—there
was a second message knotted in the rope at about the height of my
head. This I deciphered more easily, now that the key was mine.

“Bring the rope with you. Beyond the knots lies danger.”

That was all there was to this message. It was evidently hastily
formed—an afterthought.

I did not pause longer than to learn the contents of the second
message, and, though I was none too sure of the meaning of the final
admonition, “Beyond the knots lies danger,” yet I was sure that here
before me lay an avenue of escape, and that the sooner I took advantage
of it the more likely was I to win to liberty.

At least, I could be but little worse off than I had been in the Pit of
Plenty.

I was to find, however, ere I was well out of that damnable hole that I
might have been very much worse off had I been compelled to remain
there another two minutes.

It had taken me about that length of time to ascend some fifty feet
above the bottom when a noise above attracted my attention. To my
chagrin I saw that the covering of the pit was being removed far above
me, and in the light of the courtyard beyond I saw a number of yellow
warriors.

Could it be that I was laboriously working my way into some new trap?
Were the messages spurious, after all? And then, just as my hope and
courage had ebbed to their lowest, I saw two things.

One was the body of a huge, struggling, snarling apt being lowered over
the side of the pit toward me, and the other was an aperture in the
side of the shaft—an aperture larger than a man’s body, into which my
rope led.

Just as I scrambled into the dark hole before me the apt passed me,
reaching out with his mighty hands to clutch me, and snapping,
growling, and roaring in a most frightful manner.

Plainly now I saw the end for which Salensus Oll had destined me. After
first torturing me with starvation he had caused this fierce beast to
be lowered into my prison to finish the work that the jeddak’s hellish
imagination had conceived.

And then another truth flashed upon me—I had lived nine days of the
allotted ten which must intervene before Salensus Oll could make Dejah
Thoris his queen. The purpose of the apt was to insure my death before
the tenth day.

I almost laughed aloud as I thought how Salensus Oll’s measure of
safety was to aid in defeating the very end he sought, for when they
discovered that the apt was alone in the Pit of Plenty they could not
know but that he had completely devoured me, and so no suspicion of my
escape would cause a search to be made for me.

Coiling the rope that had carried me thus far upon my strange journey,
I sought for the other end, but found that as I followed it forward it
extended always before me. So this was the meaning of the words:
“Follow the rope.”

The tunnel through which I crawled was low and dark. I had followed it
for several hundred yards when I felt a knot beneath my fingers.
“Beyond the knots lies danger.”

Now I went with the utmost caution, and a moment later a sharp turn in
the tunnel brought me to an opening into a large, brilliantly lighted
chamber.

The trend of the tunnel I had been traversing had been slightly upward,
and from this I judged that the chamber into which I now found myself
looking must be either on the first floor of the palace or directly
beneath the first floor.

Upon the opposite wall were many strange instruments and devices, and
in the center of the room stood a long table, at which two men were
seated in earnest conversation.

He who faced me was a yellow man—a little, wizened-up, pasty-faced old
fellow with great eyes that showed the white round the entire
circumference of the iris.

His companion was a black man, and I did not need to see his face to
know that it was Thurid, for there was no other of the First Born north
of the ice-barrier.

Thurid was speaking as I came within hearing of the men’s voices.

“Solan,” he was saying, “there is no risk and the reward is great. You
know that you hate Salensus Oll and that nothing would please you more
than to thwart him in some cherished plan. There be nothing that he
more cherishes today than the idea of wedding the beautiful Princess of
Helium; but I, too, want her, and with your help I may win her.

“You need not more than step from this room for an instant when I give
you the signal. I will do the rest, and then, when I am gone, you may
come and throw the great switch back into its place, and all will be as
before. I need but an hour’s start to be safe beyond the devilish power
that you control in this hidden chamber beneath the palace of your
master. See how easy,” and with the words the black dator rose from his
seat and, crossing the room, laid his hand upon a large, burnished
lever that protruded from the opposite wall.

“No! No!” cried the little old man, springing after him, with a wild
shriek. “Not that one! Not that one! That controls the sunray tanks,
and should you pull it too far down, all Kadabra would be consumed by
heat before I could replace it. Come away! Come away! You know not with
what mighty powers you play. This is the lever that you seek. Note well
the symbol inlaid in white upon its ebon surface.”

Thurid approached and examined the handle of the lever.

“Ah, a magnet,” he said. “I will remember. It is settled then I take
it,” he continued.

The old man hesitated. A look of combined greed and apprehension
overspread his none too beautiful features.

“Double the figure,” he said. “Even that were all too small an amount
for the service you ask. Why, I risk my life by even entertaining you
here within the forbidden precincts of my station. Should Salensus Oll
learn of it he would have me thrown to the apts before the day was
done.”

“He dare not do that, and you know it full well, Solan,” contradicted
the black. “Too great a power of life and death you hold over the
people of Kadabra for Salensus Oll ever to risk threatening you with
death. Before ever his minions could lay their hands upon you, you
might seize this very lever from which you have just warned me and wipe
out the entire city.”

“And myself into the bargain,” said Solan, with a shudder.

“But if you were to die, anyway, you would find the nerve to do it,”
replied Thurid.

“Yes,” muttered Solan, “I have often thought upon that very thing.
Well, First Born, is your red princess worth the price I ask for my
services, or will you go without her and see her in the arms of
Salensus Oll tomorrow night?”

“Take your price, yellow man,” replied Thurid, with an oath. “Half now
and the balance when you have fulfilled your contract.”

With that the dator threw a well-filled money-pouch upon the table.

Solan opened the pouch and with trembling fingers counted its contents.
His weird eyes assumed a greedy expression, and his unkempt beard and
mustache twitched with the muscles of his mouth and chin. It was quite
evident from his very mannerism that Thurid had keenly guessed the
man’s weakness—even the clawlike, clutching movement of the fingers
betokened the avariciousness of the miser.

Having satisfied himself that the amount was correct, Solan replaced
the money in the pouch and rose from the table.

“Now,” he said, “are you quite sure that you know the way to your
destination? You must travel quickly to cover the ground to the cave
and from thence beyond the Great Power, all within a brief hour, for no
more dare I spare you.”

“Let me repeat it to you,” said Thurid, “that you may see if I be
letter-perfect.”

“Proceed,” replied Solan.

“Through yonder door,” he commenced, pointing to a door at the far end
of the apartment, “I follow a corridor, passing three diverging
corridors upon my right; then into the fourth right-hand corridor
straight to where three corridors meet; here again I follow to the
right, hugging the left wall closely to avoid the pit.

“At the end of this corridor I shall come to a spiral runway, which I
must follow down instead of up; after that the way is along but a
single branchless corridor. Am I right?”

“Quite right, Dator,” answered Solan; “and now begone. Already have you
tempted fate too long within this forbidden place.”

“Tonight, or tomorrow, then, you may expect the signal,” said Thurid,
rising to go.

“Tonight, or tomorrow,” repeated Solan, and as the door closed behind
his guest the old man continued to mutter as he turned back to the
table, where he again dumped the contents of the money-pouch, running
his fingers through the heap of shining metal; piling the coins into
little towers; counting, recounting, and fondling the wealth the while
he muttered on and on in a crooning undertone.

Presently his fingers ceased their play; his eyes popped wider than
ever as they fastened upon the door through which Thurid had
disappeared. The croon changed to a querulous muttering, and finally to
an ugly growl.

Then the old man rose from the table, shaking his fist at the closed
door. Now he raised his voice, and his words came distinctly.

“Fool!” he muttered. “Think you that for your happiness Solan will give
up his life? If you escaped, Salensus Oll would know that only through
my connivance could you have succeeded. Then would he send for me. What
would you have me do? Reduce the city and myself to ashes? No, fool,
there is a better way—a better way for Solan to keep thy money and be
revenged upon Salensus Oll.”

He laughed in a nasty, cackling note.

“Poor fool! You may throw the great switch that will give you the
freedom of the air of Okar, and then, in fatuous security, go on with
thy red princess to the freedom of—death. When you have passed beyond
this chamber in your flight, what can prevent Solan replacing the
switch as it was before your vile hand touched it? Nothing; and then
the Guardian of the North will claim you and your woman, and Salensus
Oll, when he sees your dead bodies, will never dream that the hand of
Solan had aught to do with the thing.”

Then his voice dropped once more into mutterings that I could not
translate, but I had heard enough to cause me to guess a great deal
more, and I thanked the kind Providence that had led me to this chamber
at a time so filled with importance to Dejah Thoris and myself as this.

But how to pass the old man now! The cord, almost invisible upon the
floor, stretched straight across the apartment to a door upon the far
side.

There was no other way of which I knew, nor could I afford to ignore
the advice to “follow the rope.” I must cross this room, but however I
should accomplish it undetected with that old man in the very center of
it baffled me.

Of course I might have sprung in upon him and with my bare hands
silenced him forever, but I had heard enough to convince me that with
him alive the knowledge that I had gained might serve me at some future
moment, while should I kill him and another be stationed in his place
Thurid would not come hither with Dejah Thoris, as was quite evidently
his intention.

As I stood in the dark shadow of the tunnel’s end racking my brain for
a feasible plan the while I watched, catlike, the old man’s every move,
he took up the money-pouch and crossed to one end of the apartment,
where, bending to his knees, he fumbled with a panel in the wall.

Instantly I guessed that here was the hiding place in which he hoarded
his wealth, and while he bent there, his back toward me, I entered the
chamber upon tiptoe, and with the utmost stealth essayed to reach the
opposite side before he should complete his task and turn again toward
the room’s center.

Scarcely thirty steps, all told, must I take, and yet it seemed to my
overwrought imagination that that farther wall was miles away; but at
last I reached it, nor once had I taken my eyes from the back of the
old miser’s head.

He did not turn until my hand was upon the button that controlled the
door through which my way led, and then he turned away from me as I
passed through and gently closed the door.

For an instant I paused, my ear close to the panel, to learn if he had
suspected aught, but as no sound of pursuit came from within I wheeled
and made my way along the new corridor, following the rope, which I
coiled and brought with me as I advanced.

But a short distance farther on I came to the rope’s end at a point
where five corridors met. What was I to do? Which way should I turn? I
was nonplused.

A careful examination of the end of the rope revealed the fact that it
had been cleanly cut with some sharp instrument. This fact and the
words that had cautioned me that danger lay beyond the KNOTS convinced
me that the rope had been severed since my friend had placed it as my
guide, for I had but passed a single knot, whereas there had evidently
been two or more in the entire length of the cord.

Now, indeed, was I in a pretty fix, for neither did I know which avenue
to follow nor when danger lay directly in my path; but there was
nothing else to be done than follow one of the corridors, for I could
gain nothing by remaining where I was.

So I chose the central opening, and passed on into its gloomy depths
with a prayer upon my lips.

The floor of the tunnel rose rapidly as I advanced, and a moment later
the way came to an abrupt end before a heavy door.

I could hear nothing beyond, and, with my accustomed rashness, pushed
the portal wide to step into a room filled with yellow warriors.

The first to see me opened his eyes wide in astonishment, and at the
same instant I felt the tingling sensation in my finger that denoted
the presence of a friend of the ring.

Then others saw me, and there was a concerted rush to lay hands upon
me, for these were all members of the palace guard—men familiar with my
face.

The first to reach me was the wearer of the mate to my strange ring,
and as he came close he whispered: “Surrender to me!” then in a loud
voice shouted: “You are my prisoner, white man,” and menaced me with
his two weapons.

And so John Carter, Prince of Helium, meekly surrendered to a single
antagonist. The others now swarmed about us, asking many questions, but
I would not talk to them, and finally my captor announced that he would
lead me back to my cell.

An officer ordered several other warriors to accompany him, and a
moment later we were retracing the way I had just come. My friend
walked close beside me, asking many silly questions about the country
from which I had come, until finally his fellows paid no further
attention to him or his gabbling.

Gradually, as he spoke, he lowered his voice, so that presently he was
able to converse with me in a low tone without attracting attention.
His ruse was a clever one, and showed that Talu had not misjudged the
man’s fitness for the dangerous duty upon which he was detailed.

When he had fully assured himself that the other guardsmen were not
listening, he asked me why I had not followed the rope, and when I told
him that it had ended at the five corridors he said that it must have
been cut by someone in need of a piece of rope, for he was sure that
“the stupid Kadabrans would never have guessed its purpose.”

Before we had reached the spot from which the five corridors diverge my
Marentinian friend had managed to drop to the rear of the little column
with me, and when we came in sight of the branching ways he whispered:

“Run up the first upon the right. It leads to the watchtower upon the
south wall. I will direct the pursuit up the next corridor,” and with
that he gave me a great shove into the dark mouth of the tunnel, at the
same time crying out in simulated pain and alarm as he threw himself
upon the floor as though I had felled him with a blow.

From behind the voices of the excited guardsmen came reverberating
along the corridor, suddenly growing fainter as Talu’s spy led them up
the wrong passageway in fancied pursuit.

As I ran for my life through the dark galleries beneath the palace of
Salensus Oll I must indeed have presented a remarkable appearance had
there been any to note it, for though death loomed large about me, my
face was split by a broad grin as I thought of the resourcefulness of
the nameless hero of Marentina to whom I owed my life.

Of such stuff are the men of my beloved Helium, and when I meet another
of their kind, of whatever race or color, my heart goes out to him as
it did now to my new friend who had risked his life for me simply
because I wore the mate to the ring his ruler had put upon his finger.

The corridor along which I ran led almost straight for a considerable
distance, terminating at the foot of a spiral runway, up which I
proceeded to emerge presently into a circular chamber upon the first
floor of a tower.

In this apartment a dozen red slaves were employed polishing or
repairing the weapons of the yellow men. The walls of the room were
lined with racks in which were hundreds of straight and hooked swords,
javelins, and daggers. It was evidently an armory. There were but three
warriors guarding the workers.

My eyes took in the entire scene at a glance. Here were weapons in
plenty! Here were sinewy red warriors to wield them!

And here now was John Carter, Prince of Helium, in need both of weapons
and warriors!

As I stepped into the apartment, guards and prisoners saw me
simultaneously.

Close to the entrance where I stood was a rack of straight swords, and
as my hand closed upon the hilt of one of them my eyes fell upon the
faces of two of the prisoners who worked side by side.

One of the guards started toward me. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What
do you here?”

“I come for Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium, and his son, Mors Kajak,” I
cried, pointing to the two red prisoners, who had now sprung to their
feet, wide-eyed in astonished recognition.

“Rise, red men! Before we die let us leave a memorial in the palace of
Okar’s tyrant that will stand forever in the annals of Kadabra to the
honor and glory of Helium,” for I had seen that all the prisoners there
were men of Tardos Mors’s navy.

Then the first guardsman was upon me and the fight was on, but scarce
did we engage ere, to my horror, I saw that the red slaves were
shackled to the floor.



THE MAGNET SWITCH


The guardsmen paid not the slightest attention to their wards, for the
red men could not move over two feet from the great rings to which they
were padlocked, though each had seized a weapon upon which he had been
engaged when I entered the room, and stood ready to join me could they
have but done so.

The yellow men devoted all their attention to me, nor were they long in
discovering that the three of them were none too many to defend the
armory against John Carter. Would that I had had my own good long-sword
in my hand that day; but, as it was, I rendered a satisfactory account
of myself with the unfamiliar weapon of the yellow man.

At first I had a time of it dodging their villainous hook-swords, but
after a minute or two I had succeeded in wresting a second straight
sword from one of the racks along the wall, and thereafter, using it to
parry the hooks of my antagonists, I felt more evenly equipped.

The three of them were on me at once, and but for a lucky circumstance
my end might have come quickly. The foremost guardsman made a vicious
lunge for my side with his hook after the three of them had backed me
against the wall, but as I sidestepped and raised my arm his weapon but
grazed my side, passing into a rack of javelins, where it became
entangled.

Before he could release it I had run him through, and then, falling
back upon the tactics that have saved me a hundred times in tight
pinches, I rushed the two remaining warriors, forcing them back with a
perfect torrent of cuts and thrusts, weaving my sword in and out about
their guards until I had the fear of death upon them.

Then one of them commenced calling for help, but it was too late to
save them.

They were as putty in my hands now, and I backed them about the armory
as I would until I had them where I wanted them—within reach of the
swords of the shackled slaves. In an instant both lay dead upon the
floor. But their cries had not been entirely fruitless, for now I heard
answering shouts and the footfalls of many men running and the clank of
accouterments and the commands of officers.

“The door! Quick, John Carter, bar the door!” cried Tardos Mors.

Already the guard was in sight, charging across the open court that was
visible through the doorway.

A dozen seconds would bring them into the tower. A single leap carried
me to the heavy portal. With a resounding bang I slammed it shut.

“The bar!” shouted Tardos Mors.

I tried to slip the huge fastening into place, but it defied my every
attempt.

“Raise it a little to release the catch,” cried one of the red men.

I could hear the yellow warriors leaping along the flagging just beyond
the door. I raised the bar and shot it to the right just as the
foremost of the guardsmen threw himself against the opposite side of
the massive panels.

The barrier held—I had been in time, but by the fraction of a second
only.

Now I turned my attention to the prisoners. To Tardos Mors I went
first, asking where the keys might be which would unfasten their
fetters.

“The officer of the guard has them,” replied the Jeddak of Helium, “and
he is among those without who seek entrance. You will have to force
them.”

Most of the prisoners were already hacking at their bonds with the
swords in their hands. The yellow men were battering at the door with
javelins and axes.

I turned my attention to the chains that held Tardos Mors. Again and
again I cut deep into the metal with my sharp blade, but ever faster
and faster fell the torrent of blows upon the portal.

At last a link parted beneath my efforts, and a moment later Tardos
Mors was free, though a few inches of trailing chain still dangled from
his ankle.

A splinter of wood falling inward from the door announced the headway
that our enemies were making toward us.

The mighty panels trembled and bent beneath the furious onslaught of
the enraged yellow men.

What with the battering upon the door and the hacking of the red men at
their chains the din within the armory was appalling. No sooner was
Tardos Mors free than he turned his attention to another of the
prisoners, while I set to work to liberate Mors Kajak.

We must work fast if we would have all those fetters cut before the
door gave way. Now a panel crashed inward upon the floor, and Mors
Kajak sprang to the opening to defend the way until we should have time
to release the others.

With javelins snatched from the wall he wrought havoc among the
foremost of the Okarians while we battled with the insensate metal that
stood between our fellows and freedom.

At length all but one of the prisoners were freed, and then the door
fell with a mighty crash before a hastily improvised battering-ram, and
the yellow horde was upon us.

“To the upper chambers!” shouted the red man who was still fettered to
the floor. “To the upper chambers! There you may defend the tower
against all Kadabra. Do not delay because of me, who could pray for no
better death than in the service of Tardos Mors and the Prince of
Helium.”

But I would have sacrificed the life of every man of us rather than
desert a single red man, much less the lion-hearted hero who begged us
to leave him.

“Cut his chains,” I cried to two of the red men, “while the balance of
us hold off the foe.”

There were ten of us now to do battle with the Okarian guard, and I
warrant that that ancient watchtower never looked down upon a more
hotly contested battle than took place that day within its own grim
walls.

The first inrushing wave of yellow warriors recoiled from the slashing
blades of ten of Helium’s veteran fighting men. A dozen Okarian corpses
blocked the doorway, but over the gruesome barrier a score more of
their fellows dashed, shouting their hoarse and hideous war-cry.

Upon the bloody mound we met them, hand to hand, stabbing where the
quarters were too close to cut, thrusting when we could push a foeman
to arm’s length; and mingled with the wild cry of the Okarian there
rose and fell the glorious words: “For Helium! For Helium!” that for
countless ages have spurred on the bravest of the brave to those deeds
of valor that have sent the fame of Helium’s heroes broadcast
throughout the length and breadth of a world.

Now were the fetters struck from the last of the red men, and thirteen
strong we met each new charge of the soldiers of Salensus Oll. Scarce
one of us but bled from a score of wounds, yet none had fallen.

From without we saw hundreds of guardsmen pouring into the courtyard,
and along the lower corridor from which I had found my way to the
armory we could hear the clank of metal and the shouting of men.

In a moment we should be attacked from two sides, and with all our
prowess we could not hope to withstand the unequal odds which would
thus divide our attention and our small numbers.

“To the upper chambers!” cried Tardos Mors, and a moment later we fell
back toward the runway that led to the floors above.

Here another bloody battle was waged with the force of yellow men who
charged into the armory as we fell back from the doorway. Here we lost
our first man, a noble fellow whom we could ill spare; but at length
all had backed into the runway except myself, who remained to hold back
the Okarians until the others were safe above.

In the mouth of the narrow spiral but a single warrior could attack me
at a time, so that I had little difficulty in holding them all back for
the brief moment that was necessary. Then, backing slowly before them,
I commenced the ascent of the spiral.

All the long way to the tower’s top the guardsmen pressed me closely.
When one went down before my sword another scrambled over the dead man
to take his place; and thus, taking an awful toll with each few feet
gained, I came to the spacious glass-walled watchtower of Kadabra.

Here my companions clustered ready to take my place, and for a moment’s
respite I stepped to one side while they held the enemy off.

From the lofty perch a view could be had for miles in every direction.
Toward the south stretched the rugged, ice-clad waste to the edge of
the mighty barrier. Toward the east and west, and dimly toward the
north I descried other Okarian cities, while in the immediate
foreground, just beyond the walls of Kadabra, the grim guardian shaft
reared its somber head.

Then I cast my eyes down into the streets of Kadabra, from which a
sudden tumult had arisen, and there I saw a battle raging, and beyond
the city’s walls I saw armed men marching in great columns toward a
near-by gate.

Eagerly I pressed forward against the glass wall of the observatory,
scarce daring to credit the testimony of my own eyes. But at last I
could doubt no longer, and with a shout of joy that rose strangely in
the midst of the cursing and groaning of the battling men at the
entrance to the chamber, I called to Tardos Mors.

As he joined me I pointed down into the streets of Kadabra and to the
advancing columns beyond, above which floated bravely in the arctic air
the flags and banners of Helium.

An instant later every red man in the lofty chamber had seen the
inspiring sight, and such a shout of thanksgiving arose as I warrant
never before echoed through that age-old pile of stone.

But still we must fight on, for though our troops had entered Kadabra,
the city was yet far from capitulation, nor had the palace been even
assaulted. Turn and turn about we held the top of the runway while the
others feasted their eyes upon the sight of our valiant countrymen
battling far beneath us.

Now they have rushed the palace gate! Great battering-rams are dashed
against its formidable surface. Now they are repulsed by a deadly
shower of javelins from the wall’s top!

Once again they charge, but a sortie by a large force of Okarians from
an intersecting avenue crumples the head of the column, and the men of
Helium go down, fighting, beneath an overwhelming force.

The palace gate flies open and a force of the jeddak’s own guard,
picked men from the flower of the Okarian army, sallies forth to
shatter the broken regiments. For a moment it looks as though nothing
could avert defeat, and then I see a noble figure upon a mighty
thoat—not the tiny thoat of the red man, but one of his huge cousins of
the dead sea bottoms.

The warrior hews his way to the front, and behind him rally the
disorganized soldiers of Helium. As he raises his head aloft to fling a
challenge at the men upon the palace walls I see his face, and my heart
swells in pride and happiness as the red warriors leap to the side of
their leader and win back the ground that they had but just lost—the
face of him upon the mighty thoat is the face of my son—Carthoris of
Helium.

At his side fights a huge Martian war-hound, nor did I need a second
look to know that it was Woola—my faithful Woola who had thus well
performed his arduous task and brought the succoring legions in the
nick of time.

“In the nick of time?”

Who yet might say that they were not too late to save, but surely they
could avenge! And such retribution as that unconquered army would deal
out to the hateful Okarians! I sighed to think that I might not be
alive to witness it.

Again I turned to the windows. The red men had not yet forced the outer
palace wall, but they were fighting nobly against the best that Okar
afforded—valiant warriors who contested every inch of the way.

Now my attention was caught by a new element without the city wall—a
great body of mounted warriors looming large above the red men. They
were the huge green allies of Helium—the savage hordes from the dead
sea bottoms of the far south.

In grim and terrible silence they sped on toward the gate, the padded
hoofs of their frightful mounts giving forth no sound. Into the doomed
city they charged, and as they wheeled across the wide plaza before the
palace of the Jeddak of Jeddaks I saw, riding at their head, the mighty
figure of their mighty leader—Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark.

My wish, then, was to be gratified, for I was to see my old friend
battling once again, and though not shoulder to shoulder with him, I,
too, would be fighting in the same cause here in the high tower of
Okar.

Nor did it seem that our foes would ever cease their stubborn attacks,
for still they came, though the way to our chamber was often clogged
with the bodies of their dead. At times they would pause long enough to
drag back the impeding corpses, and then fresh warriors would forge
upward to taste the cup of death.

I had been taking my turn with the others in defending the approach to
our lofty retreat when Mors Kajak, who had been watching the battle in
the street below, called aloud in sudden excitement. There was a note
of apprehension in his voice that brought me to his side the instant
that I could turn my place over to another, and as I reached him he
pointed far out across the waste of snow and ice toward the southern
horizon.

“Alas!” he cried, “that I should be forced to witness cruel fate betray
them without power to warn or aid; but they be past either now.”

As I looked in the direction he indicated I saw the cause of his
perturbation. A mighty fleet of fliers was approaching majestically
toward Kadabra from the direction of the ice-barrier. On and on they
came with ever increasing velocity.

“The grim shaft that they call the Guardian of the North is beckoning
to them,” said Mors Kajak sadly, “just as it beckoned to Tardos Mors
and his great fleet; see where they lie, crumpled and broken, a grim
and terrible monument to the mighty force of destruction which naught
can resist.”

I, too, saw; but something else I saw that Mors Kajak did not; in my
mind’s eye I saw a buried chamber whose walls were lined with strange
instruments and devices.

In the center of the chamber was a long table, and before it sat a
little, pop-eyed old man counting his money; but, plainest of all, I
saw upon the wall a great switch with a small magnet inlaid within the
surface of its black handle.

Then I glanced out at the fast-approaching fleet. In five minutes that
mighty armada of the skies would be bent and worthless scrap, lying at
the base of the shaft beyond the city’s wall, and yellow hordes would
be loosed from another gate to rush out upon the few survivors
stumbling blindly down through the mass of wreckage; then the apts
would come. I shuddered at the thought, for I could vividly picture the
whole horrible scene.

Quick have I always been to decide and act. The impulse that moves me
and the doing of the thing seem simultaneous; for if my mind goes
through the tedious formality of reasoning, it must be a subconscious
act of which I am not objectively aware. Psychologists tell me that, as
the subconscious does not reason, too close a scrutiny of my mental
activities might prove anything but flattering; but be that as it may,
I have often won success while the thinker would have been still at the
endless task of comparing various judgments.

And now celerity of action was the prime essential to the success of
the thing that I had decided upon.

Grasping my sword more firmly in my hand, I called to the red man at
the opening to the runway to stand aside.

“Way for the Prince of Helium!” I shouted; and before the astonished
yellow man whose misfortune it was to be at the fighting end of the
line at that particular moment could gather his wits together my sword
had decapitated him, and I was rushing like a mad bull down upon those
behind him.

“Way for the Prince of Helium!” I shouted as I cut a path through the
astonished guardsmen of Salensus Oll.

Hewing to right and left, I beat my way down that warrior-choked spiral
until, near the bottom, those below, thinking that an army was
descending upon them, turned and fled.

The armory at the first floor was vacant when I entered it, the last of
the Okarians having fled into the courtyard, so none saw me continue
down the spiral toward the corridor beneath.

Here I ran as rapidly as my legs would carry me toward the five
corners, and there plunged into the passageway that led to the station
of the old miser.

Without the formality of a knock, I burst into the room. There sat the
old man at his table; but as he saw me he sprang to his feet, drawing
his sword.

With scarce more than a glance toward him I leaped for the great
switch; but, quick as I was, that wiry old fellow was there before me.

How he did it I shall never know, nor does it seem credible that any
Martian-born creature could approximate the marvelous speed of my
earthly muscles.

Like a tiger he turned upon me, and I was quick to see why Solan had
been chosen for this important duty.

Never in all my life have I seen such wondrous swordsmanship and such
uncanny agility as that ancient bag of bones displayed. He was in forty
places at the same time, and before I had half a chance to awaken to my
danger he was like to have made a monkey of me, and a dead monkey at
that.

It is strange how new and unexpected conditions bring out unguessed
ability to meet them.

That day in the buried chamber beneath the palace of Salensus Oll I
learned what swordsmanship meant, and to what heights of sword mastery
I could achieve when pitted against such a wizard of the blade as
Solan.

For a time he liked to have bested me; but presently the latent
possibilities that must have been lying dormant within me for a
lifetime came to the fore, and I fought as I had never dreamed a human
being could fight.

That that duel-royal should have taken place in the dark recesses of a
cellar, without a single appreciative eye to witness it has always
seemed to me almost a world calamity—at least from the viewpoint
Barsoomian, where bloody strife is the first and greatest consideration
of individuals, nations, and races.

I was fighting to reach the switch, Solan to prevent me; and, though we
stood not three feet from it, I could not win an inch toward it, for he
forced me back an inch for the first five minutes of our battle.

I knew that if I were to throw it in time to save the oncoming fleet it
must be done in the next few seconds, and so I tried my old rushing
tactics; but I might as well have rushed a brick wall for all that
Solan gave way.

In fact, I came near to impaling myself upon his point for my pains;
but right was on my side, and I think that that must give a man greater
confidence than though he knew himself to be battling in a wicked
cause.

At least, I did not want in confidence; and when I next rushed Solan it
was to one side with implicit confidence that he must turn to meet my
new line of attack, and turn he did, so that now we fought with our
sides towards the coveted goal—the great switch stood within my reach
upon my right hand.

To uncover my breast for an instant would have been to court sudden
death, but I saw no other way than to chance it, if by so doing I might
rescue that oncoming, succoring fleet; and so, in the face of a wicked
sword-thrust, I reached out my point and caught the great switch a
sudden blow that released it from its seating.

So surprised and horrified was Solan that he forgot to finish his
thrust; instead, he wheeled toward the switch with a loud shriek—a
shriek which was his last, for before his hand could touch the lever it
sought, my sword’s point had passed through his heart.



THE TIDE OF BATTLE


But Solan’s last loud cry had not been without effect, for a moment
later a dozen guardsmen burst into the chamber, though not before I had
so bent and demolished the great switch that it could not be again used
to turn the powerful current into the mighty magnet of destruction it
controlled.

The result of the sudden coming of the guardsmen had been to compel me
to seek seclusion in the first passageway that I could find, and that
to my disappointment proved to be not the one with which I was
familiar, but another upon its left.

They must have either heard or guessed which way I went, for I had
proceeded but a short distance when I heard the sound of pursuit. I had
no mind to stop and fight these men here when there was fighting
aplenty elsewhere in the city of Kadabra—fighting that could be of much
more avail to me and mine than useless life-taking far below the
palace.

But the fellows were pressing me; and as I did not know the way at all,
I soon saw that they would overtake me unless I found a place to
conceal myself until they had passed, which would then give me an
opportunity to return the way I had come and regain the tower, or
possibly find a way to reach the city streets.

The passageway had risen rapidly since leaving the apartment of the
switch, and now ran level and well lighted straight into the distance
as far as I could see. The moment that my pursuers reached this
straight stretch I would be in plain sight of them, with no chance to
escape from the corridor undetected.

Presently I saw a series of doors opening from either side of the
corridor, and as they all looked alike to me I tried the first one that
I reached. It opened into a small chamber, luxuriously furnished, and
was evidently an ante-chamber off some office or audience chamber of
the palace.

On the far side was a heavily curtained doorway beyond which I heard
the hum of voices. Instantly I crossed the small chamber, and, parting
the curtains, looked within the larger apartment.

Before me were a party of perhaps fifty gorgeously clad nobles of the
court, standing before a throne upon which sat Salensus Oll. The Jeddak
of Jeddaks was addressing them.

“The allotted hour has come,” he was saying as I entered the apartment;
“and though the enemies of Okar be within her gates, naught may stay
the will of Salensus Oll. The great ceremony must be omitted that no
single man may be kept from his place in the defenses other than the
fifty that custom demands shall witness the creation of a new queen in
Okar.

“In a moment the thing shall have been done and we may return to the
battle, while she who is now the Princess of Helium looks down from the
queen’s tower upon the annihilation of her former countrymen and
witnesses the greatness which is her husband’s.”

Then, turning to a courtier, he issued some command in a low voice.

The addressed hastened to a small door at the far end of the chamber
and, swinging it wide, cried: “Way for Dejah Thoris, future Queen of
Okar!”

Immediately two guardsmen appeared dragging the unwilling bride toward
the altar. Her hands were still manacled behind her, evidently to
prevent suicide.

Her disheveled hair and panting bosom betokened that, chained though
she was, still had she fought against the thing that they would do to
her.

At sight of her Salensus Oll rose and drew his sword, and the sword of
each of the fifty nobles was raised on high to form an arch, beneath
which the poor, beautiful creature was dragged toward her doom.

A grim smile forced itself to my lips as I thought of the rude
awakening that lay in store for the ruler of Okar, and my itching
fingers fondled the hilt of my bloody sword.

As I watched the procession that moved slowly toward the throne—a
procession which consisted of but a handful of priests, who followed
Dejah Thoris and the two guardsmen—I caught a fleeting glimpse of a
black face peering from behind the draperies that covered the wall back
of the dais upon which stood Salensus Oll awaiting his bride.

Now the guardsmen were forcing the Princess of Helium up the few steps
to the side of the tyrant of Okar, and I had no eyes and no thoughts
for aught else. A priest opened a book and, raising his hand, commenced
to drone out a sing-song ritual. Salensus Oll reached for the hand of
his bride.

I had intended waiting until some circumstance should give me a
reasonable hope of success; for, even though the entire ceremony should
be completed, there could be no valid marriage while I lived. What I
was most concerned in, of course, was the rescuing of Dejah Thoris—I
wished to take her from the palace of Salensus Oll, if such a thing
were possible; but whether it were accomplished before or after the
mock marriage was a matter of secondary import.

When, however, I saw the vile hand of Salensus Oll reach out for the
hand of my beloved princess I could restrain myself no longer, and
before the nobles of Okar knew that aught had happened I had leaped
through their thin line and was upon the dais beside Dejah Thoris and
Salensus Oll.

With the flat of my sword I struck down his polluting hand; and
grasping Dejah Thoris round the waist, I swung her behind me as, with
my back against the draperies of the dais, I faced the tyrant of the
north and his roomful of noble warriors.

The Jeddak of Jeddaks was a great mountain of a man—a coarse, brutal
beast of a man—and as he towered above me there, his fierce black
whiskers and mustache bristling in rage, I can well imagine that a less
seasoned warrior might have trembled before him.

With a snarl he sprang toward me with naked sword, but whether Salensus
Oll was a good swordsman or a poor I never learned; for with Dejah
Thoris at my back I was no longer human—I was a superman, and no man
could have withstood me then.

With a single, low: “For the Princess of Helium!” I ran my blade
straight through the rotten heart of Okar’s rotten ruler, and before
the white, drawn faces of his nobles Salensus Oll rolled, grinning in
horrible death, to the foot of the steps below his marriage throne.

For a moment tense silence reigned in the nuptial-room. Then the fifty
nobles rushed upon me. Furiously we fought, but the advantage was mine,
for I stood upon a raised platform above them, and I fought for the
most glorious woman of a glorious race, and I fought for a great love
and for the mother of my boy.

And from behind my shoulder, in the silvery cadence of that dear voice,
rose the brave battle anthem of Helium which the nation’s women sing as
their men march out to victory.

That alone was enough to inspire me to victory over even greater odds,
and I verily believe that I should have bested the entire roomful of
yellow warriors that day in the nuptial chamber of the palace at
Kadabra had not interruption come to my aid.

Fast and furious was the fighting as the nobles of Salensus Oll sprang,
time and again, up the steps before the throne only to fall back before
a sword hand that seemed to have gained a new wizardry from its
experience with the cunning Solan.

Two were pressing me so closely that I could not turn when I heard a
movement behind me, and noted that the sound of the battle anthem had
ceased. Was Dejah Thoris preparing to take her place beside me?

Heroic daughter of a heroic world! It would not be unlike her to have
seized a sword and fought at my side, for, though the women of Mars are
not trained in the arts of war, the spirit is theirs, and they have
been known to do that very thing upon countless occasions.

But she did not come, and glad I was, for it would have doubled my
burden in protecting her before I should have been able to force her
back again out of harm’s way. She must be contemplating some cunning
strategy, I thought, and so I fought on secure in the belief that my
divine princess stood close behind me.

For half an hour at least I must have fought there against the nobles
of Okar ere ever a one placed a foot upon the dais where I stood, and
then of a sudden all that remained of them formed below me for a last,
mad, desperate charge; but even as they advanced the door at the far
end of the chamber swung wide and a wild-eyed messenger sprang into the
room.

“The Jeddak of Jeddaks!” he cried. “Where is the Jeddak of Jeddaks? The
city has fallen before the hordes from beyond the barrier, and but now
the great gate of the palace itself has been forced and the warriors of
the south are pouring into its sacred precincts.

“Where is Salensus Oll? He alone may revive the flagging courage of our
warriors. He alone may save the day for Okar. Where is Salensus Oll?”

The nobles stepped back from about the dead body of their ruler, and
one of them pointed to the grinning corpse.

The messenger staggered back in horror as though from a blow in the
face.

“Then fly, nobles of Okar!” he cried, “for naught can save you. Hark!
They come!”

As he spoke we heard the deep roar of angry men from the corridor
without, and the clank of metal and the clang of swords.

Without another glance toward me, who had stood a spectator of the
tragic scene, the nobles wheeled and fled from the apartment through
another exit.

Almost immediately a force of yellow warriors appeared in the doorway
through which the messenger had come. They were backing toward the
apartment, stubbornly resisting the advance of a handful of red men who
faced them and forced them slowly but inevitably back.

Above the heads of the contestants I could see from my elevated station
upon the dais the face of my old friend Kantos Kan. He was leading the
little party that had won its way into the very heart of the palace of
Salensus Oll.

In an instant I saw that by attacking the Okarians from the rear I
could so quickly disorganize them that their further resistance would
be short-lived, and with this idea in mind I sprang from the dais,
casting a word of explanation to Dejah Thoris over my shoulder, though
I did not turn to look at her.

With myself ever between her enemies and herself, and with Kantos Kan
and his warriors winning to the apartment, there could be no danger to
Dejah Thoris standing there alone beside the throne.

I wanted the men of Helium to see me and to know that their beloved
princess was here, too, for I knew that this knowledge would inspire
them to even greater deeds of valor than they had performed in the
past, though great indeed must have been those which won for them a way
into the almost impregnable palace of the tyrant of the north.

As I crossed the chamber to attack the Kadabrans from the rear a small
doorway at my left opened, and, to my surprise, revealed the figures of
Matai Shang, Father of Therns and Phaidor, his daughter, peering into
the room.

A quick glance about they took. Their eyes rested for a moment, wide in
horror, upon the dead body of Salensus Oll, upon the blood that
crimsoned the floor, upon the corpses of the nobles who had fallen
thick before the throne, upon me, and upon the battling warriors at the
other door.

They did not essay to enter the apartment, but scanned its every corner
from where they stood, and then, when their eyes had sought its entire
area, a look of fierce rage overspread the features of Matai Shang, and
a cold and cunning smile touched the lips of Phaidor.

Then they were gone, but not before a taunting laugh was thrown
directly in my face by the woman.

I did not understand then the meaning of Matai Shang’s rage or
Phaidor’s pleasure, but I knew that neither boded good for me.

A moment later I was upon the backs of the yellow men, and as the red
men of Helium saw me above the shoulders of their antagonists a great
shout rang through the corridor, and for a moment drowned the noise of
battle.

“For the Prince of Helium!” they cried. “For the Prince of Helium!”
and, like hungry lions upon their prey, they fell once more upon the
weakening warriors of the north.

The yellow men, cornered between two enemies, fought with the
desperation that utter hopelessness often induces. Fought as I should
have fought had I been in their stead, with the determination to take
as many of my enemies with me when I died as lay within the power of my
sword arm.

It was a glorious battle, but the end seemed inevitable, when presently
from down the corridor behind the red men came a great body of
reenforcing yellow warriors.

Now were the tables turned, and it was the men of Helium who seemed
doomed to be ground between two millstones. All were compelled to turn
to meet this new assault by a greatly superior force, so that to me was
left the remnants of the yellow men within the throneroom.

They kept me busy, too; so busy that I began to wonder if indeed I
should ever be done with them. Slowly they pressed me back into the
room, and when they had all passed in after me, one of them closed and
bolted the door, effectually barring the way against the men of Kantos
Kan.

It was a clever move, for it put me at the mercy of a dozen men within
a chamber from which assistance was locked out, and it gave the red men
in the corridor beyond no avenue of escape should their new antagonists
press them too closely.

But I have faced heavier odds myself than were pitted against me that
day, and I knew that Kantos Kan had battled his way from a hundred more
dangerous traps than that in which he now was. So it was with no
feelings of despair that I turned my attention to the business of the
moment.

Constantly my thoughts reverted to Dejah Thoris, and I longed for the
moment when, the fighting done, I could fold her in my arms, and hear
once more the words of love which had been denied me for so many years.

During the fighting in the chamber I had not even a single chance to so
much as steal a glance at her where she stood behind me beside the
throne of the dead ruler. I wondered why she no longer urged me on with
the strains of the martial hymn of Helium; but I did not need more than
the knowledge that I was battling for her to bring out the best that is
in me.

It would be wearisome to narrate the details of that bloody struggle;
of how we fought from the doorway, the full length of the room to the
very foot of the throne before the last of my antagonists fell with my
blade piercing his heart.

And then, with a glad cry, I turned with outstretched arms to seize my
princess, and as my lips smothered hers to reap the reward that would
be thrice ample payment for the bloody encounters through which I had
passed for her dear sake from the south pole to the north.

The glad cry died, frozen upon my lips; my arms dropped limp and
lifeless to my sides; as one who reels beneath the burden of a mortal
wound I staggered up the steps before the throne.

Dejah Thoris was gone.



REWARDS


With the realization that Dejah Thoris was no longer within the
throneroom came the belated recollection of the dark face that I had
glimpsed peering from behind the draperies that backed the throne of
Salensus Oll at the moment that I had first come so unexpectedly upon
the strange scene being enacted within the chamber.

Why had the sight of that evil countenance not warned me to greater
caution? Why had I permitted the rapid development of new situations to
efface the recollection of that menacing danger? But, alas, vain regret
would not erase the calamity that had befallen.

Once again had Dejah Thoris fallen into the clutches of that archfiend,
Thurid, the black dator of the First Born. Again was all my arduous
labor gone for naught. Now I realized the cause of the rage that had
been writ so large upon the features of Matai Shang and the cruel
pleasure that I had seen upon the face of Phaidor.

They had known or guessed the truth, and the hekkador of the Holy
Therns, who had evidently come to the chamber in the hope of thwarting
Salensus Oll in his contemplated perfidy against the high priest who
coveted Dejah Thoris for himself, realized that Thurid had stolen the
prize from beneath his very nose.

Phaidor’s pleasure had been due to her realization of what this last
cruel blow would mean to me, as well as to a partial satisfaction of
her jealous hatred for the Princess of Helium.

My first thought was to look beyond the draperies at the back of the
throne, for there it was that I had seen Thurid. With a single jerk I
tore the priceless stuff from its fastenings, and there before me was
revealed a narrow doorway behind the throne.

No question entered my mind but that here lay the opening of the avenue
of escape which Thurid had followed, and had there been it would have
been dissipated by the sight of a tiny, jeweled ornament which lay a
few steps within the corridor beyond.

As I snatched up the bauble I saw that it bore the device of the
Princess of Helium, and then pressing it to my lips I dashed madly
along the winding way that led gently downward toward the lower
galleries of the palace.

I had followed but a short distance when I came upon the room in which
Solan formerly had held sway. His dead body still lay where I had left
it, nor was there any sign that another had passed through the room
since I had been there; but I knew that two had done so—Thurid, the
black dator, and Dejah Thoris.

For a moment I paused uncertain as to which of the several exits from
the apartment would lead me upon the right path. I tried to recollect
the directions which I had heard Thurid repeat to Solan, and at last,
slowly, as though through a heavy fog, the memory of the words of the
First Born came to me:

“Follow a corridor, passing three diverging corridors upon the right;
then into the fourth right-hand corridor to where three corridors meet;
here again follow to the right, hugging the left wall closely to avoid
the pit. At the end of this corridor I shall come to a spiral runway
which I must follow down instead of up; after that the way is along but
a single branchless corridor.”

And I recalled the exit at which he had pointed as he spoke.

It did not take me long to start upon that unknown way, nor did I go
with caution, although I knew that there might be grave dangers before
me.

Part of the way was black as sin, but for the most it was fairly well
lighted. The stretch where I must hug the left wall to avoid the pits
was darkest of them all, and I was nearly over the edge of the abyss
before I knew that I was near the danger spot. A narrow ledge, scarce a
foot wide, was all that had been left to carry the initiated past that
frightful cavity into which the unknowing must surely have toppled at
the first step. But at last I had won safely beyond it, and then a
feeble light made the balance of the way plain, until, at the end of
the last corridor, I came suddenly out into the glare of day upon a
field of snow and ice.

Clad for the warm atmosphere of the hothouse city of Kadabra, the
sudden change to arctic frigidity was anything but pleasant; but the
worst of it was that I knew I could not endure the bitter cold, almost
naked as I was, and that I would perish before ever I could overtake
Thurid and Dejah Thoris.

To be thus blocked by nature, who had had all the arts and wiles of
cunning man pitted against him, seemed a cruel fate, and as I staggered
back into the warmth of the tunnel’s end I was as near hopelessness as
I ever have been.

I had by no means given up my intention of continuing the pursuit, for
if needs be I would go ahead though I perished ere ever I reached my
goal, but if there were a safer way it were well worth the delay to
attempt to discover it, that I might come again to the side of Dejah
Thoris in fit condition to do battle for her.

Scarce had I returned to the tunnel than I stumbled over a portion of a
fur garment that seemed fastened to the floor of the corridor close to
the wall. In the darkness I could not see what held it, but by groping
with my hands I discovered that it was wedged beneath the bottom of a
closed door.

Pushing the portal aside, I found myself upon the threshold of a small
chamber, the walls of which were lined with hooks from which depended
suits of the complete outdoor apparel of the yellow men.

Situated as it was at the mouth of a tunnel leading from the palace, it
was quite evident that this was the dressing-room used by the nobles
leaving and entering the hothouse city, and that Thurid, having
knowledge of it, had stopped here to outfit himself and Dejah Thoris
before venturing into the bitter cold of the arctic world beyond.

In his haste he had dropped several garments upon the floor, and the
telltale fur that had fallen partly within the corridor had proved the
means of guiding me to the very spot he would least have wished me to
have knowledge of.

It required but the matter of a few seconds to don the necessary
orluk-skin clothing, with the heavy, fur-lined boots that are so
essential a part of the garmenture of one who would successfully
contend with the frozen trails and the icy winds of the bleak
northland.

Once more I stepped beyond the tunnel’s mouth to find the fresh tracks
of Thurid and Dejah Thoris in the new-fallen snow. Now, at last, was my
task an easy one, for though the going was rough in the extreme, I was
no longer vexed by doubts as to the direction I should follow, or
harassed by darkness or hidden dangers.

Through a snow-covered canyon the way led up toward the summit of low
hills. Beyond these it dipped again into another canyon, only to rise a
quarter-mile farther on toward a pass which skirted the flank of a
rocky hill.

I could see by the signs of those who had gone before that when Dejah
Thoris had walked she had been continually holding back, and that the
black man had been compelled to drag her. For other stretches only his
foot-prints were visible, deep and close together in the heavy snow,
and I knew from these signs that then he had been forced to carry her,
and I could well imagine that she had fought him fiercely every step of
the way.

As I came round the jutting promontory of the hill’s shoulder I saw
that which quickened my pulses and set my heart to beating high, for
within a tiny basin between the crest of this hill and the next stood
four people before the mouth of a great cave, and beside them upon the
gleaming snow rested a flier which had evidently but just been dragged
from its hiding place.

The four were Dejah Thoris, Phaidor, Thurid, and Matai Shang. The two
men were engaged in a heated argument—the Father of Therns threatening,
while the black scoffed at him as he went about the work at which he
was engaged.

As I crept toward them cautiously that I might come as near as possible
before being discovered, I saw that finally the men appeared to have
reached some sort of a compromise, for with Phaidor’s assistance they
both set about dragging the resisting Dejah Thoris to the flier’s deck.

Here they made her fast, and then both again descended to the ground to
complete the preparations for departure. Phaidor entered the small
cabin upon the vessel’s deck.

I had come to within a quarter of a mile of them when Matai Shang
espied me. I saw him seize Thurid by the shoulder, wheeling him around
in my direction as he pointed to where I was now plainly visible, for
the moment that I knew I had been perceived I cast aside every attempt
at stealth and broke into a mad race for the flier.

The two redoubled their efforts at the propeller at which they were
working, and which very evidently was being replaced after having been
removed for some purpose of repair.

They had the thing completed before I had covered half the distance
that lay between me and them, and then both made a rush for the
boarding-ladder.

Thurid was the first to reach it, and with the agility of a monkey
clambered swiftly to the boat’s deck, where a touch of the button
controlling the buoyancy tanks sent the craft slowly upward, though not
with the speed that marks the well-conditioned flier.

I was still some hundred yards away as I saw them rising from my grasp.

Back by the city of Kadabra lay a great fleet of mighty fliers—the
ships of Helium and Ptarth that I had saved from destruction earlier in
the day; but before ever I could reach them Thurid could easily make
good his escape.

As I ran I saw Matai Shang clambering up the swaying, swinging ladder
toward the deck, while above him leaned the evil face of the First
Born. A trailing rope from the vessel’s stern put new hope in me, for
if I could but reach it before it whipped too high above my head there
was yet a chance to gain the deck by its slender aid.

That there was something radically wrong with the flier was evident
from its lack of buoyancy, and the further fact that though Thurid had
turned twice to the starting lever the boat still hung motionless in
the air, except for a slight drifting with a low breeze from the north.

Now Matai Shang was close to the gunwale. A long, claw-like hand was
reaching up to grasp the metal rail.

Thurid leaned farther down toward his co-conspirator.

Suddenly a raised dagger gleamed in the upflung hand of the black. Down
it drove toward the white face of the Father of Therns. With a loud
shriek of fear the Holy Hekkador grasped frantically at that menacing
arm.

I was almost to the trailing rope by now. The craft was still rising
slowly, the while it drifted from me. Then I stumbled on the icy way,
striking my head upon a rock as I fell sprawling but an arm’s length
from the rope, the end of which was now just leaving the ground.

With the blow upon my head came unconsciousness.

It could not have been more than a few seconds that I lay senseless
there upon the northern ice, while all that was dearest to me drifted
farther from my reach in the clutches of that black fiend, for when I
opened my eyes Thurid and Matai Shang yet battled at the ladder’s top,
and the flier drifted but a hundred yards farther to the south—but the
end of the trailing rope was now a good thirty feet above the ground.

Goaded to madness by the cruel misfortune that had tripped me when
success was almost within my grasp, I tore frantically across the
intervening space, and just beneath the rope’s dangling end I put my
earthly muscles to the supreme test.

With a mighty, catlike bound I sprang upward toward that slender
strand—the only avenue which yet remained that could carry me to my
vanishing love.

A foot above its lowest end my fingers closed. Tightly as I clung I
felt the rope slipping, slipping through my grasp. I tried to raise my
free hand to take a second hold above my first, but the change of
position that resulted caused me to slip more rapidly toward the end of
the rope.

Slowly I felt the tantalizing thing escaping me. In a moment all that I
had gained would be lost—then my fingers reached a knot at the very end
of the rope and slipped no more.

With a prayer of gratitude upon my lips I scrambled upward toward the
boat’s deck. I could not see Thurid and Matai Shang now, but I heard
the sounds of conflict and thus knew that they still fought—the thern
for his life and the black for the increased buoyancy that relief from
the weight of even a single body would give the craft.

Should Matai Shang die before I reached the deck my chances of ever
reaching it would be slender indeed, for the black dator need but cut
the rope above me to be freed from me forever, for the vessel had
drifted across the brink of a chasm into whose yawning depths my body
would drop to be crushed to a shapeless pulp should Thurid reach the
rope now.

At last my hand closed upon the ship’s rail and that very instant a
horrid shriek rang out below me that sent my blood cold and turned my
horrified eyes downward to a shrieking, hurtling, twisting thing that
shot downward into the awful chasm beneath me.

It was Matai Shang, Holy Hekkador, Father of Therns, gone to his last
accounting.

Then my head came above the deck and I saw Thurid, dagger in hand,
leaping toward me. He was opposite the forward end of the cabin, while
I was attempting to clamber aboard near the vessel’s stern. But a few
paces lay between us. No power on earth could raise me to that deck
before the infuriated black would be upon me.

My end had come. I knew it; but had there been a doubt in my mind the
nasty leer of triumph upon that wicked face would have convinced me.
Beyond Thurid I could see my Dejah Thoris, wide-eyed and horrified,
struggling at her bonds. That she should be forced to witness my awful
death made my bitter fate seem doubly cruel.

I ceased my efforts to climb across the gunwale. Instead I took a firm
grasp upon the rail with my left hand and drew my dagger.

I should at least die as I had lived—fighting.

As Thurid came opposite the cabin’s doorway a new element projected
itself into the grim tragedy of the air that was being enacted upon the
deck of Matai Shang’s disabled flier.

It was Phaidor.

With flushed face and disheveled hair, and eyes that betrayed the
recent presence of mortal tears—above which this proud goddess had
always held herself—she leaped to the deck directly before me.

In her hand was a long, slim dagger. I cast a last look upon my beloved
princess, smiling, as men should who are about to die. Then I turned my
face up toward Phaidor—waiting for the blow.

Never have I seen that beautiful face more beautiful than it was at
that moment. It seemed incredible that one so lovely could yet harbor
within her fair bosom a heart so cruel and relentless, and today there
was a new expression in her wondrous eyes that I never before had seen
there—an unfamiliar softness, and a look of suffering.

Thurid was beside her now—pushing past to reach me first, and then what
happened happened so quickly that it was all over before I could
realize the truth of it.

Phaidor’s slim hand shot out to close upon the black’s dagger wrist.
Her right hand went high with its gleaming blade.

“That for Matai Shang!” she cried, and she buried her blade deep in the
dator’s breast. “That for the wrong you would have done Dejah Thoris!”
and again the sharp steel sank into the bloody flesh.

“And that, and that, and that!” she shrieked, “for John Carter, Prince
of Helium,” and with each word her sharp point pierced the vile heart
of the great villain. Then, with a vindictive shove she cast the
carcass of the First Born from the deck to fall in awful silence after
the body of his victim.

I had been so paralyzed by surprise that I had made no move to reach
the deck during the awe-inspiring scene which I had just witnessed, and
now I was to be still further amazed by her next act, for Phaidor
extended her hand to me and assisted me to the deck, where I stood
gazing at her in unconcealed and stupefied wonderment.

A wan smile touched her lips—it was not the cruel and haughty smile of
the goddess with which I was familiar. “You wonder, John Carter,” she
said, “what strange thing has wrought this change in me? I will tell
you. It is love—love of you,” and when I darkened my brows in
disapproval of her words she raised an appealing hand.

“Wait,” she said. “It is a different love from mine—it is the love of
your princess, Dejah Thoris, for you that has taught me what true love
may be—what it should be, and how far from real love was my selfish and
jealous passion for you.

“Now I am different. Now could I love as Dejah Thoris loves, and so my
only happiness can be to know that you and she are once more united,
for in her alone can you find true happiness.

“But I am unhappy because of the wickedness that I have wrought. I have
many sins to expiate, and though I be deathless, life is all too short
for the atonement.

“But there is another way, and if Phaidor, daughter of the Holy
Hekkador of the Holy Therns, has sinned she has this day already made
partial reparation, and lest you doubt the sincerity of her
protestations and her avowal of a new love that embraces Dejah Thoris
also, she will prove her sincerity in the only way that lies
open—having saved you for another, Phaidor leaves you to her embraces.”

With her last word she turned and leaped from the vessel’s deck into
the abyss below.

With a cry of horror I sprang forward in a vain attempt to save the
life that for two years I would so gladly have seen extinguished. I was
too late.

With tear-dimmed eyes I turned away that I might not see the awful
sight beneath.

A moment later I had struck the bonds from Dejah Thoris, and as her
dear arms went about my neck and her perfect lips pressed to mine I
forgot the horrors that I had witnessed and the suffering that I had
endured in the rapture of my reward.



THE NEW RULER


The flier upon whose deck Dejah Thoris and I found ourselves after
twelve long years of separation proved entirely useless. Her buoyancy
tanks leaked badly. Her engine would not start. We were helpless there
in mid air above the arctic ice.

The craft had drifted across the chasm which held the corpses of Matai
Shang, Thurid, and Phaidor, and now hung above a low hill. Opening the
buoyancy escape valves I permitted her to come slowly to the ground,
and as she touched, Dejah Thoris and I stepped from her deck and, hand
in hand, turned back across the frozen waste toward the city of
Kadabra.

Through the tunnel that had led me in pursuit of them we passed,
walking slowly, for we had much to say to each other.

She told me of that last terrible moment months before when the door of
her prison cell within the Temple of the Sun was slowly closing between
us. Of how Phaidor had sprung upon her with uplifted dagger, and of
Thuvia’s shriek as she had realized the foul intention of the thern
goddess.

It had been that cry that had rung in my ears all the long, weary
months that I had been left in cruel doubt as to my princess’ fate; for
I had not known that Thuvia had wrested the blade from the daughter of
Matai Shang before it had touched either Dejah Thoris or herself.

She told me, too, of the awful eternity of her imprisonment. Of the
cruel hatred of Phaidor, and the tender love of Thuvia, and of how even
when despair was the darkest those two red girls had clung to the same
hope and belief—that John Carter would find a way to release them.

Presently we came to the chamber of Solan. I had been proceeding
without thought of caution, for I was sure that the city and the palace
were both in the hands of my friends by this time.

And so it was that I bolted into the chamber full into the midst of a
dozen nobles of the court of Salensus Oll. They were passing through on
their way to the outside world along the corridors we had just
traversed.

At sight of us they halted in their tracks, and then an ugly smile
overspread the features of their leader.

“The author of all our misfortunes!” he cried, pointing at me. “We
shall have the satisfaction of a partial vengeance at least when we
leave behind us here the dead and mutilated corpses of the Prince and
Princess of Helium.

“When they find them,” he went on, jerking his thumb upward toward the
palace above, “they will realize that the vengeance of the yellow man
costs his enemies dear. Prepare to die, John Carter, but that your end
may be the more bitter, know that I may change my intention as to
meting a merciful death to your princess—possibly she shall be
preserved as a plaything for my nobles.”

I stood close to the instrument-covered wall—Dejah Thoris at my side.
She looked up at me wonderingly as the warriors advanced upon us with
drawn swords, for mine still hung within its scabbard at my side, and
there was a smile upon my lips.

The yellow nobles, too, looked in surprise, and then as I made no move
to draw they hesitated, fearing a ruse; but their leader urged them on.
When they had come almost within sword’s reach of me I raised my hand
and laid it upon the polished surface of a great lever, and then, still
smiling grimly, I looked my enemies full in the face.

As one they came to a sudden stop, casting affrighted glances at me and
at one another.

“Stop!” shrieked their leader. “You dream not what you do!”

“Right you are,” I replied. “John Carter does not dream. He knows—knows
that should one of you take another step toward Dejah Thoris, Princess
of Helium, I pull this lever wide, and she and I shall die together;
but we shall not die alone.”

The nobles shrank back, whispering together for a few moments. At last
their leader turned to me.

“Go your way, John Carter,” he said, “and we shall go ours.”

“Prisoners do not go their own way,” I answered, “and you are
prisoners—prisoners of the Prince of Helium.”

Before they could make answer a door upon the opposite side of the
apartment opened and a score of yellow men poured into the apartment.
For an instant the nobles looked relieved, and then as their eyes fell
upon the leader of the new party their faces fell, for he was Talu,
rebel Prince of Marentina, and they knew that they could look for
neither aid nor mercy at his hands.

“Well done, John Carter,” he cried. “You turn their own mighty power
against them. Fortunate for Okar is it that you were here to prevent
their escape, for these be the greatest villains north of the
ice-barrier, and this one”—pointing to the leader of the party—“would
have made himself Jeddak of Jeddaks in the place of the dead Salensus
Oll. Then indeed would we have had a more villainous ruler than the
hated tyrant who fell before your sword.”

The Okarian nobles now submitted to arrest, since nothing but death
faced them should they resist, and, escorted by the warriors of Talu,
we made our way to the great audience chamber that had been Salensus
Oll’s. Here was a vast concourse of warriors.

Red men from Helium and Ptarth, yellow men of the north, rubbing elbows
with the blacks of the First Born who had come under my friend Xodar to
help in the search for me and my princess. There were savage, green
warriors from the dead sea bottoms of the south, and a handful of
white-skinned therns who had renounced their religion and sworn
allegiance to Xodar.

There was Tardos Mors and Mors Kajak, and tall and mighty in his
gorgeous warrior trappings, Carthoris, my son. These three fell upon
Dejah Thoris as we entered the apartment, and though the lives and
training of royal Martians tend not toward vulgar demonstration, I
thought that they would suffocate her with their embraces.

And there were Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, and Kantos Kan, my
old-time friends, and leaping and tearing at my harness in the
exuberance of his great love was dear old Woola—frantic mad with
happiness.

Long and loud was the cheering that burst forth at sight of us;
deafening was the din of ringing metal as the veteran warriors of every
Martian clime clashed their blades together on high in token of success
and victory, but as I passed among the throng of saluting nobles and
warriors, jeds and jeddaks, my heart still was heavy, for there were
two faces missing that I would have given much to have seen
there—Thuvan Dihn and Thuvia of Ptarth were not to be found in the
great chamber.

I made inquiries concerning them among men of every nation, and at last
from one of the yellow prisoners of war I learned that they had been
apprehended by an officer of the palace as they sought to reach the Pit
of Plenty while I lay imprisoned there.

I did not need to ask to know what had sent them thither—the courageous
jeddak and his loyal daughter. My informer said that they lay now in
one of the many buried dungeons of the palace where they had been
placed pending a decision as to their fate by the tyrant of the north.

A moment later searching parties were scouring the ancient pile in
search of them, and my cup of happiness was full when I saw them being
escorted into the room by a cheering guard of honor.

Thuvia’s first act was to rush to the side of Dejah Thoris, and I
needed no better proof of the love these two bore for each other than
the sincerity with which they embraced.

Looking down upon that crowded chamber stood the silent and empty
throne of Okar.

Of all the strange scenes it must have witnessed since that long-dead
age that had first seen a Jeddak of Jeddaks take his seat upon it, none
might compare with that upon which it now looked down, and as I
pondered the past and future of that long-buried race of black-bearded
yellow men I thought that I saw a brighter and more useful existence
for them among the great family of friendly nations that now stretched
from the south pole almost to their very doors.

Twenty-two years before I had been cast, naked and a stranger, into
this strange and savage world. The hand of every race and nation was
raised in continual strife and warring against the men of every other
land and color. Today, by the might of my sword and the loyalty of the
friends my sword had made for me, black man and white, red man and
green rubbed shoulders in peace and good-fellowship. All the nations of
Barsoom were not yet as one, but a great stride forward toward that
goal had been taken, and now if I could but cement the fierce yellow
race into this solidarity of nations I should feel that I had rounded
out a great lifework, and repaid to Mars at least a portion of the
immense debt of gratitude I owed her for having given me my Dejah
Thoris.

And as I thought, I saw but one way, and a single man who could insure
the success of my hopes. As is ever the way with me, I acted then as I
always act—without deliberation and without consultation.

Those who do not like my plans and my ways of promoting them have
always their swords at their sides wherewith to back up their
disapproval; but now there seemed to be no dissenting voice, as,
grasping Talu by the arm, I sprang to the throne that had once been
Salensus Oll’s.

“Warriors of Barsoom,” I cried, “Kadabra has fallen, and with her the
hateful tyrant of the north; but the integrity of Okar must be
preserved. The red men are ruled by red jeddaks, the green warriors of
the ancient seas acknowledge none but a green ruler, the First Born of
the south pole take their law from black Xodar; nor would it be to the
interests of either yellow or red man were a red jeddak to sit upon the
throne of Okar.

“There be but one warrior best fitted for the ancient and mighty title
of Jeddak of Jeddaks of the North. Men of Okar, raise your swords to
your new ruler—Talu, the rebel prince of Marentina!”

And then a great cry of rejoicing rose among the free men of Marentina
and the Kadabran prisoners, for all had thought that the red men would
retain that which they had taken by force of arms, for such had been
the way upon Barsoom, and that they should be ruled henceforth by an
alien Jeddak.

The victorious warriors who had followed Carthoris joined in the mad
demonstration, and amidst the wild confusion and the tumult and the
cheering, Dejah Thoris and I passed out into the gorgeous garden of the
jeddaks that graces the inner courtyard of the palace of Kadabra.

At our heels walked Woola, and upon a carved seat of wondrous beauty
beneath a bower of purple blooms we saw two who had preceded us—Thuvia
of Ptarth and Carthoris of Helium.

The handsome head of the handsome youth was bent low above the
beautiful face of his companion. I looked at Dejah Thoris, smiling, and
as I drew her close to me I whispered: “Why not?”

Indeed, why not? What matter ages in this world of perpetual youth?

We remained at Kadabra, the guests of Talu, until after his formal
induction into office, and then, upon the great fleet which I had been
so fortunate to preserve from destruction, we sailed south across the
ice-barrier; but not before we had witnessed the total demolition of
the grim Guardian of the North under orders of the new Jeddak of
Jeddaks.

“Henceforth,” he said, as the work was completed, “the fleets of the
red men and the black are free to come and go across the ice-barrier as
over their own lands.

“The Carrion Caves shall be cleansed, that the green men may find an
easy way to the land of the yellow, and the hunting of the sacred apt
shall be the sport of my nobles until no single specimen of that
hideous creature roams the frozen north.”

We bade our yellow friends farewell with real regret, as we set sail
for Ptarth. There we remained, the guest of Thuvan Dihn, for a month;
and I could see that Carthoris would have remained forever had he not
been a Prince of Helium.

Above the mighty forests of Kaol we hovered until word from Kulan Tith
brought us to his single landing-tower, where all day and half a night
the vessels disembarked their crews. At the city of Kaol we visited,
cementing the new ties that had been formed between Kaol and Helium,
and then one long-to-be-remembered day we sighted the tall, thin towers
of the twin cities of Helium.

The people had long been preparing for our coming. The sky was gorgeous
with gaily trimmed fliers. Every roof within both cities was spread
with costly silks and tapestries.

Gold and jewels were scattered over roof and street and plaza, so that
the two cities seemed ablaze with the fires of the hearts of the
magnificent stones and burnished metal that reflected the brilliant
sunlight, changing it into countless glorious hues.

At last, after twelve years, the royal family of Helium was reunited in
their own mighty city, surrounded by joy-mad millions before the palace
gates. Women and children and mighty warriors wept in gratitude for the
fate that had restored their beloved Tardos Mors and the divine
princess whom the whole nation idolized. Nor did any of us who had been
upon that expedition of indescribable danger and glory lack for
plaudits.

That night a messenger came to me as I sat with Dejah Thoris and
Carthoris upon the roof of my city palace, where we had long since
caused a lovely garden to be made that we three might find seclusion
and quiet happiness among ourselves, far from the pomp and ceremony of
court, to summon us to the Temple of Reward—“where one is to be judged
this night,” the summons concluded.

I racked my brain to try and determine what important case there might
be pending which could call the royal family from their palaces on the
eve of their return to Helium after years of absence; but when the
jeddak summons no man delays.

As our flier touched the landing stage at the temple’s top we saw
countless other craft arriving and departing. In the streets below a
great multitude surged toward the great gates of the temple.

Slowly there came to me the recollection of the deferred doom that
awaited me since that time I had been tried here in the Temple by Zat
Arras for the sin of returning from the Valley Dor and the Lost Sea of
Korus.

Could it be possible that the strict sense of justice which dominates
the men of Mars had caused them to overlook the great good that had
come out of my heresy? Could they ignore the fact that to me, and me
alone, was due the rescue of Carthoris, of Dejah Thoris, of Mors Kajak,
of Tardos Mors?

I could not believe it, and yet for what other purpose could I have
been summoned to the Temple of Reward immediately upon the return of
Tardos Mors to his throne?

My first surprise as I entered the temple and approached the Throne of
Righteousness was to note the men who sat there as judges. There was
Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol, whom we had but just left within his own
palace a few days since; there was Thuvan Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth—how
came he to Helium as soon as we?

There was Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, and Xodar, Jeddak of the First
Born; there was Talu, Jeddak of Jeddaks of the North, whom I could have
sworn was still in his ice-bound hothouse city beyond the northern
barrier, and among them sat Tardos Mors and Mors Kajak, with enough
lesser jeds and jeddaks to make up the thirty-one who must sit in
judgment upon their fellow-man.

A right royal tribunal indeed, and such a one, I warrant, as never
before sat together during all the history of ancient Mars.

As I entered, silence fell upon the great concourse of people that
packed the auditorium. Then Tardos Mors arose.

“John Carter,” he said in his deep, martial voice, “take your place
upon the Pedestal of Truth, for you are to be tried by a fair and
impartial tribunal of your fellow-men.”

With level eye and high-held head I did as he bade, and as I glanced
about that circle of faces that a moment before I could have sworn
contained the best friends I had upon Barsoom, I saw no single friendly
glance—only stern, uncompromising judges, there to do their duty.

A clerk rose and from a great book read a long list of the more notable
deeds that I had thought to my credit, covering a long period of
twenty-two years since first I had stepped the ocher sea bottom beside
the incubator of the Tharks. With the others he read of all that I had
done within the circle of the Otz Mountains where the Holy Therns and
the First Born had held sway.

It is the way upon Barsoom to recite a man’s virtues with his sins when
he is come to trial, and so I was not surprised that all that was to my
credit should be read there to my judges—who knew it all by heart—even
down to the present moment. When the reading had ceased Tardos Mors
arose.

“Most righteous judges,” he exclaimed, “you have heard recited all that
is known of John Carter, Prince of Helium—the good with the bad. What
is your judgment?”

Then Tars Tarkas came slowly to his feet, unfolding all his mighty,
towering height until he loomed, a green-bronze statue, far above us
all. He turned a baleful eye upon me—he, Tars Tarkas, with whom I had
fought through countless battles; whom I loved as a brother.

I could have wept had I not been so mad with rage that I almost whipped
my sword out and had at them all upon the spot.

“Judges,” he said, “there can be but one verdict. No longer may John
Carter be Prince of Helium”—he paused—“but instead let him be Jeddak of
Jeddaks, Warlord of Barsoom!”

As the thirty-one judges sprang to their feet with drawn and upraised
swords in unanimous concurrence in the verdict, the storm broke
throughout the length and breadth and height of that mighty building
until I thought the roof would fall from the thunder of the mad
shouting.

Now, at last, I saw the grim humor of the method they had adopted to do
me this great honor, but that there was any hoax in the reality of the
title they had conferred upon me was readily disproved by the sincerity
of the congratulations that were heaped upon me by the judges first and
then the nobles.

Presently fifty of the mightiest nobles of the greatest courts of Mars
marched down the broad Aisle of Hope bearing a splendid car upon their
shoulders, and as the people saw who sat within, the cheers that had
rung out for me paled into insignificance beside those which thundered
through the vast edifice now, for she whom the nobles carried was Dejah
Thoris, beloved Princess of Helium.

Straight to the Throne of Righteousness they bore her, and there Tardos
Mors assisted her from the car, leading her forward to my side.

“Let a world’s most beautiful woman share the honor of her husband,” he
said.

Before them all I drew my wife close to me and kissed her upon the
lips.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Warlord of Mars" ***

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