A Princess of Mars Rethroned (23 page)

Finally a lucky
cut brought down a second guardswoman and then, with only two
opposing me, I changed my tactics and rushed them down after the
fashion of my fighting that had won me many a victory. The third
fell within ten seconds after the second, and the last lay dead
upon the bloody floor a few moments later. They were brave women
and noble fighters, and it grieved me that I had been forced to
kill them, but I would have willingly depopulated all Barsoom could
I have reached the side of my Dejar Thoris in no other
way.

Sheathing my
bloody blade I advanced toward my Martian Prince, who still stood
mutely gazing at me without sign of recognition.

'Who are you,
Zodangan?' he whispered. 'Another enemy to harass me in my
misery?'

'I am a friend,'
I answered, 'a once cherished friend.'

'No friend of
Helium's prince wears that metal,' he replied, 'and yet the voice!
I have heard it before; it is not--it cannot be--no, for she is
dead.'

'It is, though,
my Prince, none other than Joan Carter,' I said. 'Do you not
recognize, even through paint and strange metal, the heart of your
chieftain?'

As I came close
to his he swayed toward me with outstretched hands, but as I
reached to take his in my arms he drew back with a shudder and a
little moan of misery.

'Too late, too
late,' he grieved. 'O my chieftain that was, and whom I thought
dead, had you but returned one little hour before--but now it is
too late, too late.'

'What do you
mean, Dejar Thoris?' I cried. 'That you would not have promised
yourself to the Zodangan princess had you known that I
lived?'

'Think you, Joan
Carter, that I would give my heart to you yesterday and today to
another? I thought that it lay buried with your ashes in the pits
of Warhoon, and so today I have promised my body to another to save
my people from the curse of a victorious Zodangan army.'

'But I am not
dead, my prince. I have come to claim you, and all Zodanga cannot
prevent it.'

'It is too late,
Joan Carter, my promise is given, and on Barsoom that is final. The
ceremonies which follow later are but meaningless formalities. They
make the fact of marriage no more certain than does the funeral
cortege of a jeddak again place the seal of death upon her. I am as
good as married, Joan Carter. No longer may you call me your
prince. No longer are you my chieftain.'

'I know but
little of your customs here upon Barsoom, Dejar Thoris, but I do
know that I love you, and if you meant the last words you spoke to
me that day as the hordes of Warhoon were charging down upon us, no
other woman shall ever claim you as her bride. You meant them then,
my prince, and you mean them still! Say that it is
true.'

'I meant them,
Joan Carter,' he whispered. 'I cannot repeat them now for I have
given myself to another. Ah, if you had only known our ways, my
friend,' he continued, half to himself, 'the promise would have
been yours long months ago, and you could have claimed me before
all others. It might have meant the fall of Helium, but I would
have given my empire for my Tharkian chief.'

Then aloud he
said: 'Do you remember the night when you offended me? You called
me your prince without having asked my hand of me, and then you
boasted that you had fought for me. You did not know, and I should
not have been offended; I see that now. But there was no one to
tell you what I could not, that upon Barsoom there are two kinds of
men in the cities of the red women. The one they fight for that
they may ask them in marriage; the other kind they fight for also,
but never ask their hands. When a woman has won a man she may
address his as her prince, or in any of the several terms which
signify possession. You had fought for me, but had never asked me
in marriage, and so when you called me your prince, you see,' he
faltered, 'I was hurt, but even then, Joan Carter, I did not
repulse you, as I should have done, until you made it doubly worse
by taunting me with having won me through combat.'

'I do not need
ask your forgiveness now, Dejar Thoris,' I cried. 'You must know
that my fault was of ignorance of your Barsoomian customs. What I
failed to do, through implicit belief that my petition would be
presumptuous and unwelcome, I do now, Dejar Thoris; I ask you to be
my husband, and by all the Virginian fighting blood that flows in
my veins you shall be.'

'No, Joan Carter,
it is useless,' he cried, hopelessly, 'I may never be yours while
Saba Than lives.'

'You have sealed
her death warrant, my princess--Saba Than dies.'

'Nor that
either,' he hastened to explain. 'I may not wed the woman who slays
my wife, even in self-defense. It is custom. We are ruled by custom
upon Barsoom. It is useless, my friend. You must bear the sorrow
with me. That at least we may share in common. That, and the memory
of the brief days among the Tharks. You must go now, nor ever see
me again. Good-bye, my chieftain that was.'

Disheartened and
dejected, I withdrew from the room, but I was not entirely
discouraged, nor would I admit that Dejar Thoris was lost to me
until the ceremony had actually been performed.

As I wandered
along the corridors, I was as absolutely lost in the mazes of
winding passageways as I had been before I discovered Dejar Thoris'
apartments.

I knew that my
only hope lay in escape from the city of Zodanga, for the matter of
the four dead guardswomen would have to be explained, and as I
could never reach my original post without a guide, suspicion would
surely rest on me so soon as I was discovered wandering aimlessly
through the palace.

Presently I came
upon a spiral runway leading to a lower floor, and this I followed
downward for several stories until I reached the doorway of a large
apartment in which were a number of guardswomen. The walls of this
room were hung with transparent tapestries behind which I secreted
myself without being apprehended.

The conversation
of the guardswomen was general, and awakened no interest in me
until an officer entered the room and ordered four of the women to
relieve the detail who were guarding the Prince of Helium. Now, I
knew, my troubles would commence in earnest and indeed they were
upon me all too soon, for it seemed that the squad had scarcely
left the guardroom before one of their number burst in again
breathlessly, crying that they had found their four comrades
butchered in the antechamber.

In a moment the
entire palace was alive with people. Guardsmen, officers,
courtiers, servants, and slaves ran helter-skelter through the
corridors and apartments carrying messages and orders, and
searching for signs of the assassin.

This was my
opportunity and slim as it appeared I grasped it, for as a number
of soldiers came hurrying past my hiding place I fell in behind
them and followed through the mazes of the palace until, in passing
through a great hall, I saw the blessed light of day coming in
through a series of larger windows.

Here I left my
guides, and, slipping to the nearest window, sought for an avenue
of escape. The windows opened upon a great balcony which overlooked
one of the broad avenues of Zodanga. The ground was about thirty
feet below, and at a like distance from the building was a wall
fully twenty feet high, constructed of polished glass about a foot
in thickness. To a red Martian escape by this path would have
appeared impossible, but to me, with my earthly strength and
agility, it seemed already accomplished. My only fear was in being
detected before darkness fell, for I could not make the leap in
broad daylight while the court below and the avenue beyond were
crowded with Zodangans.

Accordingly I
searched for a hiding place and finally found one by accident,
inside a huge hanging ornament which swung from the ceiling of the
hall, and about ten feet from the floor. Into the capacious
bowl-like vase I sprang with ease, and scarcely had I settled down
within it than I heard a number of people enter the apartment. The
group stopped beneath my hiding place and I could plainly overhear
their every word.

'It is the work
of Heliumites,' said one of the women.

'Yes, O Jeddak,
but how had they access to the palace? I could believe that even
with the diligent care of your guardswomen a single enemy might
reach the inner chambers, but how a force of six or eight fighting
women could have done so unobserved is beyond me. We shall soon
know, however, for here comes the royal psychologist.'

Another woman now
joined the group, and, after making her formal greetings to her
ruler, said:

'O mighty Jeddak,
it is a strange tale I read in the dead minds of your faithful
guardswomen. They were felled not by a number of fighting women,
but by a single opponent.'

She paused to let
the full weight of this announcement impress her hearers, and that
her statement was scarcely credited was evidenced by the impatient
exclamation of incredulity which escaped the lips of Thana
Kosis.

'What manner of
weird tale are you bringing me, Notan?' she cried.

'It is the truth,
my Jeddak,' replied the psychologist. 'In fact the impressions were
strongly marked on the brain of each of the four guardswomen. Their
antagonist was a very tall woman, wearing the metal of one of your
own guardswomen, and her fighting ability was little short of
marvelous for she fought fair against the entire four and
vanquished them by her surpassing skill and superhuman strength and
endurance. Though she wore the metal of Zodanga, my Jeddak, such a
woman was never seen before in this or any other country upon
Barsoom.

'The mind of the
Prince of Helium whom I have examined and questioned was a blank to
me, he has perfect control, and I could not read one iota of it. He
said that he witnessed a portion of the encounter, and that when he
looked there was but one woman engaged with the guardswomen; a
woman whom he did not recognize as ever having seen.'

'Where is my
erstwhile savior?' spoke another of the party, and I recognized the
voice of the cousin of Thana Kosis, whom I had rescued from the
green warriors. 'By the metal of my first ancestor,' she went on,
'but the description fits her to perfection, especially as to her
fighting ability.'

'Where is this
woman?' cried Thana Kosis. 'Have her brought to me at once. What
know you of her, cousin? It seemed strange to me now that I think
upon it that there should have been such a fighting woman in
Zodanga, of whose name, even, we were ignorant before today. And
her name too, Joan Carter, who ever heard of such a name upon
Barsoom!'

Word was soon
brought that I was nowhere to be found, either in the palace or at
my former quarters in the barracks of the air-scout squadron.
Kantoa Kan, they had found and questioned, but she knew nothing of
my whereabouts, and as to my past, she had told them she knew as
little, since she had but recently met me during our captivity
among the Warhoons.

'Keep your eyes
on this other one,' commanded Thana Kosis. 'She also is a stranger
and likely as not they both hail from Helium, and where one is we
shall sooner or later find the other. Quadruple the air patrol, and
let every woman who leaves the city by air or ground be subjected
to the closest scrutiny.'

Another messenger
now entered with word that I was still within the palace
walls.

'The likeness of
every person who has entered or left the palace grounds today has
been carefully examined,' concluded the fellow, 'and not one
approaches the likeness of this new padwar of the guards, other
than that which was recorded of her at the time she
entered.'

'Then we will
have her shortly,' commented Thana Kosis contentedly, 'and in the
meanwhile we will repair to the apartments of the Prince of Helium
and question his in regard to the affair. He may know more than he
cared to divulge to you, Notan. Come.'

They left the
hall, and, as darkness had fallen without, I slipped lightly from
my hiding place and hastened to the balcony. Few were in sight, and
choosing a moment when none seemed near I sprang quickly to the top
of the glass wall and from there to the avenue beyond the palace
grounds.

CHAPTER
XXIII

LOST IN THE
SKY

Without effort at
concealment I hastened to the vicinity of our quarters, where I
felt sure I should find Kantoa Kan. As I neared the building I
became more careful, as I judged, and rightly, that the place would
be guarded. Several women in civilian metal loitered near the front
entrance and in the rear were others. My only means of reaching,
unseen, the upper story where our apartments were situated was
through an adjoining building, and after considerable maneuvering I
managed to attain the roof of a shop several doors away.

Leaping from roof
to roof, I soon reached an open window in the building where I
hoped to find the Heliumite, and in another moment I stood in the
room before her. She was alone and showed no surprise at my coming,
saying she had expected me much earlier, as my tour of duty must
have ended some time since.

I saw that she
knew nothing of the events of the day at the palace, and when I had
enlightened her she was all excitement. The news that Dejar Thoris
had promised his hand to Saba Than filled her with
dismay.