The Chessmen of Mars

Shea had just beaten me at chess, as usual, and, also as usual, I
had gleaned what questionable satisfaction I might by twitting
him with this indication of failing mentality by calling his
attention to the nth time to that theory, propounded by certain
scientists, which is based upon the assertion that phenomenal
chess players are always found to be from the ranks of children
under twelve, adults over seventy-two or the mentally
defective—a theory that is lightly ignored upon those rare
occasions that I win. Shea had gone to bed and I should have
followed suit, for we are always in the saddle here before
sunrise; but instead I sat there before the chess table in the
library, idly blowing smoke at the dishonored head of my defeated
king.

While thus profitably employed I heard the east door of the
living-room open and someone enter. I thought it was Shea
returning to speak with me on some matter of tomorrow's work; but
when I raised my eyes to the doorway that connects the two rooms
I saw framed there the figure of a bronzed giant, his otherwise
naked body trapped with a jewel-encrusted harness from which
there hung at one side an ornate short-sword and at the other a
pistol of strange pattern. The black hair, the steel-gray eyes,
brave and smiling, the noble features—I recognized them at once,
and leaping to my feet I advanced with outstretched hand.

"John Carter!" I cried. "You?"

"None other, my son," he replied, taking my hand in one of his
and placing the other upon my shoulder.

"And what are you doing here?" I asked. "It has been long years
since you revisited Earth, and never before in the trappings of
Mars. Lord! but it is good to see you—and not a day older in
appearance than when you trotted me on your knee in my babyhood.
How do you explain it, John Carter, Warlord of Mars, or do you
try to explain it?"

"Why attempt to explain the inexplicable?" he replied. "As I have
told you before, I am a very old man. I do not know how old I am.
I recall no childhood; but recollect only having been always as
you see me now and as you saw me first when you were five years
old. You, yourself, have aged, though not as much as most men in
a corresponding number of years, which may be accounted for by
the fact that the same blood runs in our veins; but I have not
aged at all. I have discussed the question with a noted Martian
scientist, a friend of mine; but his theories are still only
theories. However, I am content with the fact—I never age, and I
love life and the vigor of youth.

"And now as to your natural question as to what brings me to
Earth again and in this, to earthly eyes, strange habiliment. We
may thank Kar Komak, the bowman of Lothar. It was he who gave me
the idea upon which I have been experimenting until at last I
have achieved success. As you know I have long possessed the
power to cross the void in spirit, but never before have I been
able to impart to inanimate things a similar power. Now, however,
you see me for the first time precisely as my Martian fellows see
me—you see the very short-sword that has tasted the blood of
many a savage foeman; the harness with the devices of Helium and
the insignia of my rank; the pistol that was presented to me by
Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark.

"Aside from seeing you, which is my principal reason for being
here, and satisfying myself that I can transport inanimate things
from Mars to Earth, and therefore animate things if I so desire,
I have no purpose. Earth is not for me. My every interest is upon
Barsoom—my wife, my children, my work; all are there. I will
spend a quiet evening with you and then back to the world I love
even better than I love life."

As he spoke he dropped into the chair upon the opposite side of
the chess table.

"You spoke of children," I said. "Have you more than Carthoris?"

"A daughter," he replied, "only a little younger than Carthoris,
and, barring one, the fairest thing that ever breathed the thin
air of dying Mars. Only Dejah Thoris, her mother, could be more
beautiful than Tara of Helium."

For a moment he fingered the chessmen idly. "We have a game on
Mars similar to chess," he said, "very similar. And there is a
race there that plays it grimly with men and naked swords. We
call the game jetan. It is played on a board like yours, except
that there are a hundred squares and we use twenty pieces on
each side. I never see it played without thinking of Tara of
Helium and what befell her among the chessmen of Barsoom.
Would you like to hear her story?"

I said that I would and so he told it to me, and now I shall try
to re-tell it for you as nearly in the words of The Warlord of
Mars as I can recall them, but in the third person. If there be
inconsistencies and errors, let the blame fall not upon John
Carter, but rather upon my faulty memory, where it belongs. It is
a strange tale and utterly Barsoomian.

Tara of Helium rose from the pile of silks and soft furs upon
which she had been reclining, stretched her lithe body languidly,
and crossed toward the center of the room, where, above a large
table, a bronze disc depended from the low ceiling. Her carriage
was that of health and physical perfection—the effortless
harmony of faultless coordination. A scarf of silken gossamer
crossing over one shoulder was wrapped about her body; her black
hair was piled high upon her head. With a wooden stick she tapped
upon the bronze disc, lightly, and presently the summons was
answered by a slave girl, who entered, smiling, to be greeted
similarly by her mistress.

"Are my father's guests arriving?" asked the princess.

"Yes, Tara of Helium, they come," replied the slave. "I have seen
Kantos Kan, Overlord of the Navy, and Prince Soran of Ptarth, and
Djor Kantos, son of Kantos Kan," she shot a roguish glance at her
mistress as she mentioned Djor Kantos' name, "and—oh, there were
others, many have come."

"The bath, then, Uthia," said her mistress. "And why, Uthia," she
added, "do you look thus and smile when you mention the name of
Djor Kantos?"

The slave girl laughed gaily. "It is so plain to all that he
worships you," she replied.

"It is not plain to me," said Tara of Helium. "He is the friend
of my brother, Carthoris, and so he is here much; but not to see
me. It is his friendship for Carthoris that brings him thus often
to the palace of my father."

"But Carthoris is hunting in the north with Talu, Jeddak of
Okar," Uthia reminded her.

"My bath, Uthia!" cried Tara of Helium. "That tongue of yours
will bring you to some misadventure yet."

"The bath is ready, Tara of Helium," the girl responded, her eyes
still twinkling with merriment, for she well knew that in the
heart of her mistress was no anger that could displace the love
of the princess for her slave. Preceding the daughter of The
Warlord she opened the door of an adjoining room where lay the
bath—a gleaming pool of scented water in a marble basin. Golden
stanchions supported a chain of gold encircling it and leading
down into the water on either side of marble steps. A glass dome
let in the sun-light, which flooded the interior, glancing from
the polished white of the marble walls and the procession of
bathers and fishes, which, in conventional design, were inlaid
with gold in a broad band that circled the room.

Tara of Helium removed the scarf from about her and handed it to
the slave. Slowly she descended the steps to the water, the
temperature of which she tested with a symmetrical foot,
undeformed by tight shoes and high heels—a lovely foot, as God
intended that feet should be and seldom are. Finding the water to
her liking, the girl swam leisurely to and fro about the pool.
With the silken ease of the seal she swam, now at the surface,
now below, her smooth muscles rolling softly beneath her clear
skin—a wordless song of health and happiness and grace.
Presently she emerged and gave herself into the hands of the
slave girl, who rubbed the body of her mistress with a sweet
smelling semi-liquid substance contained in a golden urn, until
the glowing skin was covered with a foamy lather, then a quick
plunge into the pool, a drying with soft towels, and the bath was
over. Typical of the life of the princess was the simple elegance
of her bath—no retinue of useless slaves, no pomp, no idle waste
of precious moments. In another half hour her hair was dried and
built into the strange, but becoming, coiffure of her station;
her leathern trappings, encrusted with gold and jewels, had been
adjusted to her figure and she was ready to mingle with the
guests that had been bidden to the midday function at the palace
of The Warlord.

As she left her apartments to make her way to the gardens where
the guests were congregating, two warriors, the insignia of the
House of the Prince of Helium upon their harness, followed a few
paces behind her, grim reminders that the assassin's blade may
never be ignored upon Barsoom, where, in a measure, it
counterbalances the great natural span of human life, which is
estimated at not less than a thousand years.

As they neared the entrance to the garden another woman,
similarly guarded, approached them from another quarter of the
great palace. As she neared them Tara of Helium turned toward her
with a smile and a happy greeting, while her guards knelt with
bowed heads in willing and voluntary adoration of the beloved of
Helium. Thus always, solely at the command of their own hearts,
did the warriors of Helium greet Dejah Thoris, whose deathless
beauty had more than once brought them to bloody warfare with
other nations of Barsoom. So great was the love of the people of
Helium for the mate of John Carter it amounted practically to
worship, as though she were indeed the goddess that she looked.

The mother and daughter exchanged the gentle, Barsoomian, "kaor"
of greeting and kissed. Then together they entered the gardens
where the guests were. A huge warrior drew his short-sword and
struck his metal shield with the flat of it, the brazen sound
ringing out above the laughter and the speech.