The Gods Of Mars (10 page)

“Do you understand now, O Prince,” she said, “why a million warriors
guard the domains of the Holy Therns by day and by night?”

“The scene you are witnessing now is but a repetition of what I have
seen enacted a score of times during the fifteen years I have been a
prisoner here. From time immemorial the black pirates of Barsoom have
preyed upon the Holy Therns.

“Yet they never carry their expeditions to a point, as one might
readily believe it was in their power to do, where the extermination of
the race of therns is threatened. It is as though they but utilized
the race as playthings, with which they satisfy their ferocious lust
for fighting; and from whom they collect toll in arms and ammunition
and in prisoners.”

“Why don’t they jump in and destroy these fliers?” I asked. “That
would soon put a stop to the attacks, or at least the blacks would
scarce be so bold. Why, see how perfectly unguarded they leave their
craft, as though they were lying safe in their own hangars at home.”

“The therns do not dare. They tried it once, ages ago, but the next
night and for a whole moon thereafter a thousand great black
battleships circled the Mountains of Otz, pouring tons of projectiles
upon the temples, the gardens, and the courts, until every thern who
was not killed was driven for safety into the subterranean galleries.

“The therns know that they live at all only by the sufferance of the
black men. They were near to extermination that once and they will not
venture risking it again.”

As she ceased talking a new element was instilled into the conflict.
It came from a source equally unlooked for by either thern or pirate.
The great banths which we had liberated in the garden had evidently
been awed at first by the sound of the battle, the yelling of the
warriors and the loud report of rifle and bomb.

But now they must have become angered by the continuous noise and
excited by the smell of new blood, for all of a sudden a great form
shot from a clump of low shrubbery into the midst of a struggling mass
of humanity. A horrid scream of bestial rage broke from the banth as
he felt warm flesh beneath his powerful talons.

As though his cry was but a signal to the others, the entire great pack
hurled themselves among the fighters. Panic reigned in an instant.
Thern and black man turned alike against the common enemy, for the
banths showed no partiality toward either.

The awful beasts bore down a hundred men by the mere weight of their
great bodies as they hurled themselves into the thick of the fight.
Leaping and clawing, they mowed down the warriors with their powerful
paws, turning for an instant to rend their victims with frightful fangs.

The scene was fascinating in its terribleness, but suddenly it came to
me that we were wasting valuable time watching this conflict, which in
itself might prove a means of our escape.

The therns were so engaged with their terrible assailants that now, if
ever, escape should be comparatively easy. I turned to search for an
opening through the contending hordes. If we could but reach the
ramparts we might find that the pirates somewhere had thinned the
guarding forces and left a way open to us to the world without.

As my eyes wandered about the garden, the sight of the hundreds of air
craft lying unguarded around us suggested the simplest avenue to
freedom. Why it had not occurred to me before! I was thoroughly
familiar with the mechanism of every known make of flier on Barsoom.
For nine years I had sailed and fought with the navy of Helium. I had
raced through space on the tiny one-man air scout and I had commanded
the greatest battleship that ever had floated in the thin air of dying
Mars.

To think, with me, is to act. Grasping Thuvia by the arm, I whispered
to Tars Tarkas to follow me. Quickly we glided toward a small flier
which lay furthest from the battling warriors. Another instant found
us huddled on the tiny deck. My hand was on the starting lever. I
pressed my thumb upon the button which controls the ray of repulsion,
that splendid discovery of the Martians which permits them to navigate
the thin atmosphere of their planet in huge ships that dwarf the
dreadnoughts of our earthly navies into pitiful significance.

The craft swayed slightly but she did not move. Then a new cry of
warning broke upon our ears. Turning, I saw a dozen black pirates
dashing toward us from the melee. We had been discovered. With
shrieks of rage the demons sprang for us. With frenzied insistence I
continued to press the little button which should have sent us racing
out into space, but still the vessel refused to budge. Then it came to
me—the reason that she would not rise.

We had stumbled upon a two-man flier. Its ray tanks were charged only
with sufficient repulsive energy to lift two ordinary men. The Thark’s
great weight was anchoring us to our doom.

The blacks were nearly upon us. There was not an instant to be lost in
hesitation or doubt.

I pressed the button far in and locked it. Then I set the lever at
high speed and as the blacks came yelling upon us I slipped from the
craft’s deck and with drawn long-sword met the attack.

At the same moment a girl’s shriek rang out behind me and an instant
later, as the blacks fell upon me. I heard far above my head, and
faintly, in Thuvia’s voice: “My Prince, O my Prince; I would rather
remain and die with—” But the rest was lost in the noise of my
assailants.

I knew though that my ruse had worked and that temporarily at least
Thuvia and Tars Tarkas were safe, and the means of escape was theirs.

For a moment it seemed that I could not withstand the weight of numbers
that confronted me, but again, as on so many other occasions when I had
been called upon to face fearful odds upon this planet of warriors and
fierce beasts, I found that my earthly strength so far transcended that
of my opponents that the odds were not so greatly against me as they
appeared.

My seething blade wove a net of death about me. For an instant the
blacks pressed close to reach me with their shorter swords, but
presently they gave back, and the esteem in which they suddenly had
learned to hold my sword arm was writ large upon each countenance.

I knew though that it was but a question of minutes before their
greater numbers would wear me down, or get around my guard. I must go
down eventually to certain death before them. I shuddered at the
thought of it, dying thus in this terrible place where no word of my
end ever could reach my Dejah Thoris. Dying at the hands of nameless
black men in the gardens of the cruel therns.

Then my old-time spirit reasserted itself. The fighting blood of my
Virginian sires coursed hot through my veins. The fierce blood lust
and the joy of battle surged over me. The fighting smile that has
brought consternation to a thousand foemen touched my lips. I put the
thought of death out of my mind, and fell upon my antagonists with fury
that those who escaped will remember to their dying day.

That others would press to the support of those who faced me I knew, so
even as I fought I kept my wits at work, searching for an avenue of
escape.

It came from an unexpected quarter out of the black night behind me. I
had just disarmed a huge fellow who had given me a desperate struggle,
and for a moment the blacks stood back for a breathing spell.

They eyed me with malignant fury, yet withal there was a touch of
respect in their demeanour.

“Thern,” said one, “you fight like a Dator. But for your detestable
yellow hair and your white skin you would be an honour to the First
Born of Barsoom.”

“I am no thern,” I said, and was about to explain that I was from
another world, thinking that by patching a truce with these fellows and
fighting with them against the therns I might enlist their aid in
regaining my liberty. But just at that moment a heavy object smote me
a resounding whack between my shoulders that nearly felled me to the
ground.

As I turned to meet this new enemy an object passed over my shoulder,
striking one of my assailants squarely in the face and knocking him
senseless to the sward. At the same instant I saw that the thing that
had struck us was the trailing anchor of a rather fair-sized air
vessel; possibly a ten man cruiser.

The ship was floating slowly above us, not more than fifty feet over
our heads. Instantly the one chance for escape that it offered
presented itself to me. The vessel was slowly rising and now the
anchor was beyond the blacks who faced me and several feet above their
heads.

With a bound that left them gaping in wide-eyed astonishment I sprang
completely over them. A second leap carried me just high enough to
grasp the now rapidly receding anchor.

But I was successful, and there I hung by one hand, dragging through
the branches of the higher vegetation of the gardens, while my late
foemen shrieked and howled beneath me.

Presently the vessel veered toward the west and then swung gracefully
to the south. In another instant I was carried beyond the crest of the
Golden Cliffs, out over the Valley Dor, where, six thousand feet below
me, the Lost Sea of Korus lay shimmering in the moonlight.

Carefully I climbed to a sitting posture across the anchor’s arms. I
wondered if by chance the vessel might be deserted. I hoped so. Or
possibly it might belong to a friendly people, and have wandered by
accident almost within the clutches of the pirates and the therns. The
fact that it was retreating from the scene of battle lent colour to
this hypothesis.

But I decided to know positively, and at once, so, with the greatest
caution, I commenced to climb slowly up the anchor chain toward the
deck above me.

One hand had just reached for the vessel’s rail and found it when a
fierce black face was thrust over the side and eyes filled with
triumphant hate looked into mine.

For an instant the black pirate and I remained motionless, glaring into
each other’s eyes. Then a grim smile curled the handsome lips above
me, as an ebony hand came slowly in sight from above the edge of the
deck and the cold, hollow eye of a revolver sought the centre of my
forehead.

Simultaneously my free hand shot out for the black throat, just within
reach, and the ebony finger tightened on the trigger. The pirate’s
hissing, “Die, cursed thern,” was half choked in his windpipe by my
clutching fingers. The hammer fell with a futile click upon an empty
chamber.

Before he could fire again I had pulled him so far over the edge of the
deck that he was forced to drop his firearm and clutch the rail with
both hands.

My grasp upon his throat effectually prevented any outcry, and so we
struggled in grim silence; he to tear away from my hold, I to drag him
over to his death.

His face was taking on a livid hue, his eyes were bulging from their
sockets. It was evident to him that he soon must die unless he tore
loose from the steel fingers that were choking the life from him. With
a final effort he threw himself further back upon the deck, at the same
instant releasing his hold upon the rail to tear frantically with both
hands at my fingers in an effort to drag them from his throat.

That little second was all that I awaited. With one mighty downward
surge I swept him clear of the deck. His falling body came near to
tearing me from the frail hold that my single free hand had upon the
anchor chain and plunging me with him to the waters of the sea below.

I did not relinquish my grasp upon him, however, for I knew that a
single shriek from those lips as he hurtled to his death in the silent
waters of the sea would bring his comrades from above to avenge him.

Instead I held grimly to him, choking, ever choking, while his frantic
struggles dragged me lower and lower toward the end of the chain.

Gradually his contortions became spasmodic, lessening by degrees until
they ceased entirely. Then I released my hold upon him and in an
instant he was swallowed by the black shadows far below.

Again I climbed to the ship’s rail. This time I succeeded in raising
my eyes to the level of the deck, where I could take a careful survey
of the conditions immediately confronting me.

The nearer moon had passed below the horizon, but the clear effulgence
of the further satellite bathed the deck of the cruiser, bringing into
sharp relief the bodies of six or eight black men sprawled about in
sleep.

Huddled close to the base of a rapid fire gun was a young white girl,
securely bound. Her eyes were widespread in an expression of horrified
anticipation and fixed directly upon me as I came in sight above the
edge of the deck.

Unutterable relief instantly filled them as they fell upon the mystic
jewel which sparkled in the centre of my stolen headpiece. She did not
speak. Instead her eyes warned me to beware the sleeping figures that
surrounded her.

Noiselessly I gained the deck. The girl nodded to me to approach her.
As I bent low she whispered to me to release her.

“I can aid you,” she said, “and you will need all the aid available
when they awaken.”

“Some of them will awake in Korus,” I replied smiling.

She caught the meaning of my words, and the cruelty of her answering
smile horrified me. One is not astonished by cruelty in a hideous
face, but when it touches the features of a goddess whose
fine-chiselled lineaments might more fittingly portray love and beauty,
the contrast is appalling.

Quickly I released her.

“Give me a revolver,” she whispered. “I can use that upon those your
sword does not silence in time.”

I did as she bid. Then I turned toward the distasteful work that lay
before me. This was no time for fine compunctions, nor for a chivalry
that these cruel demons would neither appreciate nor reciprocate.