The Gods Of Mars (19 page)

At sight of us the members of the guard sprang forward in surprise, and
with levelled rifles halted us. I held out the message to one of them.
He took it and seeing to whom it was addressed turned and handed it to
Torith who was emerging from his office to learn the cause of the
commotion.

The black read the order, and for a moment eyed us with evident
suspicion.

“Where is Dator Yersted?” he asked, and my heart sank within me, as I
cursed myself for a stupid fool in not having sunk the submarine to
make good the lie that I must tell.

“His orders were to return immediately to the temple landing,” I
replied.

Torith took a half step toward the entrance to the pool as though to
corroborate my story. For that instant everything hung in the balance,
for had he done so and found the empty submarine still lying at her
wharf the whole weak fabric of my concoction would have tumbled about
our heads; but evidently he decided the message must be genuine, nor
indeed was there any good reason to doubt it since it would scarce have
seemed credible to him that two slaves would voluntarily have given
themselves into custody in any such manner as this. It was the very
boldness of the plan which rendered it successful.

“Were you connected with the rising of the slaves?” asked Torith. “We
have just had meagre reports of some such event.”

“All were involved,” I replied. “But it amounted to little. The
guards quickly overcame and killed the majority of us.”

He seemed satisfied with this reply. “Take them to Shador,” he
ordered, turning to one of his subordinates. We entered a small boat
lying beside the island, and in a few minutes were disembarking upon
Shador. Here we were returned to our respective cells; I with Xodar,
the boy by himself; and behind locked doors we were again prisoners of
the First Born.

Xodar listened in incredulous astonishment to my narration of the
events which had transpired within the arena at the rites of Issus. He
could scarce conceive, even though he had already professed his doubt
as to the deity of Issus, that one could threaten her with sword in
hand and not be blasted into a thousand fragments by the mere fury of
her divine wrath.

“It is the final proof,” he said, at last. “No more is needed to
completely shatter the last remnant of my superstitious belief in the
divinity of Issus. She is only a wicked old woman, wielding a mighty
power for evil through machinations that have kept her own people and
all Barsoom in religious ignorance for ages.”

“She is still all-powerful here, however,” I replied. “So it behooves
us to leave at the first moment that appears at all propitious.”

“I hope that you may find a propitious moment,” he said, with a laugh,
“for it is certain that in all my life I have never seen one in which a
prisoner of the First Born might escape.”

“To-night will do as well as any,” I replied.

“It will soon be night,” said Xodar. “How may I aid in the adventure?”

“Can you swim?” I asked him.

“No slimy silian that haunts the depths of Korus is more at home in
water than is Xodar,” he replied.

“Good. The red one in all probability cannot swim,” I said, “since
there is scarce enough water in all their domains to float the tiniest
craft. One of us therefore will have to support him through the sea to
the craft we select. I had hoped that we might make the entire
distance below the surface, but I fear that the red youth could not
thus perform the trip. Even the bravest of the brave among them are
terrorized at the mere thought of deep water, for it has been ages
since their forebears saw a lake, a river or a sea.”

“The red one is to accompany us?” asked Xodar.

“Yes.”

“It is well. Three swords are better than two. Especially when the
third is as mighty as this fellow’s. I have seen him battle in the
arena at the rites of Issus many times. Never, until I saw you fight,
had I seen one who seemed unconquerable even in the face of great odds.
One might think you two master and pupil, or father and son. Come to
recall his face there is a resemblance between you. It is very marked
when you fight—there is the same grim smile, the same maddening
contempt for your adversary apparent in every movement of your bodies
and in every changing expression of your faces.”

“Be that as it may, Xodar, he is a great fighter. I think that we will
make a trio difficult to overcome, and if my friend Tars Tarkas, Jeddak
of Thark, were but one of us we could fight our way from one end of
Barsoom to the other even though the whole world were pitted against
us.”

“It will be,” said Xodar, “when they find from whence you have come.
That is but one of the superstitions which Issus has foisted upon a
credulous humanity. She works through the Holy Therns who are as
ignorant of her real self as are the Barsoomians of the outer world.
Her decrees are borne to the therns written in blood upon a strange
parchment. The poor deluded fools think that they are receiving the
revelations of a goddess through some supernatural agency, since they
find these messages upon their guarded altars to which none could have
access without detection. I myself have borne these messages for Issus
for many years. There is a long tunnel from the temple of Issus to the
principal temple of Matai Shang. It was dug ages ago by the slaves of
the First Born in such utter secrecy that no thern ever guessed its
existence.

“The therns for their part have temples dotted about the entire
civilized world. Here priests whom the people never see communicate
the doctrine of the Mysterious River Iss, the Valley Dor, and the Lost
Sea of Korus to persuade the poor deluded creatures to take the
voluntary pilgrimage that swells the wealth of the Holy Therns and adds
to the numbers of their slaves.

“Thus the therns are used as the principal means for collecting the
wealth and labour that the First Born wrest from them as they need it.
Occasionally the First Born themselves make raids upon the outer world.
It is then that they capture many females of the royal houses of the
red men, and take the newest in battleships and the trained artisans
who build them, that they may copy what they cannot create.

“We are a non-productive race, priding ourselves upon our
non-productiveness. It is criminal for a First Born to labour or
invent. That is the work of the lower orders, who live merely that the
First Born may enjoy long lives of luxury and idleness. With us
fighting is all that counts; were it not for that there would be more
of the First Born than all the creatures of Barsoom could support, for
in so far as I know none of us ever dies a natural death. Our females
would live for ever but for the fact that we tire of them and remove
them to make place for others. Issus alone of all is protected against
death. She has lived for countless ages.”

“Would not the other Barsoomians live for ever but for the doctrine of
the voluntary pilgrimage which drags them to the bosom of Iss at or
before their thousandth year?” I asked him.

“I feel now that there is no doubt but that they are precisely the same
species of creature as the First Born, and I hope that I shall live to
fight for them in atonement of the sins I have committed against them
through the ignorance born of generations of false teaching.”

As he ceased speaking a weird call rang out across the waters of Omean.
I had heard it at the same time the previous evening and knew that it
marked the ending of the day, when the men of Omean spread their silks
upon the deck of battleship and cruiser and fall into the dreamless
sleep of Mars.

Our guard entered to inspect us for the last time before the new day
broke upon the world above. His duty was soon performed and the heavy
door of our prison closed behind him—we were alone for the night.

I gave him time to return to his quarters, as Xodar said he probably
would do, then I sprang to the grated window and surveyed the nearby
waters. At a little distance from the island, a quarter of a mile
perhaps, lay a monster battleship, while between her and the shore were
a number of smaller cruisers and one-man scouts. Upon the battleship
alone was there a watch. I could see him plainly in the upper works of
the ship, and as I watched I saw him spread his sleeping silks upon the
tiny platform in which he was stationed. Soon he threw himself at full
length upon his couch. The discipline on Omean was lax indeed. But it
is not to be wondered at since no enemy guessed the existence upon
Barsoom of such a fleet, or even of the First Born, or the Sea of
Omean. Why indeed should they maintain a watch?

Presently I dropped to the floor again and talked with Xodar,
describing the various craft I had seen.

“There is one there,” he said, “my personal property, built to carry
five men, that is the swiftest of the swift. If we can board her we
can at least make a memorable run for liberty,” and then he went on to
describe to me the equipment of the boat; her engines, and all that
went to make her the flier that she was.

In his explanation I recognized a trick of gearing that Kantos Kan had
taught me that time we sailed under false names in the navy of Zodanga
beneath Sab Than, the Prince. And I knew then that the First Born had
stolen it from the ships of Helium, for only they are thus geared. And
I knew too that Xodar spoke the truth when he lauded the speed of his
little craft, for nothing that cleaves the thin air of Mars can
approximate the speed of the ships of Helium.

We decided to wait for an hour at least until all the stragglers had
sought their silks. In the meantime I was to fetch the red youth to
our cell so that we would be in readiness to make our rash break for
freedom together.

I sprang to the top of our partition wall and pulled myself up on to
it. There I found a flat surface about a foot in width and along this
I walked until I came to the cell in which I saw the boy sitting upon
his bench. He had been leaning back against the wall looking up at the
glowing dome above Omean, and when he spied me balancing upon the
partition wall above him his eyes opened wide in astonishment. Then a
wide grin of appreciative understanding spread across his countenance.

As I stooped to drop to the floor beside him he motioned me to wait,
and coming close below me whispered: “Catch my hand; I can almost leap
to the top of that wall myself. I have tried it many times, and each
day I come a little closer. Some day I should have been able to make
it.”

I lay upon my belly across the wall and reached my hand far down toward
him. With a little run from the centre of the cell he sprang up until
I grasped his outstretched hand, and thus I pulled him to the wall’s
top beside me.

“You are the first jumper I ever saw among the red men of Barsoom,” I
said.

He smiled. “It is not strange. I will tell you why when we have more
time.”

Together we returned to the cell in which Xodar sat; descending to talk
with him until the hour had passed.

There we made our plans for the immediate future, binding ourselves by
a solemn oath to fight to the death for one another against whatsoever
enemies should confront us, for we knew that even should we succeed in
escaping the First Born we might still have a whole world against
us—the power of religious superstition is mighty.

It was agreed that I should navigate the craft after we had reached
her, and that if we made the outer world in safety we should attempt to
reach Helium without a stop.

“Why Helium?” asked the red youth.

“I am a prince of Helium,” I replied.

He gave me a peculiar look, but said nothing further on the subject. I
wondered at the time what the significance of his expression might be,
but in the press of other matters it soon left my mind, nor did I have
occasion to think of it again until later.

“Come,” I said at length, “now is as good a time as any. Let us go.”

Another moment found me at the top of the partition wall again with the
boy beside me. Unbuckling my harness I snapped it together with a
single long strap which I lowered to the waiting Xodar below. He
grasped the end and was soon sitting beside us.

“How simple,” he laughed.

“The balance should be even simpler,” I replied. Then I raised myself
to the top of the outer wall of the prison, just so that I could peer
over and locate the passing sentry. For a matter of five minutes I
waited and then he came in sight on his slow and snail-like beat about
the structure.

I watched him until he had made the turn at the end of the building
which carried him out of sight of the side of the prison that was to
witness our dash for freedom. The moment his form disappeared I
grasped Xodar and drew him to the top of the wall. Placing one end of
my harness strap in his hands I lowered him quickly to the ground
below. Then the boy grasped the strap and slid down to Xodar’s side.

In accordance with our arrangement they did not wait for me, but walked
slowly toward the water, a matter of a hundred yards, directly past the
guard-house filled with sleeping soldiers.

They had taken scarce a dozen steps when I too dropped to the ground
and followed them leisurely toward the shore. As I passed the
guard-house the thought of all the good blades lying there gave me
pause, for if ever men were to have need of swords it was my companions
and I on the perilous trip upon which we were about to embark.

I glanced toward Xodar and the youth and saw that they had slipped over
the edge of the dock into the water. In accordance with our plan they
were to remain there clinging to the metal rings which studded the
concrete-like substance of the dock at the water’s level, with only
their mouths and noses above the surface of the sea, until I should
join them.