The Gods Of Mars (28 page)

The boy’s eyes had lighted with pleasure as I spoke, and I saw him
glance from his rusty trappings to the magnificence of my own. For a
moment he stood in thought before he spoke, and for that moment my
heart fairly ceased beating—so much for me there was which hung upon
the substance of his answer.

“And I went to the palace of the Prince of Helium with any such demand,
they would laugh at me and, into the bargain, would more than likely
throw me headforemost into the avenue. No, it cannot be, though I
thank you for the offer. Why, if Zat Arras even dreamed that I
contemplated such a thing he would have my heart cut out of me.”

“There can be no harm in it, my boy,” I urged. “By night you may go to
my palace with a note from me to Carthoris, my son. You may read the
note before you deliver it, that you may know that it contains nothing
harmful to Zat Arras. My son will be discreet, and so none but us
three need know. It is very simple, and such a harmless act that it
could be condemned by no one.”

Again he stood silently in deep thought.

“And there is a jewelled short-sword which I took from the body of a
northern Jeddak. When you get the harness, see that Carthoris gives
you that also. With it and the harness which you may select there will
be no more handsomely accoutred warrior in all Zodanga.

“Bring writing materials when you come next to my cell, and within a
few hours we shall see you garbed in a style befitting your birth and
carriage.”

Still in thought, and without speaking, he turned and left me. I could
not guess what his decision might be, and for hours I sat fretting over
the outcome of the matter.

If he accepted a message to Carthoris it would mean to me that
Carthoris still lived and was free. If the youth returned wearing the
harness and the sword, I would know that Carthoris had received my note
and that he knew that I still lived. That the bearer of the note was a
Zodangan would be sufficient to explain to Carthoris that I was a
prisoner of Zat Arras.

It was with feelings of excited expectancy which I could scarce hide
that I heard the youth’s approach upon the occasion of his next regular
visit. I did not speak beyond my accustomed greeting of him. As he
placed the food upon the floor by my side he also deposited writing
materials at the same time.

My heart fairly bounded for joy. I had won my point. For a moment I
looked at the materials in feigned surprise, but soon I permitted an
expression of dawning comprehension to come into my face, and then,
picking them up, I penned a brief order to Carthoris to deliver to
Parthak a harness of his selection and the short-sword which I
described. That was all. But it meant everything to me and to
Carthoris.

I laid the note open upon the floor. Parthak picked it up and, without
a word, left me.

As nearly as I could estimate, I had at this time been in the pits for
three hundred days. If anything was to be done to save Dejah Thoris it
must be done quickly, for, were she not already dead, her end must soon
come, since those whom Issus chose lived but a single year.

The next time I heard approaching footsteps I could scarce await to see
if Parthak wore the harness and the sword, but judge, if you can, my
chagrin and disappointment when I saw that he who bore my food was not
Parthak.

“What has become of Parthak?” I asked, but the fellow would not answer,
and as soon as he had deposited my food, turned and retraced his steps
to the world above.

Days came and went, and still my new jailer continued his duties, nor
would he ever speak a word to me, either in reply to the simplest
question or of his own initiative.

I could only speculate on the cause of Parthak’s removal, but that it
was connected in some way directly with the note I had given him was
most apparent to me. After all my rejoicing, I was no better off than
before, for now I did not even know that Carthoris lived, for if
Parthak had wished to raise himself in the estimation of Zat Arras he
would have permitted me to go on precisely as I did, so that he could
carry my note to his master, in proof of his own loyalty and devotion.

Thirty days had passed since I had given the youth the note. Three
hundred and thirty days had passed since my incarceration. As closely
as I could figure, there remained a bare thirty days ere Dejah Thoris
would be ordered to the arena for the rites of Issus.

As the terrible picture forced itself vividly across my imagination, I
buried my face in my arms, and only with the greatest difficulty was it
that I repressed the tears that welled to my eyes despite my every
effort. To think of that beautiful creature torn and rended by the
cruel fangs of the hideous white apes! It was unthinkable. Such a
horrid fact could not be; and yet my reason told me that within thirty
days my incomparable Princess would be fought over in the arena of the
First Born by those very wild beasts; that her bleeding corpse would be
dragged through the dirt and the dust, until at last a part of it would
be rescued to be served as food upon the tables of the black nobles.

I think that I should have gone crazy but for the sound of my
approaching jailer. It distracted my attention from the terrible
thoughts that had been occupying my entire mind. Now a new and grim
determination came to me. I would make one super-human effort to
escape. Kill my jailer by a ruse, and trust to fate to lead me to the
outer world in safety.

With the thought came instant action. I threw myself upon the floor of
my cell close by the wall, in a strained and distorted posture, as
though I were dead after a struggle or convulsions. When he should
stoop over me I had but to grasp his throat with one hand and strike
him a terrific blow with the slack of my chain, which I gripped firmly
in my right hand for the purpose.

Nearer and nearer came the doomed man. Now I heard him halt before me.
There was a muttered exclamation, and then a step as he came to my
side. I felt him kneel beside me. My grip tightened upon the chain.
He leaned close to me. I must open my eyes to find his throat, grasp
it, and strike one mighty final blow all at the same instant.

The thing worked just as I had planned. So brief was the interval
between the opening of my eyes and the fall of the chain that I could
not check it, though it that minute interval I recognized the face so
close to mine as that of my son, Carthoris.

God! What cruel and malign fate had worked to such a frightful end!
What devious chain of circumstances had led my boy to my side at this
one particular minute of our lives when I could strike him down and
kill him, in ignorance of his identity! A benign though tardy
Providence blurred my vision and my mind as I sank into unconsciousness
across the lifeless body of my only son.

When I regained consciousness it was to feel a cool, firm hand pressed
upon my forehead. For an instant I did not open my eyes. I was
endeavouring to gather the loose ends of many thoughts and memories
which flitted elusively through my tired and overwrought brain.

At length came the cruel recollection of the thing that I had done in
my last conscious act, and then I dared not to open my eyes for fear of
what I should see lying beside me. I wondered who it could be who
ministered to me. Carthoris must have had a companion whom I had not
seen. Well, I must face the inevitable some time, so why not now, and
with a sigh I opened my eyes.

Leaning over me was Carthoris, a great bruise upon his forehead where
the chain had struck, but alive, thank God, alive! There was no one
with him. Reaching out my arms, I took my boy within them, and if ever
there arose from any planet a fervent prayer of gratitude, it was there
beneath the crust of dying Mars as I thanked the Eternal Mystery for my
son’s life.

The brief instant in which I had seen and recognized Carthoris before
the chain fell must have been ample to check the force of the blow. He
told me that he had lain unconscious for a time—how long he did not
know.

“How came you here at all?” I asked, mystified that he had found me
without a guide.

“It was by your wit in apprising me of your existence and imprisonment
through the youth, Parthak. Until he came for his harness and his
sword, we had thought you dead. When I had read your note I did as you
had bid, giving Parthak his choice of the harnesses in the guardroom,
and later bringing the jewelled short-sword to him; but the minute that
I had fulfilled the promise you evidently had made him, my obligation
to him ceased. Then I commenced to question him, but he would give me
no information as to your whereabouts. He was intensely loyal to Zat
Arras.

“Finally I gave him a fair choice between freedom and the pits beneath
the palace—the price of freedom to be full information as to where you
were imprisoned and directions which would lead us to you; but still he
maintained his stubborn partisanship. Despairing, I had him removed to
the pits, where he still is.

“No threats of torture or death, no bribes, however fabulous, would
move him. His only reply to all our importunities was that whenever
Parthak died, were it to-morrow or a thousand years hence, no man could
truly say, ‘A traitor is gone to his deserts.’

“Finally, Xodar, who is a fiend for subtle craftiness, evolved a plan
whereby we might worm the information from him. And so I caused Hor
Vastus to be harnessed in the metal of a Zodangan soldier and chained
in Parthak’s cell beside him. For fifteen days the noble Hor Vastus
has languished in the darkness of the pits, but not in vain. Little by
little he won the confidence and friendship of the Zodangan, until only
to-day Parthak, thinking that he was speaking not only to a countryman,
but to a dear friend, revealed that Hor Vastus the exact cell in which
you lay.

“It took me but a short time to locate the plans of the pits of Helium
among thy official papers. To come to you, though, was a trifle more
difficult matter. As you know, while all the pits beneath the city are
connected, there are but single entrances from those beneath each
section and its neighbour, and that at the upper level just underneath
the ground.

“Of course, these openings which lead from contiguous pits to those
beneath government buildings are always guarded, and so, while I easily
came to the entrance to the pits beneath the palace which Zat Arras is
occupying, I found there a Zodangan soldier on guard. There I left him
when I had gone by, but his soul was no longer with him.

“And here I am, just in time to be nearly killed by you,” he ended,
laughing.

As he talked Carthoris had been working at the lock which held my
fetters, and now, with an exclamation of pleasure, he dropped the end
of the chain to the floor, and I stood up once more, freed from the
galling irons I had chafed in for almost a year.

He had brought a long-sword and a dagger for me, and thus armed we set
out upon the return journey to my palace.

At the point where we left the pits of Zat Arras we found the body of
the guard Carthoris had slain. It had not yet been discovered, and, in
order to still further delay search and mystify the jed’s people, we
carried the body with us for a short distance, hiding it in a tiny cell
off the main corridor of the pits beneath an adjoining estate.

Some half-hour later we came to the pits beneath our own palace, and
soon thereafter emerged into the audience chamber itself, where we
found Kantos Kan, Tars Tarkas, Hor Vastus, and Xodar awaiting us most
impatiently.

No time was lost in fruitless recounting of my imprisonment. What I
desired to know was how well the plans we had laid nearly a year ago
and had been carried out.

“It has taken much longer than we had expected,” replied Kantos Kan.
“The fact that we were compelled to maintain utter secrecy has
handicapped us terribly. Zat Arras’ spies are everywhere. Yet, to the
best of my knowledge, no word of our real plans has reached the
villain’s ear.

“To-night there lies about the great docks at Hastor a fleet of a
thousand of the mightiest battleships that ever sailed above Barsoom,
and each equipped to navigate the air of Omean and the waters of Omean
itself. Upon each battleship there are five ten-man cruisers, and ten
five-man scouts, and a hundred one-man scouts; in all, one hundred and
sixteen thousand craft fitted with both air and water propellers.

“At Thark lie the transports for the green warriors of Tars Tarkas,
nine hundred large troopships, and with them their convoys. Seven days
ago all was in readiness, but we waited in the hope that by so doing
your rescue might be encompassed in time for you to command the
expedition. It is well we waited, my Prince.”

“How is it, Tars Tarkas,” I asked, “that the men of Thark take not the
accustomed action against one who returns from the bosom of Iss?”

“They sent a council of fifty chieftains to talk with me here,” replied
the Thark. “We are a just people, and when I had told them the entire
story they were as one man in agreeing that their action toward me
would be guided by the action of Helium toward John Carter. In the
meantime, at their request, I was to resume my throne as Jeddak of
Thark, that I might negotiate with neighboring hordes for warriors to
compose the land forces of the expedition. I have done that which I
agreed. Two hundred and fifty thousand fighting men, gathered from the
ice cap at the north to the ice cap at the south, and representing a
thousand different communities, from a hundred wild and warlike hordes,
fill the great city of Thark to-night. They are ready to sail for the
Land of the First Born when I give the word and fight there until I bid
them stop. All they ask is the loot they take and transportation to
their own territories when the fighting and the looting are over. I am
done.”