The Gods Of Mars (6 page)

And so it launched its great bulk toward me, but its mighty voice had
held no paralysing terrors for me, and it met cold steel instead of the
tender flesh its cruel jaws gaped so widely to engulf.

An instant later I drew my blade from the still heart of this great
Barsoomian lion, and turning toward Tars Tarkas was surprised to see
him facing a similar monster.

No sooner had he dispatched his than I, turning, as though drawn by the
instinct of my guardian subconscious mind, beheld another of the savage
denizens of the Martian wilds leaping across the chamber toward me.

From then on for the better part of an hour one hideous creature after
another was launched upon us, springing apparently from the empty air
about us.

Tars Tarkas was satisfied; here was something tangible that he could
cut and slash with his great blade, while I, for my part, may say that
the diversion was a marked improvement over the uncanny voices from
unseen lips.

That there was nothing supernatural about our new foes was well
evidenced by their howls of rage and pain as they felt the sharp steel
at their vitals, and the very real blood which flowed from their
severed arteries as they died the real death.

I noticed during the period of this new persecution that the beasts
appeared only when our backs were turned; we never saw one really
materialize from thin air, nor did I for an instant sufficiently lose
my excellent reasoning faculties to be once deluded into the belief
that the beasts came into the room other than through some concealed
and well-contrived doorway.

Among the ornaments of Tars Tarkas’ leather harness, which is the only
manner of clothing worn by Martians other than silk capes and robes of
silk and fur for protection from the cold after dark, was a small
mirror, about the bigness of a lady’s hand glass, which hung midway
between his shoulders and his waist against his broad back.

Once as he stood looking down at a newly fallen antagonist my eyes
happened to fall upon this mirror and in its shiny surface I saw
pictured a sight that caused me to whisper:

“Move not, Tars Tarkas! Move not a muscle!”

He did not ask why, but stood like a graven image while my eyes watched
the strange thing that meant so much to us.

What I saw was the quick movement of a section of the wall behind me.
It was turning upon pivots, and with it a section of the floor directly
in front of it was turning. It was as though you placed a
visiting-card upon end on a silver dollar that you had laid flat upon a
table, so that the edge of the card perfectly bisected the surface of
the coin.

The card might represent the section of the wall that turned and the
silver dollar the section of the floor. Both were so nicely fitted
into the adjacent portions of the floor and wall that no crack had been
noticeable in the dim light of the chamber.

As the turn was half completed a great beast was revealed sitting upon
its haunches upon that part of the revolving floor that had been on the
opposite side before the wall commenced to move; when the section
stopped, the beast was facing toward me on our side of the
partition—it was very simple.

But what had interested me most was the sight that the half-turned
section had presented through the opening that it had made. A great
chamber, well lighted, in which were several men and women chained to
the wall, and in front of them, evidently directing and operating the
movement of the secret doorway, a wicked-faced man, neither red as are
the red men of Mars, nor green as are the green men, but white, like
myself, with a great mass of flowing yellow hair.

The prisoners behind him were red Martians. Chained with them were a
number of fierce beasts, such as had been turned upon us, and others
equally as ferocious.

As I turned to meet my new foe it was with a heart considerably
lightened.

“Watch the wall at your end of the chamber, Tars Tarkas,” I cautioned,
“it is through secret doorways in the wall that the brutes are loosed
upon us.” I was very close to him and spoke in a low whisper that my
knowledge of their secret might not be disclosed to our tormentors.

As long as we remained each facing an opposite end of the apartment no
further attacks were made upon us, so it was quite clear to me that the
partitions were in some way pierced that our actions might be observed
from without.

At length a plan of action occurred to me, and backing quite close to
Tars Tarkas I unfolded my scheme in a low whisper, keeping my eyes
still glued upon my end of the room.

The great Thark grunted his assent to my proposition when I had done,
and in accordance with my plan commenced backing toward the wall which
I faced while I advanced slowly ahead of him.

When we had reached a point some ten feet from the secret doorway I
halted my companion, and cautioning him to remain absolutely motionless
until I gave the prearranged signal I quickly turned my back to the
door through which I could almost feel the burning and baleful eyes of
our would be executioner.

Instantly my own eyes sought the mirror upon Tars Tarkas’ back and in
another second I was closely watching the section of the wall which had
been disgorging its savage terrors upon us.

I had not long to wait, for presently the golden surface commenced to
move rapidly. Scarcely had it started than I gave the signal to Tars
Tarkas, simultaneously springing for the receding half of the pivoting
door. In like manner the Thark wheeled and leaped for the opening
being made by the inswinging section.

A single bound carried me completely through into the adjoining room
and brought me face to face with the fellow whose cruel face I had seen
before. He was about my own height and well muscled and in every
outward detail moulded precisely as are Earth men.

At his side hung a long-sword, a short-sword, a dagger, and one of the
destructive radium revolvers that are common upon Mars.

The fact that I was armed only with a long-sword, and so according to
the laws and ethics of battle everywhere upon Barsoom should only have
been met with a similar or lesser weapon, seemed to have no effect upon
the moral sense of my enemy, for he whipped out his revolver ere I
scarce had touched the floor by his side, but an uppercut from my
long-sword sent it flying from his grasp before he could discharge it.

Instantly he drew his long-sword, and thus evenly armed we set to in
earnest for one of the closest battles I ever have fought.

The fellow was a marvellous swordsman and evidently in practice, while
I had not gripped the hilt of a sword for ten long years before that
morning.

But it did not take me long to fall easily into my fighting stride, so
that in a few minutes the man began to realize that he had at last met
his match.

His face became livid with rage as he found my guard impregnable, while
blood flowed from a dozen minor wounds upon his face and body.

“Who are you, white man?” he hissed. “That you are no Barsoomian from
the outer world is evident from your colour. And you are not of us.”

His last statement was almost a question.

“What if I were from the Temple of Issus?” I hazarded on a wild guess.

“Fate forfend!” he exclaimed, his face going white under the blood that
now nearly covered it.

I did not know how to follow up my lead, but I carefully laid the idea
away for future use should circumstances require it. His answer
indicated that for all he KNEW I might be from the Temple of Issus and
in it were men like unto myself, and either this man feared the inmates
of the temple or else he held their persons or their power in such
reverence that he trembled to think of the harm and indignities he had
heaped upon one of them.

But my present business with him was of a different nature than that
which requires any considerable abstract reasoning; it was to get my
sword between his ribs, and this I succeeded in doing within the next
few seconds, nor was I an instant too soon.

The chained prisoners had been watching the combat in tense silence;
not a sound had fallen in the room other than the clashing of our
contending blades, the soft shuffling of our naked feet and the few
whispered words we had hissed at each other through clenched teeth the
while we continued our mortal duel.

But as the body of my antagonist sank an inert mass to the floor a cry
of warning broke from one of the female prisoners.

“Turn! Turn! Behind you!” she shrieked, and as I wheeled at the first
note of her shrill cry I found myself facing a second man of the same
race as he who lay at my feet.

The fellow had crept stealthily from a dark corridor and was almost
upon me with raised sword ere I saw him. Tars Tarkas was nowhere in
sight and the secret panel in the wall, through which I had come, was
closed.

How I wished that he were by my side now! I had fought almost
continuously for many hours; I had passed through such experiences and
adventures as must sap the vitality of man, and with all this I had not
eaten for nearly twenty-four hours, nor slept.

I was fagged out, and for the first time in years felt a question as to
my ability to cope with an antagonist; but there was naught else for it
than to engage my man, and that as quickly and ferociously as lay in
me, for my only salvation was to rush him off his feet by the
impetuosity of my attack—I could not hope to win a long-drawn-out
battle.

But the fellow was evidently of another mind, for he backed and parried
and parried and sidestepped until I was almost completely fagged from
the exertion of attempting to finish him.

He was a more adroit swordsman, if possible, than my previous foe, and
I must admit that he led me a pretty chase and in the end came near to
making a sorry fool of me—and a dead one into the bargain.

I could feel myself growing weaker and weaker, until at length objects
commenced to blur before my eyes and I staggered and blundered about
more asleep than awake, and then it was that he worked his pretty
little coup that came near to losing me my life.

He had backed me around so that I stood in front of the corpse of his
fellow, and then he rushed me suddenly so that I was forced back upon
it, and as my heel struck it the impetus of my body flung me backward
across the dead man.

My head struck the hard pavement with a resounding whack, and to that
alone I owe my life, for it cleared my brain and the pain roused my
temper, so that I was equal for the moment to tearing my enemy to
pieces with my bare hands, and I verily believe that I should have
attempted it had not my right hand, in the act of raising my body from
the ground, come in contact with a bit of cold metal.

As the eyes of the layman so is the hand of the fighting man when it
comes in contact with an implement of his vocation, and thus I did not
need to look or reason to know that the dead man’s revolver, lying
where it had fallen when I struck it from his grasp, was at my disposal.

The fellow whose ruse had put me down was springing toward me, the
point of his gleaming blade directed straight at my heart, and as he
came there rang from his lips the cruel and mocking peal of laughter
that I had heard within the Chamber of Mystery.

And so he died, his thin lips curled in the snarl of his hateful laugh,
and a bullet from the revolver of his dead companion bursting in his
heart.

His body, borne by the impetus of his headlong rush, plunged upon me.
The hilt of his sword must have struck my head, for with the impact of
the corpse I lost consciousness.

It was the sound of conflict that aroused me once more to the realities
of life. For a moment I could neither place my surroundings nor locate
the sounds which had aroused me. And then from beyond the blank wall
beside which I lay I heard the shuffling of feet, the snarling of grim
beasts, the clank of metal accoutrements, and the heavy breathing of a
man.

As I rose to my feet I glanced hurriedly about the chamber in which I
had just encountered such a warm reception. The prisoners and the
savage brutes rested in their chains by the opposite wall eyeing me
with varying expressions of curiosity, sullen rage, surprise, and hope.

The latter emotion seemed plainly evident upon the handsome and
intelligent face of the young red Martian woman whose cry of warning
had been instrumental in saving my life.

She was the perfect type of that remarkably beautiful race whose
outward appearance is identical with the more god-like races of Earth
men, except that this higher race of Martians is of a light reddish
copper colour. As she was entirely unadorned I could not even guess
her station in life, though it was evident that she was either a
prisoner or slave in her present environment.

It was several seconds before the sounds upon the opposite side of the
partition jolted my slowly returning faculties into a realization of
their probable import, and then of a sudden I grasped the fact that
they were caused by Tars Tarkas in what was evidently a desperate
struggle with wild beasts or savage men.

With a cry of encouragement I threw my weight against the secret door,
but as well have assayed the down-hurling of the cliffs themselves.
Then I sought feverishly for the secret of the revolving panel, but my
search was fruitless, and I was about to raise my longsword against the
sullen gold when the young woman prisoner called out to me.

“Save thy sword, O Mighty Warrior, for thou shalt need it more where it
will avail to some purpose—shatter it not against senseless metal
which yields better to the lightest finger touch of one who knows its
secret.”

“Know you the secret of it then?” I asked.

“Yes; release me and I will give you entrance to the other horror
chamber, if you wish. The keys to my fetters are upon the first dead
of thy foemen. But why would you return to face again the fierce
banth, or whatever other form of destruction they have loosed within
that awful trap?”