CHAPTER VI

THE BLACK PIRATES OF BARSOOM


"What is it?" I asked of the girl.

For answer she pointed to the sky.

I looked, and there, above us, I saw shadowy bodies flitting hither and
thither high over temple, court, and garden.

Almost immediately flashes of light broke from these strange objects.
There was a roar of musketry, and then answering flashes and roars from
temple and rampart.

"The black pirates of Barsoom, O Prince," said Thuvia.

In great circles the air craft of the marauders swept lower and lower
toward the defending forces of the therns.

Volley after volley they vomited upon the temple guards; volley on
volley crashed through the thin air toward the fleeting and illusive
fliers.

As the pirates swooped closer toward the ground, thern soldiery poured
from the temples into the gardens and courts.  The sight of them in the
open brought a score of fliers darting toward us from all directions.

The therns fired upon them through shields affixed to their rifles, but
on, steadily on, came the grim, black craft.  They were small fliers
for the most part, built for two to three men.  A few larger ones there
were, but these kept high aloft dropping bombs upon the temples from
their keel batteries.

At length, with a concerted rush, evidently in response to a signal of
command, the pirates in our immediate vicinity dashed recklessly to the
ground in the very midst of the thern soldiery.

Scarcely waiting for their craft to touch, the creatures manning them
leaped among the therns with the fury of demons.  Such fighting!  Never
had I witnessed its like before.  I had thought the green Martians the
most ferocious warriors in the universe, but the awful abandon with
which the black pirates threw themselves upon their foes transcended
everything I ever before had seen.

Beneath the brilliant light of Mars' two glorious moons the whole scene
presented itself in vivid distinctness.  The golden-haired,
white-skinned therns battling with desperate courage in hand-to-hand
conflict with their ebony-skinned foemen.

Here a little knot of struggling warriors trampled a bed of gorgeous
pimalia; there the curved sword of a black man found the heart of a
thern and left its dead foeman at the foot of a wondrous statue carved
from a living ruby; yonder a dozen therns pressed a single pirate back
upon a bench of emerald, upon whose iridescent surface a strangely
beautiful Barsoomian design was traced out in inlaid diamonds.

A little to one side stood Thuvia, the Thark, and I.  The tide of
battle had not reached us, but the fighters from time to time swung
close enough that we might distinctly note them.

The black pirates interested me immensely.  I had heard vague rumours,
little more than legends they were, during my former life on Mars; but
never had I seen them, nor talked with one who had.

They were popularly supposed to inhabit the lesser moon, from which
they descended upon Barsoom at long intervals.  Where they visited they
wrought the most horrible atrocities, and when they left carried away
with them firearms and ammunition, and young girls as prisoners.  These
latter, the rumour had it, they sacrificed to some terrible god in an
orgy which ended in the eating of their victims.

I had an excellent opportunity to examine them, as the strife
occasionally brought now one and now another close to where I stood.
They were large men, possibly six feet and over in height.  Their
features were clear cut and handsome in the extreme; their eyes were
well set and large, though a slight narrowness lent them a crafty
appearance; the iris, as well as I could determine by moonlight, was of
extreme blackness, while the eyeball itself was quite white and clear.
The physical structure of their bodies seemed identical with those of
the therns, the red men, and my own.  Only in the colour of their skin
did they differ materially from us; that is of the appearance of
polished ebony, and odd as it may seem for a Southerner to say it, adds
to rather than detracts from their marvellous beauty.

But if their bodies are divine, their hearts, apparently, are quite the
reverse.  Never did I witness such a malign lust for blood as these
demons of the outer air evinced in their mad battle with the therns.

All about us in the garden lay their sinister craft, which the therns
for some reason, then unaccountable to me, made no effort to injure.
Now and again a black warrior would rush from a nearby temple bearing
a young woman in his arms.  Straight for his flier he would leap while
those of his comrades who fought near by would rush to cover his escape.

The therns on their side would hasten to rescue the girl, and in an
instant the two would be swallowed in the vortex of a maelstrom of
yelling devils, hacking and hewing at one another, like fiends
incarnate.

But always, it seemed, were the black pirates of Barsoom victorious,
and the girl, brought miraculously unharmed through the conflict, borne
away into the outer darkness upon the deck of a swift flier.

Fighting similar to that which surrounded us could be heard in both
directions as far as sound carried, and Thuvia told me that the attacks
of the black pirates were usually made simultaneously along the entire
ribbon-like domain of the therns, which circles the Valley Dor on the
outer slopes of the Mountains of Otz.

As the fighting receded from our position for a moment, Thuvia turned
toward me with a question.

"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 insignificance.

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.




CHAPTER VII

A FAIR GODDESS


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 if 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.

Stealthily I approached the nearest sleeper.  When he awoke he was well
on his journey to the bosom of Korus.  His piercing shriek as
consciousness returned to him came faintly up to us from the black
depths beneath.

The second awoke as I touched him, and, though I succeeded in hurling
him from the cruiser's deck, his wild cry of alarm brought the
remaining pirates to their feet.  There were five of them.

As they arose the girl's revolver spoke in sharp staccato and one sank
back to the deck again to rise no more.

The others rushed madly upon me with drawn swords.  The girl evidently
dared not fire for fear of wounding me, but I saw her sneak stealthily
and cat-like toward the flank of the attackers.  Then they were on me.

For a few minutes I experienced some of the hottest fighting I had ever
passed through.  The quarters were too small for foot work.  It was
stand your ground and give and take.  At first I took considerably more
than I gave, but presently I got beneath one fellow's guard and had the
satisfaction of seeing him collapse upon the deck.

The others redoubled their efforts.  The crashing of their blades upon
mine raised a terrific din that might have been heard for miles through
the silent night.  Sparks flew as steel smote steel, and then there was
the dull and sickening sound of a shoulder bone parting beneath the
keen edge of my Martian sword.

Three now faced me, but the girl was working her way to a point that
would soon permit her to reduce the number by one at least.  Then
things happened with such amazing rapidity that I can scarce comprehend
even now all that took place in that brief instant.

The three rushed me with the evident purpose of forcing me back the few
steps that would carry my body over the rail into the void below.  At
the same instant the girl fired and my sword arm made two moves.  One
man dropped with a bullet in his brain; a sword flew clattering across
the deck and dropped over the edge beyond as I disarmed one of my
opponents and the third went down with my blade buried to the hilt in
his breast and three feet of it protruding from his back, and falling
wrenched the sword from my grasp.

Disarmed myself, I now faced my remaining foeman, whose own sword lay
somewhere thousands of feet below us, lost in the Lost Sea.

The new conditions seemed to please my adversary, for a smile of
satisfaction bared his gleaming teeth as he rushed at me bare-handed.
The great muscles which rolled beneath his glossy black hide evidently
assured him that here was easy prey, not worth the trouble of drawing
the dagger from his harness.

I let him come almost upon me.  Then I ducked beneath his outstretched
arms, at the same time sidestepping to the right.  Pivoting on my left
toe, I swung a terrific right to his jaw, and, like a felled ox, he
dropped in his tracks.

A low, silvery laugh rang out behind me.

"You are no thern," said the sweet voice of my companion, "for all your
golden locks or the harness of Sator Throg.  Never lived there upon all
Barsoom before one who could fight as you have fought this night.  Who
are you?"

"I am John Carter, Prince of the House of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of
Helium," I replied.  "And whom," I added, "has the honour of serving
been accorded me?"

She hesitated a moment before speaking.  Then she asked:

"You are no thern.  Are you an enemy of the therns?"

"I have been in the territory of the therns for a day and a half.
During that entire time my life has been in constant danger.  I have
been harassed and persecuted.  Armed men and fierce beasts have been
set upon me.  I had no quarrel with the therns before, but can you
wonder that I feel no great love for them now?  I have spoken."

She looked at me intently for several minutes before she replied.  It
was as though she were attempting to read my inmost soul, to judge my
character and my standards of chivalry in that long-drawn, searching
gaze.

Apparently the inventory satisfied her.

"I am Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang, Holy Hekkador of the Holy
Therns, Father of Therns, Master of Life and Death upon Barsoom,
Brother of Issus, Prince of Life Eternal."

At that moment I noticed that the black I had dropped with my fist was
commencing to show signs of returning consciousness.  I sprang to his
side.  Stripping his harness from him I securely bound his hands behind
his back, and after similarly fastening his feet tied him to a heavy
gun carriage.

"Why not the simpler way?" asked Phaidor.

"I do not understand.  What 'simpler way'?" I replied.

With a slight shrug of her lovely shoulders she made a gesture with her
hands personating the casting of something over the craft's side.

"I am no murderer," I said.  "I kill in self-defence only."

She looked at me narrowly.  Then she puckered those divine brows of
hers, and shook her head.  She could not comprehend.

Well, neither had my own Dejah Thoris been able to understand what to
her had seemed a foolish and dangerous policy toward enemies.  Upon
Barsoom, quarter is neither asked nor given, and each dead man means so
much more of the waning resources of this dying planet to be divided
amongst those who survive.

But there seemed a subtle difference here between the manner in which
this girl contemplated the dispatching of an enemy and the
tender-hearted regret of my own princess for the stern necessity which
demanded it.

I think that Phaidor regretted the thrill that the spectacle would have
afforded her rather than the fact that my decision left another enemy
alive to threaten us.

The man had now regained full possession of his faculties, and was
regarding us intently from where he lay bound upon the deck.  He was a
handsome fellow, clean limbed and powerful, with an intelligent face
and features of such exquisite chiselling that Adonis himself might
have envied him.

The vessel, unguided, had been moving slowly across the valley; but now
I thought it time to take the helm and direct her course.  Only in a
very general way could I guess the location of the Valley Dor.  That it
was far south of the equator was evident from the constellations, but I
was not sufficiently a Martian astronomer to come much closer than a
rough guess without the splendid charts and delicate instruments with
which, as an officer in the Heliumite Navy, I had formerly reckoned the
positions of the vessels on which I sailed.

That a northerly course would quickest lead me toward the more settled
portions of the planet immediately decided the direction that I should
steer.  Beneath my hand the cruiser swung gracefully about.  Then the
button which controlled the repulsive rays sent us soaring far out into
space.  With speed lever pulled to the last notch, we raced toward the
north as we rose ever farther and farther above that terrible valley of
death.

As we passed at a dizzy height over the narrow domains of the therns
the flash of powder far below bore mute witness to the ferocity of the
battle that still raged along that cruel frontier.  No sound of
conflict reached our ears, for in the rarefied atmosphere of our great
altitude no sound wave could penetrate; they were dissipated in thin
air far below us.

It became intensely cold.  Breathing was difficult.  The girl, Phaidor,
and the black pirate kept their eyes glued upon me.  At length the girl
spoke.

"Unconsciousness comes quickly at this altitude," she said quietly.
"Unless you are inviting death for us all you had best drop, and that
quickly."

There was no fear in her voice.  It was as one might say: "You had
better carry an umbrella.  It is going to rain."

I dropped the vessel quickly to a lower level.  Nor was I a moment too
soon.  The girl had swooned.

The black, too, was unconscious, while I, myself, retained my senses, I
think, only by sheer will.  The one on whom all responsibility rests is
apt to endure the most.

We were swinging along low above the foothills of the Otz.  It was
comparatively warm and there was plenty of air for our starved lungs,
so I was not surprised to see the black open his eyes, and a moment
later the girl also.

"It was a close call," she said.

"It has taught me two things though," I replied.

"What?"

"That even Phaidor, daughter of the Master of Life and Death, is
mortal," I said smiling.

"There is immortality only in Issus," she replied.  "And Issus is for
the race of therns alone.  Thus am I immortal."

I caught a fleeting grin passing across the features of the black as he
heard her words.  I did not then understand why he smiled.  Later I was
to learn, and she, too, in a most horrible manner.

"If the other thing you have just learned," she continued, "has led to
as erroneous deductions as the first you are little richer in knowledge
than you were before."

"The other," I replied, "is that our dusky friend here does not hail
from the nearer moon--he was like to have died at a few thousand feet
above Barsoom.  Had we continued the five thousand miles that lie
between Thuria and the planet he would have been but the frozen memory
of a man."

Phaidor looked at the black in evident astonishment.

"If you are not of Thuria, then where?" she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders and turned his eyes elsewhere, but did not
reply.

The girl stamped her little foot in a peremptory manner.

"The daughter of Matai Shang is not accustomed to having her queries
remain unanswered," she said.  "One of the lesser breed should feel
honoured that a member of the holy race that was born to inherit life
eternal should deign even to notice him."

Again the black smiled that wicked, knowing smile.

"Xodar, Dator of the First Born of Barsoom, is accustomed to give
commands, not to receive them," replied the black pirate.  Then,
turning to me, "What are your intentions concerning me?"

"I intend taking you both back to Helium," I said.  "No harm will come
to you.  You will find the red men of Helium a kindly and magnanimous
race, but if they listen to me there will be no more voluntary
pilgrimages down the river Iss, and the impossible belief that they
have cherished for ages will be shattered into a thousand pieces."

"Are you of Helium?" he asked.

"I am a Prince of the House of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium," I
replied, "but I am not of Barsoom.  I am of another world."

Xodar looked at me intently for a few moments.

"I can well believe that you are not of Barsoom," he said at length.
"None of this world could have bested eight of the First Born
single-handed.  But how is it that you wear the golden hair and the
jewelled circlet of a Holy Thern?"  He emphasized the word holy with a
touch of irony.

"I had forgotten them," I said.  "They are the spoils of conquest," and
with a sweep of my hand I removed the disguise from my head.

When the black's eyes fell on my close-cropped black hair they opened
in astonishment.  Evidently he had looked for the bald pate of a thern.

"You are indeed of another world," he said, a touch of awe in his
voice.  "With the skin of a thern, the black hair of a First Born and
the muscles of a dozen Dators it was no disgrace even for Xodar to
acknowledge your supremacy.  A thing he could never do were you a
Barsoomian," he added.

"You are travelling several laps ahead of me, my friend," I
interrupted.  "I glean that your name is Xodar, but whom, pray, are the
First Born, and what a Dator, and why, if you were conquered by a
Barsoomian, could you not acknowledge it?"

"The First Born of Barsoom," he explained, "are the race of black men
of which I am a Dator, or, as the lesser Barsoomians would say, Prince.
My race is the oldest on the planet.  We trace our lineage, unbroken,
direct to the Tree of Life which flourished in the centre of the Valley
Dor twenty-three million years ago.

"For countless ages the fruit of this tree underwent the gradual
changes of evolution, passing by degrees from true plant life to a
combination of plant and animal.  In the first stages the fruit of the
tree possessed only the power of independent muscular action, while the
stem remained attached to the parent plant; later a brain developed in
the fruit, so that hanging there by their long stems they thought and
moved as individuals.

"Then, with the development of perceptions came a comparison of them;
judgments were reached and compared, and thus reason and the power to
reason were born upon Barsoom.

"Ages passed.  Many forms of life came and went upon the Tree of Life,
but still all were attached to the parent plant by stems of varying
lengths.  At length the fruit tree consisted in tiny plant men, such as
we now see reproduced in such huge dimensions in the Valley Dor, but
still hanging to the limbs and branches of the tree by the stems which
grew from the tops of their heads.

"The buds from which the plant men blossomed resembled large nuts about
a foot in diameter, divided by double partition walls into four
sections.  In one section grew the plant man, in another a
sixteen-legged worm, in the third the progenitor of the white ape and
in the fourth the primaeval black man of Barsoom.

"When the bud burst the plant man remained dangling at the end of his
stem, but the three other sections fell to the ground, where the
efforts of their imprisoned occupants to escape sent them hopping about
in all directions.

"Thus as time went on, all Barsoom was covered with these imprisoned
creatures.  For countless ages they lived their long lives within their
hard shells, hopping and skipping about the broad planet; falling into
rivers, lakes, and seas, to be still further spread about the surface
of the new world.

"Countless billions died before the first black man broke through his
prison walls into the light of day.  Prompted by curiosity, he broke
open other shells and the peopling of Barsoom commenced.

"The pure strain of the blood of this first black man has remained
untainted by admixture with other creatures in the race of which I am a
member; but from the sixteen-legged worm, the first ape and renegade
black man has sprung every other form of animal life upon Barsoom.

"The therns," and he smiled maliciously as he spoke, "are but the
result of ages of evolution from the pure white ape of antiquity.  They
are a lower order still.  There is but one race of true and immortal
humans on Barsoom.  It is the race of black men.

"The Tree of Life is dead, but before it died the plant men learned to
detach themselves from it and roam the face of Barsoom with the other
children of the First Parent.

"Now their bisexuality permits them to reproduce themselves after the
manner of true plants, but otherwise they have progressed but little in
all the ages of their existence.  Their actions and movements are
largely matters of instinct and not guided to any great extent by
reason, since the brain of a plant man is but a trifle larger than the
end of your smallest finger.  They live upon vegetation and the blood
of animals, and their brain is just large enough to direct their
movements in the direction of food, and to translate the food
sensations which are carried to it from their eyes and ears.  They have
no sense of self-preservation and so are entirely without fear in the
face of danger.  That is why they are such terrible antagonists in
combat."

I wondered why the black man took such pains to discourse thus at
length to enemies upon the genesis of life Barsoomian.  It seemed a
strangely inopportune moment for a proud member of a proud race to
unbend in casual conversation with a captor.  Especially in view of the
fact that the black still lay securely bound upon the deck.

It was the faintest straying of his eye beyond me for the barest
fraction of a second that explained his motive for thus dragging out my
interest in his truly absorbing story.

He lay a little forward of where I stood at the levers, and thus he
faced the stern of the vessel as he addressed me.  It was at the end of
his description of the plant men that I caught his eye fixed
momentarily upon something behind me.

Nor could I be mistaken in the swift gleam of triumph that brightened
those dark orbs for an instant.

Some time before I had reduced our speed, for we had left the Valley
Dor many miles astern, and I felt comparatively safe.

I turned an apprehensive glance behind me, and the sight that I saw
froze the new-born hope of freedom that had been springing up within me.

A great battleship, forging silent and unlighted through the dark
night, loomed close astern.




CHAPTER VIII

THE DEPTHS OF OMEAN


Now I realized why the black pirate had kept me engrossed with his
strange tale.  For miles he had sensed the approach of succour, and but
for that single tell-tale glance the battleship would have been
directly above us in another moment, and the boarding party which was
doubtless even now swinging in their harness from the ship's keel,
would have swarmed our deck, placing my rising hope of escape in sudden
and total eclipse.

I was too old a hand in aerial warfare to be at a loss now for the
right manoeuvre.  Simultaneously I reversed the engines and dropped the
little vessel a sheer hundred feet.

Above my head I could see the dangling forms of the boarding party as
the battleship raced over us.  Then I rose at a sharp angle, throwing
my speed lever to its last notch.

Like a bolt from a crossbow my splendid craft shot its steel prow
straight at the whirring propellers of the giant above us.  If I could
but touch them the huge bulk would be disabled for hours and escape
once more possible.

At the same instant the sun shot above the horizon, disclosing a
hundred grim, black faces peering over the stern of the battleship upon
us.

At sight of us a shout of rage went up from a hundred throats.  Orders
were shouted, but it was too late to save the giant propellers, and
with a crash we rammed them.

Instantly with the shock of impact I reversed my engine, but my prow
was wedged in the hole it had made in the battleship's stern.  Only a
second I hung there before tearing away, but that second was amply long
to swarm my deck with black devils.

There was no fight.  In the first place there was no room to fight.  We
were simply submerged by numbers.  Then as swords menaced me a command
from Xodar stayed the hands of his fellows.

"Secure them," he said, "but do not injure them."

Several of the pirates already had released Xodar.  He now personally
attended to my disarming and saw that I was properly bound.  At least
he thought that the binding was secure.  It would have been had I been
a Martian, but I had to smile at the puny strands that confined my
wrists.  When the time came I could snap them as they had been cotton
string.

The girl they bound also, and then they fastened us together.  In the
meantime they had brought our craft alongside the disabled battleship,
and soon we were transported to the latter's deck.

Fully a thousand black men manned the great engine of destruction.  Her
decks were crowded with them as they pressed forward as far as
discipline would permit to get a glimpse of their captives.

The girl's beauty elicited many brutal comments and vulgar jests.  It
was evident that these self-thought supermen were far inferior to the
red men of Barsoom in refinement and in chivalry.

My close-cropped black hair and thern complexion were the subjects of
much comment.  When Xodar told his fellow nobles of my fighting ability
and strange origin they crowded about me with numerous questions.

The fact that I wore the harness and metal of a thern who had been
killed by a member of my party convinced them that I was an enemy of
their hereditary foes, and placed me on a better footing in their
estimation.

Without exception the blacks were handsome men, and well built.  The
officers were conspicuous through the wondrous magnificence of their
resplendent trappings.  Many harnesses were so encrusted with gold,
platinum, silver and precious stones as to entirely hide the leather
beneath.

The harness of the commanding officer was a solid mass of diamonds.
Against the ebony background of his skin they blazed out with a
peculiarly accentuated effulgence.  The whole scene was enchanting.
The handsome men; the barbaric splendour of the accoutrements; the
polished skeel wood of the deck; the gloriously grained sorapus of the
cabins, inlaid with priceless jewels and precious metals in intricate
and beautiful design; the burnished gold of hand rails; the shining
metal of the guns.

Phaidor and I were taken below decks, where, still fast bound, we were
thrown into a small compartment which contained a single port-hole.  As
our escort left us they barred the door behind them.

We could hear the men working on the broken propellers, and from the
port-hole we could see that the vessel was drifting lazily toward the
south.

For some time neither of us spoke.  Each was occupied with his own
thoughts.  For my part I was wondering as to the fate of Tars Tarkas
and the girl, Thuvia.

Even if they succeeded in eluding pursuit they must eventually fall
into the hands of either red men or green, and as fugitives from the
Valley Dor they could look for but little else than a swift and
terrible death.

How I wished that I might have accompanied them.  It seemed to me that
I could not fail to impress upon the intelligent red men of Barsoom the
wicked deception that a cruel and senseless superstition had foisted
upon them.

Tardos Mors would believe me.  Of that I was positive.  And that he
would have the courage of his convictions my knowledge of his character
assured me.  Dejah Thoris would believe me.  Not a doubt as to that
entered my head.  Then there were a thousand of my red and green
warrior friends whom I knew would face eternal damnation gladly for my
sake.  Like Tars Tarkas, where I led they would follow.

My only danger lay in that should I ever escape the black pirates it
might be to fall into the hands of unfriendly red or green men.  Then
it would mean short shrift for me.

Well, there seemed little to worry about on that score, for the
likelihood of my ever escaping the blacks was extremely remote.

The girl and I were linked together by a rope which permitted us to
move only about three or four feet from each other.  When we had
entered the compartment we had seated ourselves upon a low bench
beneath the porthole.  The bench was the only furniture of the room.
It was of sorapus wood.  The floor, ceiling and walls were of
carborundum aluminum, a light, impenetrable composition extensively
utilized in the construction of Martian fighting ships.

As I had sat meditating upon the future my eyes had been riveted upon
the port-hole which was just level with them as I sat.  Suddenly I
looked toward Phaidor.  She was regarding me with a strange expression
I had not before seen upon her face.  She was very beautiful then.

Instantly her white lids veiled her eyes, and I thought I discovered a
delicate flush tingeing her cheek.  Evidently she was embarrassed at
having been detected in the act of staring at a lesser creature, I
thought.

"Do you find the study of the lower orders interesting?" I asked,
laughing.

She looked up again with a nervous but relieved little laugh.

"Oh very," she said, "especially when they have such excellent
profiles."

It was my turn to flush, but I did not.  I felt that she was poking fun
at me, and I admired a brave heart that could look for humour on the
road to death, and so I laughed with her.

"Do you know where we are going?" she said.

"To solve the mystery of the eternal hereafter, I imagine," I replied.

"I am going to a worse fate than that," she said, with a little shudder.

"What do you mean?"

"I can only guess," she replied, "since no thern damsel of all the
millions that have been stolen away by black pirates during the ages
they have raided our domains has ever returned to narrate her
experiences among them.  That they never take a man prisoner lends
strength to the belief that the fate of the girls they steal is worse
than death."

"Is it not a just retribution?" I could not help but ask.

"What do you mean?"

"Do not the therns themselves do likewise with the poor creatures who
take the voluntary pilgrimage down the River of Mystery?  Was not
Thuvia for fifteen years a plaything and a slave?  Is it less than just
that you should suffer as you have caused others to suffer?"

"You do not understand," she replied.  "We therns are a holy race.  It
is an honour to a lesser creature to be a slave among us.  Did we not
occasionally save a few of the lower orders that stupidly float down an
unknown river to an unknown end all would become the prey of the plant
men and the apes."

"But do you not by every means encourage the superstition among those
of the outside world?" I argued.  "That is the wickedest of your deeds.
Can you tell me why you foster the cruel deception?"

"All life on Barsoom," she said, "is created solely for the support of
the race of therns.  How else could we live did the outer world not
furnish our labour and our food?  Think you that a thern would demean
himself by labour?"

"It is true then that you eat human flesh?" I asked in horror.

She looked at me in pitying commiseration for my ignorance.

"Truly we eat the flesh of the lower orders.  Do not you also?"

"The flesh of beasts, yes," I replied, "but not the flesh of man."

"As man may eat of the flesh of beasts, so may gods eat of the flesh of
man.  The Holy Therns are the gods of Barsoom."

I was disgusted and I imagine that I showed it.

"You are an unbeliever now," she continued gently, "but should we be
fortunate enough to escape the clutches of the black pirates and come
again to the court of Matai Shang I think that we shall find an
argument to convince you of the error of your ways.  And--," she
hesitated, "perhaps we shall find a way to keep you as--as--one of us."

Again her eyes dropped to the floor, and a faint colour suffused her
cheek.  I could not understand her meaning; nor did I for a long time.
Dejah Thoris was wont to say that in some things I was a veritable
simpleton, and I guess that she was right.

"I fear that I would ill requite your father's hospitality," I
answered, "since the first thing that I should do were I a thern would
be to set an armed guard at the mouth of the River Iss to escort the
poor deluded voyagers back to the outer world.  Also should I devote my
life to the extermination of the hideous plant men and their horrible
companions, the great white apes."

She looked at me really horror struck.

"No, no," she cried, "you must not say such terribly sacrilegious
things--you must not even think them.  Should they ever guess that you
entertained such frightful thoughts, should we chance to regain the
temples of the therns, they would mete out a frightful death to you.
Not even my--my--"  Again she flushed, and started over.  "Not even I
could save you."

I said no more.  Evidently it was useless.  She was even more steeped
in superstition than the Martians of the outer world.  They only
worshipped a beautiful hope for a life of love and peace and happiness
in the hereafter.  The therns worshipped the hideous plant men and the
apes, or at least they reverenced them as the abodes of the departed
spirits of their own dead.

At this point the door of our prison opened to admit Xodar.

He smiled pleasantly at me, and when he smiled his expression was
kindly--anything but cruel or vindictive.

"Since you cannot escape under any circumstances," he said, "I cannot
see the necessity for keeping you confined below.  I will cut your
bonds and you may come on deck.  You will witness something very
interesting, and as you never shall return to the outer world it will
do no harm to permit you to see it.  You will see what no other than
the First Born and their slaves know the existence of--the subterranean
entrance to the Holy Land, to the real heaven of Barsoom.

"It will be an excellent lesson for this daughter of the therns," he
added, "for she shall see the Temple of Issus, and Issus, perchance,
shall embrace her."

Phaidor's head went high.

"What blasphemy is this, dog of a pirate?" she cried.  "Issus would
wipe out your entire breed an' you ever came within sight of her
temple."

"You have much to learn, thern," replied Xodar, with an ugly smile,
"nor do I envy you the manner in which you will learn it."

As we came on deck I saw to my surprise that the vessel was passing
over a great field of snow and ice.  As far as the eye could reach in
any direction naught else was visible.

There could be but one solution to the mystery.  We were above the
south polar ice cap.  Only at the poles of Mars is there ice or snow
upon the planet.  No sign of life appeared below us.  Evidently we were
too far south even for the great fur-bearing animals which the Martians
so delight in hunting.

Xodar was at my side as I stood looking out over the ship's rail.

"What course?" I asked him.

"A little west of south," he replied.  "You will see the Otz Valley
directly.  We shall skirt it for a few hundred miles."

"The Otz Valley!" I exclaimed; "but, man, is not there where lie the
domains of the therns from which I but just escaped?"

"Yes," answered Xodar.  "You crossed this ice field last night in the
long chase that you led us.  The Otz Valley lies in a mighty depression
at the south pole.  It is sunk thousands of feet below the level of the
surrounding country, like a great round bowl.  A hundred miles from its
northern boundary rise the Otz Mountains which circle the inner Valley
of Dor, in the exact centre of which lies the Lost Sea of Korus.  On
the shore of this sea stands the Golden Temple of Issus in the Land of
the First Born.  It is there that we are bound."

As I looked I commenced to realize why it was that in all the ages only
one had escaped from the Valley Dor.  My only wonder was that even the
one had been successful.  To cross this frozen, wind-swept waste of
bleak ice alone and on foot would be impossible.

"Only by air boat could the journey be made," I finished aloud.

"It was thus that one did escape the therns in bygone times; but none
has ever escaped the First Born," said Xodar, with a touch of pride in
his voice.

We had now reached the southernmost extremity of the great ice barrier.
It ended abruptly in a sheer wall thousands of feet high at the base of
which stretched a level valley, broken here and there by low rolling
hills and little clumps of forest, and with tiny rivers formed by the
melting of the ice barrier at its base.

Once we passed far above what seemed to be a deep canyon-like rift
stretching from the ice wall on the north across the valley as far as
the eye could reach.  "That is the bed of the River Iss," said Xodar.
"It runs far beneath the ice field, and below the level of the Valley
Otz, but its canyon is open here."

Presently I descried what I took to be a village, and pointing it out
to Xodar asked him what it might be.

"It is a village of lost souls," he answered, laughing.  "This strip
between the ice barrier and the mountains is considered neutral ground.
Some turn off from their voluntary pilgrimage down the Iss, and,
scaling the awful walls of its canyon below us, stop in the valley.
Also a slave now and then escapes from the therns and makes his way
hither.

"They do not attempt to recapture such, since there is no escape from
this outer valley, and as a matter of fact they fear the patrolling
cruisers of the First Born too much to venture from their own domains.

"The poor creatures of this outer valley are not molested by us since
they have nothing that we desire, nor are they numerically strong
enough to give us an interesting fight--so we too leave them alone.

"There are several villages of them, but they have increased in numbers
but little in many years since they are always warring among
themselves."

Now we swung a little north of west, leaving the valley of lost souls,
and shortly I discerned over our starboard bow what appeared to be a
black mountain rising from the desolate waste of ice.  It was not high
and seemed to have a flat top.

Xodar had left us to attend to some duty on the vessel, and Phaidor and
I stood alone beside the rail.  The girl had not once spoken since we
had been brought to the deck.

"Is what he has been telling me true?" I asked her.

"In part, yes," she answered.  "That about the outer valley is true,
but what he says of the location of the Temple of Issus in the centre
of his country is false.  If it is not false--" she hesitated.  "Oh it
cannot be true, it cannot be true.  For if it were true then for
countless ages have my people gone to torture and ignominious death at
the hands of their cruel enemies, instead of to the beautiful Life
Eternal that we have been taught to believe Issus holds for us."

"As the lesser Barsoomians of the outer world have been lured by you to
the terrible Valley Dor, so may it be that the therns themselves have
been lured by the First Born to an equally horrid fate," I suggested.
"It would be a stern and awful retribution, Phaidor; but a just one."

"I cannot believe it," she said.

"We shall see," I answered, and then we fell silent again for we were
rapidly approaching the black mountains, which in some indefinable way
seemed linked with the answer to our problem.

As we neared the dark, truncated cone the vessel's speed was diminished
until we barely moved.  Then we topped the crest of the mountain and
below us I saw yawning the mouth of a huge circular well, the bottom of
which was lost in inky blackness.

The diameter of this enormous pit was fully a thousand feet.  The walls
were smooth and appeared to be composed of a black, basaltic rock.

For a moment the vessel hovered motionless directly above the centre of
the gaping void, then slowly she began to settle into the black chasm.
Lower and lower she sank until as darkness enveloped us her lights were
thrown on and in the dim halo of her own radiance the monster
battleship dropped on and on down into what seemed to me must be the
very bowels of Barsoom.

For quite half an hour we descended and then the shaft terminated
abruptly in the dome of a mighty subterranean world.  Below us rose and
fell the billows of a buried sea.  A phosphorescent radiance
illuminated the scene.  Thousands of ships dotted the bosom of the
ocean.  Little islands rose here and there to support the strange and
colourless vegetation of this strange world.

Slowly and with majestic grace the battleship dropped until she rested
on the water.  Her great propellers had been drawn and housed during
our descent of the shaft and in their place had been run out the
smaller but more powerful water propellers.  As these commenced to
revolve the ship took up its journey once more, riding the new element
as buoyantly and as safely as she had the air.

Phaidor and I were dumbfounded.  Neither had either heard or dreamed
that such a world existed beneath the surface of Barsoom.

Nearly all the vessels we saw were war craft.  There were a few
lighters and barges, but none of the great merchantmen such as ply the
upper air between the cities of the outer world.

"Here is the harbour of the navy of the First Born," said a voice
behind us, and turning we saw Xodar watching us with an amused smile on
his lips.

"This sea," he continued, "is larger than Korus.  It receives the
waters of the lesser sea above it.  To keep it from filling above a
certain level we have four great pumping stations that force the
oversupply back into the reservoirs far north from which the red men
draw the water which irrigates their farm lands."

A new light burst on me with this explanation.  The red men had always
considered it a miracle that caused great columns of water to spurt
from the solid rock of their reservoir sides to increase the supply of
the precious liquid which is so scarce in the outer world of Mars.

Never had their learned men been able to fathom the secret of the
source of this enormous volume of water.  As ages passed they had
simply come to accept it as a matter of course and ceased to question
its origin.

We passed several islands on which were strangely shaped circular
buildings, apparently roofless, and pierced midway between the ground
and their tops with small, heavily barred windows.  They bore the
earmarks of prisons, which were further accentuated by the armed guards
who squatted on low benches without, or patrolled the short beach lines.

Few of these islets contained over an acre of ground, but presently we
sighted a much larger one directly ahead.  This proved to be our
destination, and the great ship was soon made fast against the steep
shore.

Xodar signalled us to follow him and with a half-dozen officers and men
we left the battleship and approached a large oval structure a couple
of hundred yards from the shore.

"You shall soon see Issus," said Xodar to Phaidor.  "The few prisoners
we take are presented to her.  Occasionally she selects slaves from
among them to replenish the ranks of her handmaidens.  None serves
Issus above a single year," and there was a grim smile on the black's
lips that lent a cruel and sinister meaning to his simple statement.

Phaidor, though loath to believe that Issus was allied to such as
these, had commenced to entertain doubts and fears.  She clung very
closely to me, no longer the proud daughter of the Master of Life and
Death upon Barsoom, but a young and frightened girl in the power of
relentless enemies.

The building which we now entered was entirely roofless.  In its centre
was a long tank of water, set below the level of the floor like the
swimming pool of a natatorium.  Near one side of the pool floated an
odd-looking black object.  Whether it were some strange monster of
these buried waters, or a queer raft, I could not at once perceive.

We were soon to know, however, for as we reached the edge of the pool
directly above the thing, Xodar cried out a few words in a strange
tongue.  Immediately a hatch cover was raised from the surface of the
object, and a black seaman sprang from the bowels of the strange craft.

Xodar addressed the seaman.

"Transmit to your officer," he said, "the commands of Dator Xodar.  Say
to him that Dator Xodar, with officers and men, escorting two
prisoners, would be transported to the gardens of Issus beside the
Golden Temple."

"Blessed be the shell of thy first ancestor, most noble Dator," replied
the man.  "It shall be done even as thou sayest," and raising both
hands, palms backward, above his head after the manner of salute which
is common to all races of Barsoom, he disappeared once more into the
entrails of his ship.

A moment later an officer resplendent in the gorgeous trappings of his
rank appeared on deck and welcomed Xodar to the vessel, and in the
latter's wake we filed aboard and below.

The cabin in which we found ourselves extended entirely across the
ship, having port-holes on either side below the water line.  No sooner
were all below than a number of commands were given, in accordance with
which the hatch was closed and secured, and the vessel commenced to
vibrate to the rhythmic purr of its machinery.

"Where can we be going in such a tiny pool of water?" asked Phaidor.

"Not up," I replied, "for I noticed particularly that while the
building is roofless it is covered with a strong metal grating."

"Then where?" she asked again.

"From the appearance of the craft I judge we are going down," I replied.

Phaidor shuddered.  For such long ages have the waters of Barsoom's
seas been a thing of tradition only that even this daughter of the
therns, born as she had been within sight of Mars' only remaining sea,
had the same terror of deep water as is a common attribute of all
Martians.

Presently the sensation of sinking became very apparent.  We were going
down swiftly.  Now we could hear the water rushing past the port-holes,
and in the dim light that filtered through them to the water beyond the
swirling eddies were plainly visible.

Phaidor grasped my arm.

"Save me!" she whispered.  "Save me and your every wish shall be
granted.  Anything within the power of the Holy Therns to give will be
yours.  Phaidor--" she stumbled a little here, and then in a very low
voice, "Phaidor already is yours."

I felt very sorry for the poor child, and placed my hand over hers
where it rested on my arm.  I presume my motive was misunderstood, for
with a swift glance about the apartment to assure herself that we were
alone, she threw both her arms about my neck and dragged my face down
to hers.




CHAPTER IX

ISSUS, GODDESS OF LIFE ETERNAL


The confession of love which the girl's fright had wrung from her
touched me deeply; but it humiliated me as well, since I felt that in
some thoughtless word or act I had given her reason to believe that I
reciprocated her affection.

Never have I been much of a ladies' man, being more concerned with
fighting and kindred arts which have ever seemed to me more befitting a
man than mooning over a scented glove four sizes too small for him, or
kissing a dead flower that has begun to smell like a cabbage.  So I was
quite at a loss as to what to do or say.  A thousand times rather face
the wild hordes of the dead sea bottoms than meet the eyes of this
beautiful young girl and tell her the thing that I must tell her.

But there was nothing else to be done, and so I did it.  Very clumsily
too, I fear.

Gently I unclasped her hands from about my neck, and still holding them
in mine I told her the story of my love for Dejah Thoris.  That of all
the women of two worlds that I had known and admired during my long
life she alone had I loved.

The tale did not seem to please her.  Like a tigress she sprang,
panting, to her feet.  Her beautiful face was distorted in an
expression of horrible malevolence.  Her eyes fairly blazed into mine.

"Dog," she hissed.  "Dog of a blasphemer!  Think you that Phaidor,
daughter of Matai Shang, supplicates?  She commands.  What to her is
your puny outer world passion for the vile creature you chose in your
other life?

"Phaidor has glorified you with her love, and you have spurned her.
Ten thousand unthinkably atrocious deaths could not atone for the
affront that you have put upon me.  The thing that you call Dejah
Thoris shall die the most horrible of them all.  You have sealed the
warrant for her doom.

"And you!  You shall be the meanest slave in the service of the goddess
you have attempted to humiliate.  Tortures and ignominies shall be
heaped upon you until you grovel at my feet asking the boon of death.

"In my gracious generosity I shall at length grant your prayer, and
from the high balcony of the Golden Cliffs I shall watch the great
white apes tear you asunder."

She had it all fixed up.  The whole lovely programme from start to
finish.  It amazed me to think that one so divinely beautiful could at
the same time be so fiendishly vindictive.  It occurred to me, however,
that she had overlooked one little factor in her revenge, and so,
without any intent to add to her discomfiture, but rather to permit her
to rearrange her plans along more practical lines, I pointed to the
nearest port-hole.

Evidently she had entirely forgotten her surroundings and her present
circumstances, for a single glance at the dark, swirling waters without
sent her crumpled upon a low bench, where with her face buried in her
arms she sobbed more like a very unhappy little girl than a proud and
all-powerful goddess.

Down, down we continued to sink until the heavy glass of the port-holes
became noticeably warm from the heat of the water without.  Evidently
we were very far beneath the surface crust of Mars.

Presently our downward motion ceased, and I could hear the propellers
swirling through the water at our stern and forcing us ahead at high
speed.  It was very dark down there, but the light from our port-holes,
and the reflection from what must have been a powerful searchlight on
the submarine's nose showed that we were forging through a narrow
passage, rock-lined, and tube-like.

After a few minutes the propellers ceased their whirring.  We came to a
full stop, and then commenced to rise swiftly toward the surface.  Soon
the light from without increased and we came to a stop.

Xodar entered the cabin with his men.

"Come," he said, and we followed him through the hatchway which had
been opened by one of the seamen.

We found ourselves in a small subterranean vault, in the centre of
which was the pool in which lay our submarine, floating as we had first
seen her with only her black back showing.

Around the edge of the pool was a level platform, and then the walls of
the cave rose perpendicularly for a few feet to arch toward the centre
of the low roof.  The walls about the ledge were pierced with a number
of entrances to dimly lighted passageways.

Toward one of these our captors led us, and after a short walk halted
before a steel cage which lay at the bottom of a shaft rising above us
as far as one could see.

The cage proved to be one of the common types of elevator cars that I
had seen in other parts of Barsoom.  They are operated by means of
enormous magnets which are suspended at the top of the shaft.  By an
electrical device the volume of magnetism generated is regulated and
the speed of the car varied.

In long stretches they move at a sickening speed, especially on the
upward trip, since the small force of gravity inherent to Mars results
in very little opposition to the powerful force above.

Scarcely had the door of the car closed behind us than we were slowing
up to stop at the landing above, so rapid was our ascent of the long
shaft.

When we emerged from the little building which houses the upper
terminus of the elevator, we found ourselves in the midst of a
veritable fairyland of beauty.  The combined languages of Earth men
hold no words to convey to the mind the gorgeous beauties of the scene.

One may speak of scarlet sward and ivory-stemmed trees decked with
brilliant purple blooms; of winding walks paved with crushed rubies,
with emerald, with turquoise, even with diamonds themselves; of a
magnificent temple of burnished gold, hand-wrought with marvellous
designs; but where are the words to describe the glorious colours that
are unknown to earthly eyes? where the mind or the imagination that can
grasp the gorgeous scintillations of unheard-of rays as they emanate
from the thousand nameless jewels of Barsoom?

Even my eyes, for long years accustomed to the barbaric splendours of a
Martian Jeddak's court, were amazed at the glory of the scene.

Phaidor's eyes were wide in amazement.

"The Temple of Issus," she whispered, half to herself.

Xodar watched us with his grim smile, partly of amusement and partly
malicious gloating.

The gardens swarmed with brilliantly trapped black men and women.
Among them moved red and white females serving their every want.  The
places of the outer world and the temples of the therns had been robbed
of their princesses and goddesses that the blacks might have their
slaves.

Through this scene we moved toward the temple.  At the main entrance we
were halted by a cordon of armed guards.  Xodar spoke a few words to an
officer who came forward to question us.  Together they entered the
temple, where they remained for some time.

When they returned it was to announce that Issus desired to look upon
the daughter of Matai Shang, and the strange creature from another
world who had been a Prince of Helium.

Slowly we moved through endless corridors of unthinkable beauty;
through magnificent apartments, and noble halls.  At length we were
halted in a spacious chamber in the centre of the temple.  One of the
officers who had accompanied us advanced to a large door in the further
end of the chamber.  Here he must have made some sort of signal for
immediately the door opened and another richly trapped courtier emerged.

We were then led up to the door, where we were directed to get down on
our hands and knees with our backs toward the room we were to enter.
The doors were swung open and after being cautioned not to turn our
heads under penalty of instant death we were commanded to back into the
presence of Issus.

Never have I been in so humiliating a position in my life, and only my
love for Dejah Thoris and the hope which still clung to me that I might
again see her kept me from rising to face the goddess of the First Born
and go down to my death like a gentleman, facing my foes and with their
blood mingling with mine.

After we had crawled in this disgusting fashion for a matter of a
couple of hundred feet we were halted by our escort.

"Let them rise," said a voice behind us; a thin, wavering voice, yet
one that had evidently been accustomed to command for many years.

"Rise," said our escort, "but do not face toward Issus."

"The woman pleases me," said the thin, wavering voice again after a few
moments of silence.  "She shall serve me the allotted time.  The man
you may return to the Isle of Shador which lies against the northern
shore of the Sea of Omean.  Let the woman turn and look upon Issus,
knowing that those of the lower orders who gaze upon the holy vision of
her radiant face survive the blinding glory but a single year."

I watched Phaidor from the corner of my eye.  She paled to a ghastly
hue.  Slowly, very slowly she turned, as though drawn by some invisible
yet irresistible force.  She was standing quite close to me, so close
that her bare arm touched mine as she finally faced Issus, Goddess of
Life Eternal.

I could not see the girl's face as her eyes rested for the first time
on the Supreme Deity of Mars, but felt the shudder that ran through her
in the trembling flesh of the arm that touched mine.

"It must be dazzling loveliness indeed," thought I, "to cause such
emotion in the breast of so radiant a beauty as Phaidor, daughter of
Matai Shang."

"Let the woman remain.  Remove the man.  Go."  Thus spoke Issus, and
the heavy hand of the officer fell upon my shoulder.  In accordance
with his instructions I dropped to my hands and knees once more and
crawled from the Presence.  It had been my first audience with deity,
but I am free to confess that I was not greatly impressed--other than
with the ridiculous figure I cut scrambling about on my marrow bones.

Once without the chamber the doors closed behind us and I was bid to
rise.  Xodar joined me and together we slowly retraced our steps toward
the gardens.

"You spared my life when you easily might have taken it," he said after
we had proceeded some little way in silence, "and I would aid you if I
might.  I can help to make your life here more bearable, but your fate
is inevitable.  You may never hope to return to the outer world."

"What will be my fate?" I asked.

"That will depend largely upon Issus.  So long as she does not send for
you and reveal her face to you, you may live on for years in as mild a
form of bondage as I can arrange for you."

"Why should she send for me?" I asked.

"The men of the lower orders she often uses for various purposes of
amusement.  Such a fighter as you, for example, would render fine sport
in the monthly rites of the temple.  There are men pitted against men,
and against beasts for the edification of Issus and the replenishment
of her larder."

"She eats human flesh?" I asked.  Not in horror, however, for since my
recently acquired knowledge of the Holy Therns I was prepared for
anything in this still less accessible heaven, where all was evidently
dictated by a single omnipotence; where ages of narrow fanaticism and
self-worship had eradicated all the broader humanitarian instincts that
the race might once have possessed.

They were a people drunk with power and success, looking upon the other
inhabitants of Mars as we look upon the beasts of the field and the
forest.  Why then should they not eat of the flesh of the lower orders
whose lives and characters they no more understood than do we the
inmost thoughts and sensibilities of the cattle we slaughter for our
earthly tables.

"She eats only the flesh of the best bred of the Holy Therns and the
red Barsoomians.  The flesh of the others goes to our boards.  The
animals are eaten by the slaves.  She also eats other dainties."

I did not understand then that there lay any special significance in
his reference to other dainties.  I thought the limit of ghoulishness
already had been reached in the recitation of Issus' menu.  I still had
much to learn as to the depths of cruelty and bestiality to which
omnipotence may drag its possessor.

We had about reached the last of the many chambers and corridors which
led to the gardens when an officer overtook us.

"Issus would look again upon this man," he said.  "The girl has told
her that he is of wondrous beauty and of such prowess that alone he
slew seven of the First Born, and with his bare hands took Xodar
captive, binding him with his own harness."

Xodar looked uncomfortable.  Evidently he did not relish the thought
that Issus had learned of his inglorious defeat.

Without a word he turned and we followed the officer once again to the
closed doors before the audience chamber of Issus, Goddess of Life
Eternal.

Here the ceremony of entrance was repeated.  Again Issus bid me rise.
For several minutes all was silent as the tomb.  The eyes of deity were
appraising me.

Presently the thin wavering voice broke the stillness, repeating in a
singsong drone the words which for countless ages had sealed the doom
of numberless victims.

"Let the man turn and look upon Issus, knowing that those of the lower
orders who gaze upon the holy vision of her radiant face survive the
blinding glory but a single year."

I turned as I had been bid, expecting such a treat as only the
revealment of divine glory to mortal eyes might produce.  What I saw
was a solid phalanx of armed men between myself and a dais supporting a
great bench of carved sorapus wood.  On this bench, or throne, squatted
a female black.  She was evidently very old.  Not a hair remained upon
her wrinkled skull.  With the exception of two yellow fangs she was
entirely toothless.  On either side of her thin, hawk-like nose her
eyes burned from the depths of horribly sunken sockets.  The skin of
her face was seamed and creased with a million deepcut furrows.  Her
body was as wrinkled as her face, and as repulsive.

Emaciated arms and legs attached to a torso which seemed to be mostly
distorted abdomen completed the "holy vision of her radiant beauty."

Surrounding her were a number of female slaves, among them Phaidor,
white and trembling.

"This is the man who slew seven of the First Born and, bare-handed,
bound Dator Xodar with his own harness?" asked Issus.

"Most glorious vision of divine loveliness, it is," replied the officer
who stood at my side.

"Produce Dator Xodar," she commanded.

Xodar was brought from the adjoining room.

Issus glared at him, a baleful light in her hideous eyes.

"And such as you are a Dator of the First Born?" she squealed.  "For
the disgrace you have brought upon the Immortal Race you shall be
degraded to a rank below the lowest.  No longer be you a Dator, but for
evermore a slave of slaves, to fetch and carry for the lower orders
that serve in the gardens of Issus.  Remove his harness.  Cowards and
slaves wear no trappings."

Xodar stood stiffly erect.  Not a muscle twitched, nor a tremor shook
his giant frame as a soldier of the guard roughly stripped his gorgeous
trappings from him.

"Begone," screamed the infuriated little old woman.  "Begone, but
instead of the light of the gardens of Issus let you serve as a slave
of this slave who conquered you in the prison on the Isle of Shador in
the Sea of Omean.  Take him away out of the sight of my divine eyes."

Slowly and with high held head the proud Xodar turned and stalked from
the chamber.  Issus rose and turned to leave the room by another exit.

Turning to me, she said: "You shall be returned to Shador for the
present.  Later Issus will see the manner of your fighting.  Go." Then
she disappeared, followed by her retinue.  Only Phaidor lagged behind,
and as I started to follow my guard toward the gardens, the girl came
running after me.

"Oh, do not leave me in this terrible place," she begged.  "Forgive the
things I said to you, my Prince.  I did not mean them.  Only take me
away with you.  Let me share your imprisonment on Shador." Her words
were an almost incoherent volley of thoughts, so rapidly she spoke.
"You did not understand the honour that I did you.  Among the therns
there is no marriage or giving in marriage, as among the lower orders
of the outer world.  We might have lived together for ever in love and
happiness.  We have both looked upon Issus and in a year we die.  Let
us live that year at least together in what measure of joy remains for
the doomed."

"If it was difficult for me to understand you, Phaidor," I replied,
"can you not understand that possibly it is equally difficult for you
to understand the motives, the customs and the social laws that guide
me?  I do not wish to hurt you, nor to seem to undervalue the honour
which you have done me, but the thing you desire may not be.
Regardless of the foolish belief of the peoples of the outer world, or
of Holy Thern, or ebon First Born, I am not dead.  While I live my
heart beats for but one woman--the incomparable Dejah Thoris, Princess
of Helium.  When death overtakes me my heart shall have ceased to beat;
but what comes after that I know not.  And in that I am as wise as
Matai Shang, Master of Life and Death upon Barsoom; or Issus, Goddess
of Life Eternal."

Phaidor stood looking at me intently for a moment.  No anger showed in
her eyes this time, only a pathetic expression of hopeless sorrow.

"I do not understand," she said, and turning walked slowly in the
direction of the door through which Issus and her retinue had passed.
A moment later she had passed from my sight.




CHAPTER X

THE PRISON ISLE OF SHADOR


In the outer gardens to which the guard now escorted me, I found Xodar
surrounded by a crowd of noble blacks.  They were reviling and cursing
him.  The men slapped his face.  The women spat upon him.

When I appeared they turned their attentions toward me.

"Ah," cried one, "so this is the creature who overcame the great Xodar
bare-handed.  Let us see how it was done."

"Let him bind Thurid," suggested a beautiful woman, laughing.  "Thurid
is a noble Dator.  Let Thurid show the dog what it means to face a real
man."

"Yes, Thurid!  Thurid!" cried a dozen voices.

"Here he is now," exclaimed another, and turning in the direction
indicated I saw a huge black weighed down with resplendent ornaments
and arms advancing with noble and gallant bearing toward us.

"What now?" he cried.  "What would you of Thurid?"

Quickly a dozen voices explained.

Thurid turned toward Xodar, his eyes narrowing to two nasty slits.

"Calot!" he hissed.  "Ever did I think you carried the heart of a sorak
in your putrid breast.  Often have you bested me in the secret councils
of Issus, but now in the field of war where men are truly gauged your
scabby heart hath revealed its sores to all the world.  Calot, I spurn
you with my foot," and with the words he turned to kick Xodar.

My blood was up.  For minutes it had been boiling at the cowardly
treatment they had been according this once powerful comrade because he
had fallen from the favour of Issus.  I had no love for Xodar, but I
cannot stand the sight of cowardly injustice and persecution without
seeing red as through a haze of bloody mist, and doing things on the
impulse of the moment that I presume I never should do after mature
deliberation.

I was standing close beside Xodar as Thurid swung his foot for the
cowardly kick.  The degraded Dator stood erect and motionless as a
carven image.  He was prepared to take whatever his former comrades had
to offer in the way of insults and reproaches, and take them in manly
silence and stoicism.

But as Thurid's foot swung so did mine, and I caught him a painful blow
upon the shin bone that saved Xodar from this added ignominy.

For a moment there was tense silence, then Thurid, with a roar of rage
sprang for my throat; just as Xodar had upon the deck of the cruiser.
The results were identical.  I ducked beneath his outstretched arms,
and as he lunged past me planted a terrific right on the side of his
jaw.

The big fellow spun around like a top, his knees gave beneath him and
he crumpled to the ground at my feet.

The blacks gazed in astonishment, first at the still form of the proud
Dator lying there in the ruby dust of the pathway, then at me as though
they could not believe that such a thing could be.

"You asked me to bind Thurid," I cried; "behold!"  And then I stooped
beside the prostrate form, tore the harness from it, and bound the
fellow's arms and legs securely.

"As you have done to Xodar, now do you likewise to Thurid.  Take him
before Issus, bound in his own harness, that she may see with her own
eyes that there be one among you now who is greater than the First
Born."

"Who are you?" whispered the woman who had first suggested that I
attempt to bind Thurid.

"I am a citizen of two worlds; Captain John Carter of Virginia, Prince
of the House of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium.  Take this man to your
goddess, as I have said, and tell her, too, that as I have done to
Xodar and Thurid, so also can I do to the mightiest of her Dators.
With naked hands, with long-sword or with short-sword, I challenge the
flower of her fighting-men to combat."

"Come," said the officer who was guarding me back to Shador; "my orders
are imperative; there is to be no delay.  Xodar, come you also."

There was little of disrespect in the tone that the man used in
addressing either Xodar or myself.  It was evident that he felt less
contempt for the former Dator since he had witnessed the ease with
which I disposed of the powerful Thurid.

That his respect for me was greater than it should have been for a
slave was quite apparent from the fact that during the balance of the
return journey he walked or stood always behind me, a drawn short-sword
in his hand.

The return to the Sea of Omean was uneventful.  We dropped down the
awful shaft in the same car that had brought us to the surface.  There
we entered the submarine, taking the long dive to the tunnel far
beneath the upper world.  Then through the tunnel and up again to the
pool from which we had had our first introduction to the wonderful
passageway from Omean to the Temple of Issus.

From the island of the submarine we were transported on a small cruiser
to the distant Isle of Shador.  Here we found a small stone prison and
a guard of half a dozen blacks.  There was no ceremony wasted in
completing our incarceration.  One of the blacks opened the door of the
prison with a huge key, we walked in, the door closed behind us, the
lock grated, and with the sound there swept over me again that terrible
feeling of hopelessness that I had felt in the Chamber of Mystery in
the Golden Cliffs beneath the gardens of the Holy Therns.

Then Tars Tarkas had been with me, but now I was utterly alone in so
far as friendly companionship was concerned.  I fell to wondering about
the fate of the great Thark, and of his beautiful companion, the girl,
Thuvia.  Even should they by some miracle have escaped and been
received and spared by a friendly nation, what hope had I of the
succour which I knew they would gladly extend if it lay in their power.

They could not guess my whereabouts or my fate, for none on all Barsoom
even dream of such a place as this.  Nor would it have advantaged me
any had they known the exact location of my prison, for who could hope
to penetrate to this buried sea in the face of the mighty navy of the
First Born?  No: my case was hopeless.

Well, I would make the best of it, and, rising, I swept aside the
brooding despair that had been endeavouring to claim me.  With the idea
of exploring my prison, I started to look around.

Xodar sat, with bowed head, upon a low stone bench near the centre of
the room in which we were.  He had not spoken since Issus had degraded
him.

The building was roofless, the walls rising to a height of about thirty
feet.  Half-way up were a couple of small, heavily barred windows.  The
prison was divided into several rooms by partitions twenty feet high.
There was no one in the room which we occupied, but two doors which led
to other rooms were opened.  I entered one of these rooms, but found it
vacant.  Thus I continued through several of the chambers until in the
last one I found a young red Martian boy sleeping upon the stone bench
which constituted the only furniture of any of the prison cells.

Evidently he was the only other prisoner.  As he slept I leaned over
and looked at him.  There was something strangely familiar about his
face, and yet I could not place him.

His features were very regular and, like the proportions of his
graceful limbs and body, beautiful in the extreme.  He was very light
in colour for a red man, but in other respects he seemed a typical
specimen of this handsome race.

I did not awaken him, for sleep in prison is such a priceless boon that
I have seen men transformed into raging brutes when robbed by one of
their fellow-prisoners of a few precious moments of it.

Returning to my own cell, I found Xodar still sitting in the same
position in which I had left him.

"Man," I cried, "it will profit you nothing to mope thus.  It were no
disgrace to be bested by John Carter.  You have seen that in the ease
with which I accounted for Thurid.  You knew it before when on the
cruiser's deck you saw me slay three of your comrades."

"I would that you had dispatched me at the same time," he said.

"Come, come!" I cried.  "There is hope yet.  Neither of us is dead.  We
are great fighters.  Why not win to freedom?"

He looked at me in amazement.

"You know not of what you speak," he replied.  "Issus is omnipotent.
Issus is omniscient. She hears now the words you speak.  She knows the
thoughts you think.  It is sacrilege even to dream of breaking her
commands."

"Rot, Xodar," I ejaculated impatiently.

He sprang to his feet in horror.

"The curse of Issus will fall upon you," he cried.  "In another instant
you will be smitten down, writhing to your death in horrible agony."

"Do you believe that, Xodar?" I asked.

"Of course; who would dare doubt?"

"I doubt; yes, and further, I deny," I said.  "Why, Xodar, you tell me
that she even knows my thoughts.  The red men have all had that power
for ages.  And another wonderful power.  They can shut their minds so
that none may read their thoughts.  I learned the first secret years
ago; the other I never had to learn, since upon all Barsoom is none who
can read what passes in the secret chambers of my brain.

"Your goddess cannot read my thoughts; nor can she read yours when you
are out of sight, unless you will it.  Had she been able to read mine,
I am afraid that her pride would have suffered a rather severe shock
when I turned at her command to 'gaze upon the holy vision of her
radiant face.'"

"What do you mean?" he whispered in an affrighted voice, so low that I
could scarcely hear him.

"I mean that I thought her the most repulsive and vilely hideous
creature my eyes ever had rested upon."

For a moment he eyed me in horror-stricken amazement, and then with a
cry of "Blasphemer" he sprang upon me.

I did not wish to strike him again, nor was it necessary, since he was
unarmed and therefore quite harmless to me.

As he came I grasped his left wrist with my left hand, and, swinging my
right arm about his left shoulder, caught him beneath the chin with my
elbow and bore him backward across my thigh.

There he hung helpless for a moment, glaring up at me in impotent rage.

"Xodar," I said, "let us be friends.  For a year, possibly, we may be
forced to live together in the narrow confines of this tiny room.  I am
sorry to have offended you, but I could not dream that one who had
suffered from the cruel injustice of Issus still could believe her
divine.

"I will say a few more words, Xodar, with no intent to wound your
feelings further, but rather that you may give thought to the fact that
while we live we are still more the arbiters of our own fate than is
any god.

"Issus, you see, has not struck me dead, nor is she rescuing her
faithful Xodar from the clutches of the unbeliever who defamed her fair
beauty.  No, Xodar, your Issus is a mortal old woman.  Once out of her
clutches and she cannot harm you.

"With your knowledge of this strange land, and my knowledge of the
outer world, two such fighting-men as you and I should be able to win
our way to freedom.  Even though we died in the attempt, would not our
memories be fairer than as though we remained in servile fear to be
butchered by a cruel and unjust tyrant--call her goddess or mortal, as
you will."

As I finished I raised Xodar to his feet and released him.  He did not
renew the attack upon me, nor did he speak.  Instead, he walked toward
the bench, and, sinking down upon it, remained lost in deep thought for
hours.

A long time afterward I heard a soft sound at the doorway leading to
one of the other apartments, and, looking up, beheld the red Martian
youth gazing intently at us.

"Kaor," I cried, after the red Martian manner of greeting.

"Kaor," he replied.  "What do you here?"

"I await my death, I presume," I replied with a wry smile.

He too smiled, a brave and winning smile.

"I also," he said.  "Mine will come soon.  I looked upon the radiant
beauty of Issus nearly a year since.  It has always been a source of
keen wonder to me that I did not drop dead at the first sight of that
hideous countenance.  And her belly!  By my first ancestor, but never
was there so grotesque a figure in all the universe.  That they should
call such a one Goddess of Life Eternal, Goddess of Death, Mother of
the Nearer Moon, and fifty other equally impossible titles, is quite
beyond me."

"How came you here?" I asked.

"It is very simple.  I was flying a one-man air scout far to the south
when the brilliant idea occurred to me that I should like to search for
the Lost Sea of Korus which tradition places near to the south pole.  I
must have inherited from my father a wild lust for adventure, as well
as a hollow where my bump of reverence should be.

"I had reached the area of eternal ice when my port propeller jammed,
and I dropped to the ground to make repairs.  Before I knew it the air
was black with fliers, and a hundred of these First Born devils were
leaping to the ground all about me.

"With drawn swords they made for me, but before I went down beneath
them they had tasted of the steel of my father's sword, and I had given
such an account of myself as I know would have pleased my sire had he
lived to witness it."

"Your father is dead?" I asked.

"He died before the shell broke to let me step out into a world that
has been very good to me.  But for the sorrow that I had never the
honour to know my father, I have been very happy.  My only sorrow now
is that my mother must mourn me as she has for ten long years mourned
my father."

"Who was your father?" I asked.

He was about to reply when the outer door of our prison opened and a
burly guard entered and ordered him to his own quarters for the night,
locking the door after him as he passed through into the further
chamber.

"It is Issus' wish that you two be confined in the same room," said the
guard when he had returned to our cell.  "This cowardly slave of a
slave is to serve you well," he said to me, indicating Xodar with a
wave of his hand.  "If he does not, you are to beat him into
submission.  It is Issus' wish that you heap upon him every indignity
and degradation of which you can conceive."

With these words he left us.

Xodar still sat with his face buried in his hands.  I walked to his
side and placed my hand upon his shoulder.

"Xodar," I said, "you have heard the commands of Issus, but you need
not fear that I shall attempt to put them into execution.  You are a
brave man, Xodar.  It is your own affair if you wish to be persecuted
and humiliated; but were I you I should assert my manhood and defy my
enemies."

"I have been thinking very hard, John Carter," he said, "of all the new
ideas you gave me a few hours since.  Little by little I have been
piecing together the things that you said which sounded blasphemous to
me then with the things that I have seen in my past life and dared not
even think about for fear of bringing down upon me the wrath of Issus.

"I believe now that she is a fraud; no more divine than you or I.  More
I am willing to concede--that the First Born are no holier than the
Holy Therns, nor the Holy Therns more holy than the red men.

"The whole fabric of our religion is based on superstitious belief in
lies that have been foisted upon us for ages by those directly above
us, to whose personal profit and aggrandizement it was to have us
continue to believe as they wished us to believe.

"I am ready to cast off the ties that have bound me.  I am ready to
defy Issus herself; but what will it avail us?  Be the First Born gods
or mortals, they are a powerful race, and we are as fast in their
clutches as though we were already dead.  There is no escape."

"I have escaped from bad plights in the past, my friend," I replied;
"nor while life is in me shall I despair of escaping from the Isle of
Shador and the Sea of Omean."

"But we cannot escape even from the four walls of our prison," urged
Xodar.  "Test this flint-like surface," he cried, smiting the solid
rock that confined us.  "And look upon this polished surface; none
could cling to it to reach the top."

I smiled.

"That is the least of our troubles, Xodar," I replied.  "I will
guarantee to scale the wall and take you with me, if you will help with
your knowledge of the customs here to appoint the best time for the
attempt, and guide me to the shaft that lets from the dome of this
abysmal sea to the light of God's pure air above."

"Night time is the best and offers the only slender chance we have, for
then men sleep, and only a dozing watch nods in the tops of the
battleships.  No watch is kept upon the cruisers and smaller craft.
The watchers upon the larger vessels see to all about them.  It is
night now."

"But," I exclaimed, "it is not dark!  How can it be night, then?"

He smiled.

"You forget," he said, "that we are far below ground.  The light of the
sun never penetrates here.  There are no moons and no stars reflected
in the bosom of Omean.  The phosphorescent light you now see pervading
this great subterranean vault emanates from the rocks that form its
dome; it is always thus upon Omean, just as the billows are always as
you see them--rolling, ever rolling over a windless sea.

"At the appointed hour of night upon the world above, the men whose
duties hold them here sleep, but the light is ever the same."

"It will make escape more difficult," I said, and then I shrugged my
shoulders; for what, pray, is the pleasure of doing an easy thing?

"Let us sleep on it to-night," said Xodar.  "A plan may come with our
awakening."

So we threw ourselves upon the hard stone floor of our prison and slept
the sleep of tired men.




CHAPTER XI

WHEN HELL BROKE LOOSE


Early the next morning Xodar and I commenced work upon our plans for
escape.  First I had him sketch upon the stone floor of our cell as
accurate a map of the south polar regions as was possible with the
crude instruments at our disposal--a buckle from my harness, and the
sharp edge of the wondrous gem I had taken from Sator Throg.

From this I computed the general direction of Helium and the distance
at which it lay from the opening which led to Omean.

Then I had him draw a map of Omean, indicating plainly the position of
Shador and of the opening in the dome which led to the outer world.

These I studied until they were indelibly imprinted in my memory.  From
Xodar I learned the duties and customs of the guards who patrolled
Shador.  It seemed that during the hours set aside for sleep only one
man was on duty at a time.  He paced a beat that passed around the
prison, at a distance of about a hundred feet from the building.

The pace of the sentries, Xodar said, was very slow, requiring nearly
ten minutes to make a single round.  This meant that for practically
five minutes at a time each side of the prison was unguarded as the
sentry pursued his snail-like pace upon the opposite side.

"This information you ask," said Xodar, "will be all very valuable
AFTER we get out, but nothing that you have asked has any bearing on
that first and most important consideration."

"We will get out all right," I replied, laughing.  "Leave that to me."

"When shall we make the attempt?" he asked.

"The first night that finds a small craft moored near the shore of
Shador," I replied.

"But how will you know that any craft is moored near Shador?  The
windows are far beyond our reach."

"Not so, friend Xodar; look!"

With a bound I sprang to the bars of the window opposite us, and took a
quick survey of the scene without.

Several small craft and two large battleships lay within a hundred
yards of Shador.

"To-night," I thought, and was just about to voice my decision to
Xodar, when, without warning, the door of our prison opened and a guard
stepped in.

If the fellow saw me there our chances of escape might quickly go
glimmering, for I knew that they would put me in irons if they had the
slightest conception of the wonderful agility which my earthly muscles
gave me upon Mars.

The man had entered and was standing facing the centre of the room, so
that his back was toward me.  Five feet above me was the top of a
partition wall separating our cell from the next.

There was my only chance to escape detection.  If the fellow turned, I
was lost; nor could I have dropped to the floor undetected, since he
was so nearly below me that I would have struck him had I done so.

"Where is the white man?" cried the guard of Xodar.  "Issus commands
his presence."  He started to turn to see if I were in another part of
the cell.

I scrambled up the iron grating of the window until I could catch a
good footing on the sill with one foot; then I let go my hold and
sprang for the partition top.

"What was that?" I heard the deep voice of the black bellow as my metal
grated against the stone wall as I slipped over.  Then I dropped
lightly to the floor of the cell beyond.

"Where is the white slave?" again cried the guard.

"I know not," replied Xodar.  "He was here even as you entered.  I am
not his keeper--go find him."

The black grumbled something that I could not understand, and then I
heard him unlocking the door into one of the other cells on the further
side.  Listening intently, I caught the sound as the door closed behind
him.  Then I sprang once more to the top of the partition and dropped
into my own cell beside the astonished Xodar.

"Do you see now how we will escape?" I asked him in a whisper.

"I see how you may," he replied, "but I am no wiser than before as to
how I am to pass these walls.  Certain it is that I cannot bounce over
them as you do."

We heard the guard moving about from cell to cell, and finally, his
rounds completed, he again entered ours.  When his eyes fell upon me
they fairly bulged from his head.

"By the shell of my first ancestor!" he roared.  "Where have you been?"

"I have been in prison since you put me here yesterday," I answered.
"I was in this room when you entered.  You had better look to your
eyesight."

He glared at me in mingled rage and relief.

"Come," he said.  "Issus commands your presence."

He conducted me outside the prison, leaving Xodar behind.  There we
found several other guards, and with them the red Martian youth who
occupied another cell upon Shador.

The journey I had taken to the Temple of Issus on the preceding day was
repeated.  The guards kept the red boy and myself separated, so that we
had no opportunity to continue the conversation that had been
interrupted the previous night.

The youth's face had haunted me.  Where had I seen him before.  There
was something strangely familiar in every line of him; in his carriage,
his manner of speaking, his gestures.  I could have sworn that I knew
him, and yet I knew too that I had never seen him before.

When we reached the gardens of Issus we were led away from the temple
instead of toward it.  The way wound through enchanted parks to a
mighty wall that towered a hundred feet in air.

Massive gates gave egress upon a small plain, surrounded by the same
gorgeous forests that I had seen at the foot of the Golden Cliffs.

Crowds of blacks were strolling in the same direction that our guards
were leading us, and with them mingled my old friends the plant men and
great white apes.

The brutal beasts moved among the crowd as pet dogs might.  If they
were in the way the blacks pushed them roughly to one side, or whacked
them with the flat of a sword, and the animals slunk away as in great
fear.

Presently we came upon our destination, a great amphitheatre situated
at the further edge of the plain, and about half a mile beyond the
garden walls.

Through a massive arched gateway the blacks poured in to take their
seats, while our guards led us to a smaller entrance near one end of
the structure.

Through this we passed into an enclosure beneath the seats, where we
found a number of other prisoners herded together under guard.  Some of
them were in irons, but for the most part they seemed sufficiently awed
by the presence of their guards to preclude any possibility of
attempted escape.

During the trip from Shador I had had no opportunity to talk with my
fellow-prisoner, but now that we were safely within the barred paddock
our guards abated their watchfulness, with the result that I found
myself able to approach the red Martian youth for whom I felt such a
strange attraction.

"What is the object of this assembly?" I asked him.  "Are we to fight
for the edification of the First Born, or is it something worse than
that?"

"It is a part of the monthly rites of Issus," he replied, "in which
black men wash the sins from their souls in the blood of men from the
outer world.  If, perchance, the black is killed, it is evidence of his
disloyalty to Issus--the unpardonable sin.  If he lives through the
contest he is held acquitted of the charge that forced the sentence of
the rites, as it is called, upon him.

"The forms of combat vary.  A number of us may be pitted together
against an equal number, or twice the number of blacks; or singly we
may be sent forth to face wild beasts, or some famous black warrior."

"And if we are victorious," I asked, "what then--freedom?"

He laughed.

"Freedom, forsooth.  The only freedom for us death.  None who enters
the domains of the First Born ever leave.  If we prove able fighters we
are permitted to fight often.  If we are not mighty fighters--"  He
shrugged his shoulders.  "Sooner or later we die in the arena."

"And you have fought often?" I asked.

"Very often," he replied.  "It is my only pleasure.  Some hundred black
devils have I accounted for during nearly a year of the rites of Issus.
My mother would be very proud could she only know how well I have
maintained the traditions of my father's prowess."

"Your father must have been a mighty warrior!" I said.  "I have known
most of the warriors of Barsoom in my time; doubtless I knew him.  Who
was he?"

"My father was--"

"Come, calots!" cried the rough voice of a guard.  "To the slaughter
with you," and roughly we were hustled to the steep incline that led to
the chambers far below which let out upon the arena.

The amphitheatre, like all I had ever seen upon Barsoom, was built in a
large excavation.  Only the highest seats, which formed the low wall
surrounding the pit, were above the level of the ground.  The arena
itself was far below the surface.

Just beneath the lowest tier of seats was a series of barred cages on a
level with the surface of the arena.  Into these we were herded.  But,
unfortunately, my youthful friend was not of those who occupied a cage
with me.

Directly opposite my cage was the throne of Issus.  Here the horrid
creature squatted, surrounded by a hundred slave maidens sparkling in
jewelled trappings.  Brilliant cloths of many hues and strange patterns
formed the soft cushion covering of the dais upon which they reclined
about her.

On four sides of the throne and several feet below it stood three solid
ranks of heavily armed soldiery, elbow to elbow.  In front of these
were the high dignitaries of this mock heaven--gleaming blacks bedecked
with precious stones, upon their foreheads the insignia of their rank
set in circles of gold.

On both sides of the throne stretched a solid mass of humanity from top
to bottom of the amphitheatre.  There were as many women as men, and
each was clothed in the wondrously wrought harness of his station and
his house.  With each black was from one to three slaves, drawn from
the domains of the therns and from the outer world.  The blacks are all
"noble."  There is no peasantry among the First Born.  Even the lowest
soldier is a god, and has his slaves to wait upon him.

The First Born do no work.  The men fight--that is a sacred privilege
and duty; to fight and die for Issus.  The women do nothing, absolutely
nothing.  Slaves wash them, slaves dress them, slaves feed them.  There
are some, even, who have slaves that talk for them, and I saw one who
sat during the rites with closed eyes while a slave narrated to her the
events that were transpiring within the arena.

The first event of the day was the Tribute to Issus.  It marked the end
of those poor unfortunates who had looked upon the divine glory of the
goddess a full year before.  There were ten of them--splendid beauties
from the proud courts of mighty Jeddaks and from the temples of the
Holy Therns.  For a year they had served in the retinue of Issus;
to-day they were to pay the price of this divine preferment with their
lives; tomorrow they would grace the tables of the court functionaries.

A huge black entered the arena with the young women.  Carefully he
inspected them, felt of their limbs and poked them in the ribs.
Presently he selected one of their number whom he led before the throne
of Issus.  He addressed some words to the goddess which I could not
hear.  Issus nodded her head.  The black raised his hands above his
head in token of salute, grasped the girl by the wrist, and dragged her
from the arena through a small doorway below the throne.

"Issus will dine well to-night," said a prisoner beside me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"That was her dinner that old Thabis is taking to the kitchens.  Didst
not note how carefully he selected the plumpest and tenderest of the
lot?"

I growled out my curses on the monster sitting opposite us on the
gorgeous throne.

"Fume not," admonished my companion; "you will see far worse than that
if you live even a month among the First Born."

I turned again in time to see the gate of a nearby cage thrown open and
three monstrous white apes spring into the arena.  The girls shrank in
a frightened group in the centre of the enclosure.

One was on her knees with imploring hands outstretched toward Issus;
but the hideous deity only leaned further forward in keener
anticipation of the entertainment to come.  At length the apes spied
the huddled knot of terror-stricken maidens and with demoniacal shrieks
of bestial frenzy, charged upon them.

A wave of mad fury surged over me.  The cruel cowardliness of the
power-drunk creature whose malignant mind conceived such frightful
forms of torture stirred to their uttermost depths my resentment and my
manhood.  The blood-red haze that presaged death to my foes swam before
my eyes.

The guard lolled before the unbarred gate of the cage which confined
me.  What need of bars, indeed, to keep those poor victims from rushing
into the arena which the edict of the gods had appointed as their death
place!

A single blow sent the black unconscious to the ground.  Snatching up
his long-sword, I sprang into the arena.  The apes were almost upon the
maidens, but a couple of mighty bounds were all my earthly muscles
required to carry me to the centre of the sand-strewn floor.

For an instant silence reigned in the great amphitheatre, then a wild
shout arose from the cages of the doomed.  My long-sword circled
whirring through the air, and a great ape sprawled, headless, at the
feet of the fainting girls.

The other apes turned now upon me, and as I stood facing them a sullen
roar from the audience answered the wild cheers from the cages.  From
the tail of my eye I saw a score of guards rushing across the
glistening sand toward me.  Then a figure broke from one of the cages
behind them.  It was the youth whose personality so fascinated me.

He paused a moment before the cages, with upraised sword.

"Come, men of the outer world!" he shouted.  "Let us make our deaths
worth while, and at the back of this unknown warrior turn this day's
Tribute to Issus into an orgy of revenge that will echo through the
ages and cause black skins to blanch at each repetition of the rites of
Issus.  Come!  The racks without your cages are filled with blades."

Without waiting to note the outcome of his plea, he turned and bounded
toward me.  From every cage that harboured red men a thunderous shout
went up in answer to his exhortation.  The inner guards went down
beneath howling mobs, and the cages vomited forth their inmates hot
with the lust to kill.

The racks that stood without were stripped of the swords with which the
prisoners were to have been armed to enter their allotted combats, and
a swarm of determined warriors sped to our support.

The great apes, towering in all their fifteen feet of height, had gone
down before my sword while the charging guards were still some distance
away.  Close behind them pursued the youth.  At my back were the young
girls, and as it was in their service that I fought, I remained
standing there to meet my inevitable death, but with the determination
to give such an account of myself as would long be remembered in the
land of the First Born.

I noted the marvellous speed of the young red man as he raced after the
guards.  Never had I seen such speed in any Martian.  His leaps and
bounds were little short of those which my earthly muscles had produced
to create such awe and respect on the part of the green Martians into
whose hands I had fallen on that long-gone day that had seen my first
advent upon Mars.

The guards had not reached me when he fell upon them from the rear, and
as they turned, thinking from the fierceness of his onslaught that a
dozen were attacking them, I rushed them from my side.

In the rapid fighting that followed I had little chance to note aught
else than the movements of my immediate adversaries, but now and again
I caught a fleeting glimpse of a purring sword and a lightly springing
figure of sinewy steel that filled my heart with a strange yearning and
a mighty but unaccountable pride.

On the handsome face of the boy a grim smile played, and ever and anon
he threw a taunting challenge to the foes that faced him.  In this and
other ways his manner of fighting was similar to that which had always
marked me on the field of combat.

Perhaps it was this vague likeness which made me love the boy, while
the awful havoc that his sword played amongst the blacks filled my soul
with a tremendous respect for him.

For my part, I was fighting as I had fought a thousand times
before--now sidestepping a wicked thrust, now stepping quickly in to
let my sword's point drink deep in a foeman's heart, before it buried
itself in the throat of his companion.

We were having a merry time of it, we two, when a great body of Issus'
own guards were ordered into the arena.  On they came with fierce
cries, while from every side the armed prisoners swarmed upon them.

For half an hour it was as though all hell had broken loose.  In the
walled confines of the arena we fought in an inextricable
mass--howling, cursing, blood-streaked demons; and ever the sword of
the young red man flashed beside me.

Slowly and by repeated commands I had succeeded in drawing the
prisoners into a rough formation about us, so that at last we fought
formed into a rude circle in the centre of which were the doomed maids.

Many had gone down on both sides, but by far the greater havoc had been
wrought in the ranks of the guards of Issus.  I could see messengers
running swiftly through the audience, and as they passed the nobles
there unsheathed their swords and sprang into the arena.  They were
going to annihilate us by force of numbers--that was quite evidently
their plan.

I caught a glimpse of Issus leaning far forward upon her throne, her
hideous countenance distorted in a horrid grimace of hate and rage, in
which I thought I could distinguish an expression of fear.  It was that
face that inspired me to the thing that followed.

Quickly I ordered fifty of the prisoners to drop back behind us and
form a new circle about the maidens.

"Remain and protect them until I return," I commanded.

Then, turning to those who formed the outer line, I cried, "Down with
Issus!  Follow me to the throne; we will reap vengeance where vengeance
is deserved."

The youth at my side was the first to take up the cry of "Down with
Issus!" and then at my back and from all sides rose a hoarse shout, "To
the throne!  To the throne!"

As one man we moved, an irresistible fighting mass, over the bodies of
dead and dying foes toward the gorgeous throne of the Martian deity.
Hordes of the doughtiest fighting-men of the First Born poured from the
audience to check our progress.  We mowed them down before us as they
had been paper men.

"To the seats, some of you!" I cried as we approached the arena's
barrier wall.  "Ten of us can take the throne," for I had seen that
Issus' guards had for the most part entered the fray within the arena.

On both sides of me the prisoners broke to left and right for the
seats, vaulting the low wall with dripping swords lusting for the
crowded victims who awaited them.

In another moment the entire amphitheatre was filled with the shrieks
of the dying and the wounded, mingled with the clash of arms and
triumphant shouts of the victors.

Side by side the young red man and I, with perhaps a dozen others,
fought our way to the foot of the throne.  The remaining guards,
reinforced by the high dignitaries and nobles of the First Born, closed
in between us and Issus, who sat leaning far forward upon her carved
sorapus bench, now screaming high-pitched commands to her following,
now hurling blighting curses upon those who sought to desecrate her
godhood.

The frightened slaves about her trembled in wide-eyed expectancy,
knowing not whether to pray for our victory or our defeat.  Several
among them, proud daughters no doubt of some of Barsoom's noblest
warriors, snatched swords from the hands of the fallen and fell upon
the guards of Issus, but they were soon cut down; glorious martyrs to a
hopeless cause.

The men with us fought well, but never since Tars Tarkas and I fought
out that long, hot afternoon shoulder to shoulder against the hordes of
Warhoon in the dead sea bottom before Thark, had I seen two men fight
to such good purpose and with such unconquerable ferocity as the young
red man and I fought that day before the throne of Issus, Goddess of
Death, and of Life Eternal.

Man by man those who stood between us and the carven sorapus wood bench
went down before our blades.  Others swarmed in to fill the breach, but
inch by inch, foot by foot we won nearer and nearer to our goal.

Presently a cry went up from a section of the stands near by--"Rise
slaves!"  "Rise slaves!" it rose and fell until it swelled to a mighty
volume of sound that swept in great billows around the entire
amphitheatre.

For an instant, as though by common assent, we ceased our fighting to
look for the meaning of this new note nor did it take but a moment to
translate its significance.  In all parts of the structure the female
slaves were falling upon their masters with whatever weapon came first
to hand.  A dagger snatched from the harness of her mistress was waved
aloft by some fair slave, its shimmering blade crimson with the
lifeblood of its owner; swords plucked from the bodies of the dead
about them; heavy ornaments which could be turned into bludgeons--such
were the implements with which these fair women wreaked the long-pent
vengeance which at best could but partially recompense them for the
unspeakable cruelties and indignities which their black masters had
heaped upon them.  And those who could find no other weapons used their
strong fingers and their gleaming teeth.

It was at once a sight to make one shudder and to cheer; but in a brief
second we were engaged once more in our own battle with only the
unquenchable battle cry of the women to remind us that they still
fought--"Rise slaves!" "Rise slaves!"

Only a single thin rank of men now stood between us and Issus.  Her
face was blue with terror.  Foam flecked her lips.  She seemed too
paralysed with fear to move.  Only the youth and I fought now.  The
others all had fallen, and I was like to have gone down too from a
nasty long-sword cut had not a hand reached out from behind my
adversary and clutched his elbow as the blade was falling upon me.  The
youth sprang to my side and ran his sword through the fellow before he
could recover to deliver another blow.

I should have died even then but for that as my sword was tight wedged
in the breastbone of a Dator of the First Born.  As the fellow went
down I snatched his sword from him and over his prostrate body looked
into the eyes of the one whose quick hand had saved me from the first
cut of his sword--it was Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang.

"Fly, my Prince!" she cried.  "It is useless to fight them longer.  All
within the arena are dead.  All who charged the throne are dead but you
and this youth.  Only among the seats are there left any of your
fighting-men, and they and the slave women are fast being cut down.
Listen!  You can scarce hear the battle-cry of the women now for nearly
all are dead.  For each one of you there are ten thousand blacks within
the domains of the First Born.  Break for the open and the sea of
Korus.  With your mighty sword arm you may yet win to the Golden Cliffs
and the templed gardens of the Holy Therns.  There tell your story to
Matai Shang, my father.  He will keep you, and together you may find a
way to rescue me.  Fly while there is yet a bare chance for flight."

But that was not my mission, nor could I see much to be preferred in
the cruel hospitality of the Holy Therns to that of the First Born.

"Down with Issus!" I shouted, and together the boy and I took up the
fight once more.  Two blacks went down with our swords in their vitals,
and we stood face to face with Issus.  As my sword went up to end her
horrid career her paralysis left her, and with an ear-piercing shriek
she turned to flee.  Directly behind her a black gulf suddenly yawned
in the flooring of the dais.  She sprang for the opening with the youth
and I close at her heels.  Her scattered guard rallied at her cry and
rushed for us.  A blow fell upon the head of the youth.  He staggered
and would have fallen, but I caught him in my left arm and turned to
face an infuriated mob of religious fanatics crazed by the affront I
had put upon their goddess, just as Issus disappeared into the black
depths beneath me.