A Princess of Mars (12 page)

In the course of a few days my thoats were the wonder of the entire
community. They would follow me like dogs, rubbing their great
snouts against my body in awkward evidence of affection, and respond
to my every command with an alacrity and docility which caused the
Martian warriors to ascribe to me the possession of some earthly
power unknown on Mars.

"How have you bewitched them?" asked Tars Tarkas one afternoon, when
he had seen me run my arm far between the great jaws of one of my
thoats which had wedged a piece of stone between two of his teeth
while feeding upon the moss-like vegetation within our court yard.

"By kindness," I replied. "You see, Tars Tarkas, the softer
sentiments have their value, even to a warrior. In the height of
battle as well as upon the march I know that my thoats will obey my
every command, and therefore my fighting efficiency is enhanced, and
I am a better warrior for the reason that I am a kind master. Your
other warriors would find it to the advantage of themselves as well
as of the community to adopt my methods in this respect. Only a few
days since you, yourself, told me that these great brutes, by the
uncertainty of their tempers, often were the means of turning
victory into defeat, since, at a crucial moment, they might elect
to unseat and rend their riders."

"Show me how you accomplish these results," was Tars Tarkas'
only rejoinder.

And so I explained as carefully as I could the entire method of
training I had adopted with my beasts, and later he had me repeat
it before Lorquas Ptomel and the assembled warriors. That moment
marked the beginning of a new existence for the poor thoats, and
before I left the community of Lorquas Ptomel I had the satisfaction
of observing a regiment of as tractable and docile mounts as one
might care to see. The effect on the precision and celerity of the
military movements was so remarkable that Lorquas Ptomel presented
me with a massive anklet of gold from his own leg, as a sign of
his appreciation of my service to the horde.

On the seventh day following the battle with the air craft we again
took up the march toward Thark, all probability of another attack
being deemed remote by Lorquas Ptomel.

During the days just preceding our departure I had seen but little
of Dejah Thoris, as I had been kept very busy by Tars Tarkas with my
lessons in the art of Martian warfare, as well as in the training of
my thoats. The few times I had visited her quarters she had been
absent, walking upon the streets with Sola, or investigating the
buildings in the near vicinity of the plaza. I had warned them
against venturing far from the plaza for fear of the great white
apes, whose ferocity I was only too well acquainted with. However,
since Woola accompanied them on all their excursions, and as Sola
was well armed, there was comparatively little cause for fear.

On the evening before our departure I saw them approaching along
one of the great avenues which lead into the plaza from the east.
I advanced to meet them, and telling Sola that I would take the
responsibility for Dejah Thoris' safekeeping, I directed her to
return to her quarters on some trivial errand. I liked and trusted
Sola, but for some reason I desired to be alone with Dejah Thoris,
who represented to me all that I had left behind upon Earth in
agreeable and congenial companionship. There seemed bonds of mutual
interest between us as powerful as though we had been born under the
same roof rather than upon different planets, hurtling through space
some forty-eight million miles apart.

That she shared my sentiments in this respect I was positive, for
on my approach the look of pitiful hopelessness left her sweet
countenance to be replaced by a smile of joyful welcome, as she
placed her little right hand upon my left shoulder in true red
Martian salute.

"Sarkoja told Sola that you had become a true Thark," she said,
"and that I would now see no more of you than of any of the
other warriors."

"Sarkoja is a liar of the first magnitude," I replied,
"notwithstanding the proud claim of the Tharks to absolute verity."

Dejah Thoris laughed.

"I knew that even though you became a member of the community you
would not cease to be my friend; 'A warrior may change his metal,
but not his heart,' as the saying is upon Barsoom."

"I think they have been trying to keep us apart," she continued,
"for whenever you have been off duty one of the older women of Tars
Tarkas' retinue has always arranged to trump up some excuse to get
Sola and me out of sight. They have had me down in the pits below
the buildings helping them mix their awful radium powder, and make
their terrible projectiles. You know that these have to be
manufactured by artificial light, as exposure to sunlight always
results in an explosion. You have noticed that their bullets
explode when they strike an object? Well, the opaque, outer coating
is broken by the impact, exposing a glass cylinder, almost solid,
in the forward end of which is a minute particle of radium powder.
The moment the sunlight, even though diffused, strikes this powder
it explodes with a violence which nothing can withstand. If you
ever witness a night battle you will note the absence of these
explosions, while the morning following the battle will be filled at
sunrise with the sharp detonations of exploding missiles fired the
preceding night. As a rule, however, non-exploding projectiles are
used at night."
(I have used the word radium in describing this
powder because in the light of recent discoveries on Earth I believe
it to be a mixture of which radium is the base. In Captain Carter's
manuscript it is mentioned always by the name used in the written
language of Helium and is spelled in hieroglyphics which it would be
difficult and useless to reproduce.)

While I was much interested in Dejah Thoris' explanation of this
wonderful adjunct to Martian warfare, I was more concerned by the
immediate problem of their treatment of her. That they were keeping
her away from me was not a matter for surprise, but that they should
subject her to dangerous and arduous labor filled me with rage.

"Have they ever subjected you to cruelty and ignominy, Dejah
Thoris?" I asked, feeling the hot blood of my fighting ancestors
leap in my veins as I awaited her reply.

"Only in little ways, John Carter," she answered. "Nothing that can
harm me outside my pride. They know that I am the daughter of ten
thousand jeddaks, that I trace my ancestry straight back without a
break to the builder of the first great waterway, and they, who do
not even know their own mothers, are jealous of me. At heart they
hate their horrid fates, and so wreak their poor spite on me who
stand for everything they have not, and for all they most crave and
never can attain. Let us pity them, my chieftain, for even though
we die at their hands we can afford them pity, since we are greater
than they and they know it."

Had I known the significance of those words "my chieftain," as
applied by a red Martian woman to a man, I should have had the
surprise of my life, but I did not know at that time, nor for many
months thereafter. Yes, I still had much to learn upon Barsoom.

"I presume it is the better part of wisdom that we bow to our
fate with as good grace as possible, Dejah Thoris; but I hope,
nevertheless, that I may be present the next time that any Martian,
green, red, pink, or violet, has the temerity to even so much as
frown on you, my princess."

Dejah Thoris caught her breath at my last words, and gazed upon me
with dilated eyes and quickening breath, and then, with an odd
little laugh, which brought roguish dimples to the corners of her
mouth, she shook her head and cried:

"What a child! A great warrior and yet a stumbling little child."

"What have I done now?" I asked, in sore perplexity.

"Some day you shall know, John Carter, if we live; but I may not
tell you. And I, the daughter of Mors Kajak, son of Tardos Mors,
have listened without anger," she soliloquized in conclusion.

Then she broke out again into one of her gay, happy, laughing moods;
joking with me on my prowess as a Thark warrior as contrasted with
my soft heart and natural kindliness.

"I presume that should you accidentally wound an enemy you would
take him home and nurse him back to health," she laughed.

"That is precisely what we do on Earth," I answered. "At least
among civilized men."

This made her laugh again. She could not understand it, for, with
all her tenderness and womanly sweetness, she was still a Martian,
and to a Martian the only good enemy is a dead enemy; for every
dead foeman means so much more to divide between those who live.

I was very curious to know what I had said or done to cause her so
much perturbation a moment before and so I continued to importune
her to enlighten me.

"No," she exclaimed, "it is enough that you have said it and that I
have listened. And when you learn, John Carter, and if I be dead,
as likely I shall be ere the further moon has circled Barsoom
another twelve times, remember that I listened and that I—smiled."

It was all Greek to me, but the more I begged her to explain the
more positive became her denials of my request, and, so, in very
hopelessness, I desisted.

Day had now given away to night and as we wandered along the great
avenue lighted by the two moons of Barsoom, and with Earth looking
down upon us out of her luminous green eye, it seemed that we were
alone in the universe, and I, at least, was content that it should
be so.

The chill of the Martian night was upon us, and removing my silks I
threw them across the shoulders of Dejah Thoris. As my arm rested
for an instant upon her I felt a thrill pass through every fiber of
my being such as contact with no other mortal had even produced; and
it seemed to me that she had leaned slightly toward me, but of that
I was not sure. Only I knew that as my arm rested there across her
shoulders longer than the act of adjusting the silk required she did
not draw away, nor did she speak. And so, in silence, we walked the
surface of a dying world, but in the breast of one of us at least
had been born that which is ever oldest, yet ever new.

I loved Dejah Thoris. The touch of my arm upon her naked shoulder
had spoken to me in words I would not mistake, and I knew that I had
loved her since the first moment that my eyes had met hers that
first time in the plaza of the dead city of Korad.

My first impulse was to tell her of my love, and then I thought of
the helplessness of her position wherein I alone could lighten the
burdens of her captivity, and protect her in my poor way against the
thousands of hereditary enemies she must face upon our arrival at
Thark. I could not chance causing her additional pain or sorrow
by declaring a love which, in all probability she did not return.
Should I be so indiscreet, her position would be even more
unbearable than now, and the thought that she might feel that
I was taking advantage of her helplessness, to influence her
decision was the final argument which sealed my lips.

"Why are you so quiet, Dejah Thoris?" I asked. "Possibly you
would rather return to Sola and your quarters."

"No," she murmured, "I am happy here. I do not know why it is that
I should always be happy and contented when you, John Carter, a
stranger, are with me; yet at such times it seems that I am safe and
that, with you, I shall soon return to my father's court and feel
his strong arms about me and my mother's tears and kisses on my
cheek."

"Do people kiss, then, upon Barsoom?" I asked, when she had
explained the word she used, in answer to my inquiry as to its
meaning.

"Parents, brothers, and sisters, yes; and," she added in a low,
thoughtful tone, "lovers."

"And you, Dejah Thoris, have parents and brothers and sisters?"

"Yes."

"And a—lover?"

She was silent, nor could I venture to repeat the question.

"The man of Barsoom," she finally ventured, "does not ask personal
questions of women, except his mother, and the woman he has fought
for and won."

"But I have fought—" I started, and then I wished my tongue had
been cut from my mouth; for she turned even as I caught myself and
ceased, and drawing my silks from her shoulder she held them out to
me, and without a word, and with head held high, she moved with the
carriage of the queen she was toward the plaza and the doorway of
her quarters.

I did not attempt to follow her, other than to see that she reached
the building in safety, but, directing Woola to accompany her, I
turned disconsolately and entered my own house. I sat for hours
cross-legged, and cross-tempered, upon my silks meditating upon
the queer freaks chance plays upon us poor devils of mortals.

So this was love! I had escaped it for all the years I had roamed
the five continents and their encircling seas; in spite of beautiful
women and urging opportunity; in spite of a half-desire for love and
a constant search for my ideal, it had remained for me to fall
furiously and hopelessly in love with a creature from another world,
of a species similar possibly, yet not identical with mine. A woman
who was hatched from an egg, and whose span of life might cover a
thousand years; whose people had strange customs and ideas; a woman
whose hopes, whose pleasures, whose standards of virtue and of right
and wrong might vary as greatly from mine as did those of the green
Martians.

Yes, I was a fool, but I was in love, and though I was suffering the
greatest misery I had ever known I would not have had it otherwise
for all the riches of Barsoom. Such is love, and such are lovers
wherever love is known.

To me, Dejah Thoris was all that was perfect; all that was virtuous
and beautiful and noble and good. I believed that from the bottom
of my heart, from the depth of my soul on that night in Korad as I
sat cross-legged upon my silks while the nearer moon of Barsoom
raced through the western sky toward the horizon, and lighted up the
gold and marble, and jeweled mosaics of my world-old chamber, and I
believe it today as I sit at my desk in the little study overlooking
the Hudson. Twenty years have intervened; for ten of them I lived
and fought for Dejah Thoris and her people, and for ten I have lived
upon her memory.