A Princess of Mars (14 page)

Removing the blade from my body I also regained my own, and turning
my back upon his ugly carcass, I moved, sick, sore, and disgusted,
toward the chariots which bore my retinue and my belongings. A
murmur of Martian applause greeted me, but I cared not for it.

Bleeding and weak I reached my women, who, accustomed to such
happenings, dressed my wounds, applying the wonderful healing and
remedial agents which make only the most instantaneous of death
blows fatal. Give a Martian woman a chance and death must take a
back seat. They soon had me patched up so that, except for weakness
from loss of blood and a little soreness around the wound, I
suffered no great distress from this thrust which, under earthly
treatment, undoubtedly would have put me flat on my back for days.

As soon as they were through with me I hastened to the chariot of
Dejah Thoris, where I found my poor Sola with her chest swathed in
bandages, but apparently little the worse for her encounter with
Sarkoja, whose dagger it seemed had struck the edge of one of Sola's
metal breast ornaments and, thus deflected, had inflicted but a
slight flesh wound.

As I approached I found Dejah Thoris lying prone upon her silks
and furs, her lithe form wracked with sobs. She did not notice my
presence, nor did she hear me speaking with Sola, who was standing
a short distance from the vehicle.

"Is she injured?" I asked of Sola, indicating Dejah Thoris by an
inclination of my head.

"No," she answered, "she thinks that you are dead."

"And that her grandmother's cat may now have no one to polish its
teeth?" I queried, smiling.

"I think you wrong her, John Carter," said Sola. "I do not
understand either her ways or yours, but I am sure the granddaughter
of ten thousand jeddaks would never grieve like this over any who
held but the highest claim upon her affections. They are a proud
race, but they are just, as are all Barsoomians, and you must have
hurt or wronged her grievously that she will not admit your
existence living, though she mourns you dead.

"Tears are a strange sight upon Barsoom," she continued, "and so it
is difficult for me to interpret them. I have seen but two people
weep in all my life, other than Dejah Thoris; one wept from sorrow,
the other from baffled rage. The first was my mother, years ago
before they killed her; the other was Sarkoja, when they dragged
her from me today."

"Your mother!" I exclaimed, "but, Sola, you could not have known
your mother, child."

"But I did. And my father also," she added. "If you would like
to hear the strange and un-Barsoomian story come to the chariot
tonight, John Carter, and I will tell you that of which I have
never spoken in all my life before. And now the signal has been
given to resume the march, you must go."

"I will come tonight, Sola," I promised. "Be sure to tell Dejah
Thoris I am alive and well. I shall not force myself upon her,
and be sure that you do not let her know I saw her tears. If she
would speak with me I but await her command."

Sola mounted the chariot, which was swinging into its place
in line, and I hastened to my waiting thoat and galloped
to my station beside Tars Tarkas at the rear of the column.

We made a most imposing and awe-inspiring spectacle as we strung out
across the yellow landscape; the two hundred and fifty ornate and
brightly colored chariots, preceded by an advance guard of some two
hundred mounted warriors and chieftains riding five abreast and one
hundred yards apart, and followed by a like number in the same
formation, with a score or more of flankers on either side; the
fifty extra mastodons, or heavy draught animals, known as zitidars,
and the five or six hundred extra thoats of the warriors running
loose within the hollow square formed by the surrounding warriors.
The gleaming metal and jewels of the gorgeous ornaments of the men
and women, duplicated in the trappings of the zitidars and thoats,
and interspersed with the flashing colors of magnificent silks and
furs and feathers, lent a barbaric splendor to the caravan which
would have turned an East Indian potentate green with envy.

The enormous broad tires of the chariots and the padded feet of the
animals brought forth no sound from the moss-covered sea bottom; and
so we moved in utter silence, like some huge phantasmagoria, except
when the stillness was broken by the guttural growling of a goaded
zitidar, or the squealing of fighting thoats. The green Martians
converse but little, and then usually in monosyllables, low and
like the faint rumbling of distant thunder.

We traversed a trackless waste of moss which, bending to the
pressure of broad tire or padded foot, rose up again behind us,
leaving no sign that we had passed. We might indeed have been the
wraiths of the departed dead upon the dead sea of that dying planet
for all the sound or sign we made in passing. It was the first
march of a large body of men and animals I had ever witnessed which
raised no dust and left no spoor; for there is no dust upon Mars
except in the cultivated districts during the winter months, and
even then the absence of high winds renders it almost unnoticeable.

We camped that night at the foot of the hills we had been
approaching for two days and which marked the southern boundary of
this particular sea. Our animals had been two days without drink,
nor had they had water for nearly two months, not since shortly
after leaving Thark; but, as Tars Tarkas explained to me, they
require but little and can live almost indefinitely upon the moss
which covers Barsoom, and which, he told me, holds in its tiny stems
sufficient moisture to meet the limited demands of the animals.

After partaking of my evening meal of cheese-like food and vegetable
milk I sought out Sola, whom I found working by the light of a torch
upon some of Tars Tarkas' trappings. She looked up at my approach,
her face lighting with pleasure and with welcome.

"I am glad you came," she said; "Dejah Thoris sleeps and I am
lonely. Mine own people do not care for me, John Carter; I am too
unlike them. It is a sad fate, since I must live my life amongst
them, and I often wish that I were a true green Martian woman,
without love and without hope; but I have known love and so I
am lost.

"I promised to tell you my story, or rather the story of my parents.
From what I have learned of you and the ways of your people I am
sure that the tale will not seem strange to you, but among green
Martians it has no parallel within the memory of the oldest living
Thark, nor do our legends hold many similar tales.

"My mother was rather small, in fact too small to be allowed the
responsibilities of maternity, as our chieftains breed principally
for size. She was also less cold and cruel than most green Martian
women, and caring little for their society, she often roamed the
deserted avenues of Thark alone, or went and sat among the wild
flowers that deck the nearby hills, thinking thoughts and wishing
wishes which I believe I alone among Tharkian women today may
understand, for am I not the child of my mother?

"And there among the hills she met a young warrior, whose duty it
was to guard the feeding zitidars and thoats and see that they
roamed not beyond the hills. They spoke at first only of such
things as interest a community of Tharks, but gradually, as they
came to meet more often, and, as was now quite evident to both, no
longer by chance, they talked about themselves, their likes, their
ambitions and their hopes. She trusted him and told him of the
awful repugnance she felt for the cruelties of their kind, for the
hideous, loveless lives they must ever lead, and then she waited
for the storm of denunciation to break from his cold, hard lips;
but instead he took her in his arms and kissed her.

"They kept their love a secret for six long years. She, my mother,
was of the retinue of the great Tal Hajus, while her lover was a
simple warrior, wearing only his own metal. Had their defection
from the traditions of the Tharks been discovered both would have
paid the penalty in the great arena before Tal Hajus and the
assembled hordes.

"The egg from which I came was hidden beneath a great glass vessel
upon the highest and most inaccessible of the partially ruined
towers of ancient Thark. Once each year my mother visited it for
the five long years it lay there in the process of incubation. She
dared not come oftener, for in the mighty guilt of her conscience
she feared that her every move was watched. During this period
my father gained great distinction as a warrior and had taken the
metal from several chieftains. His love for my mother had never
diminished, and his own ambition in life was to reach a point where
he might wrest the metal from Tal Hajus himself, and thus, as ruler
of the Tharks, be free to claim her as his own, as well as, by the
might of his power, protect the child which otherwise would be
quickly dispatched should the truth become known.

"It was a wild dream, that of wresting the metal from Tal Hajus in
five short years, but his advance was rapid, and he soon stood high
in the councils of Thark. But one day the chance was lost forever,
in so far as it could come in time to save his loved ones, for he
was ordered away upon a long expedition to the ice-clad south, to
make war upon the natives there and despoil them of their furs, for
such is the manner of the green Barsoomian; he does not labor for
what he can wrest in battle from others.

"He was gone for four years, and when he returned all had been over
for three; for about a year after his departure, and shortly before
the time for the return of an expedition which had gone forth to
fetch the fruits of a community incubator, the egg had hatched.
Thereafter my mother continued to keep me in the old tower, visiting
me nightly and lavishing upon me the love the community life
would have robbed us both of. She hoped, upon the return of the
expedition from the incubator, to mix me with the other young
assigned to the quarters of Tal Hajus, and thus escape the fate
which would surely follow discovery of her sin against the ancient
traditions of the green men.

"She taught me rapidly the language and customs of my kind, and one
night she told me the story I have told to you up to this point,
impressing upon me the necessity for absolute secrecy and the great
caution I must exercise after she had placed me with the other young
Tharks to permit no one to guess that I was further advanced in
education than they, nor by any sign to divulge in the presence of
others my affection for her, or my knowledge of my parentage; and
then drawing me close to her she whispered in my ear the name of
my father.

"And then a light flashed out upon the darkness of the tower
chamber, and there stood Sarkoja, her gleaming, baleful eyes fixed
in a frenzy of loathing and contempt upon my mother. The torrent of
hatred and abuse she poured out upon her turned my young heart cold
in terror. That she had heard the entire story was apparent, and
that she had suspected something wrong from my mother's long nightly
absences from her quarters accounted for her presence there on that
fateful night.

"One thing she had not heard, nor did she know, the whispered name
of my father. This was apparent from her repeated demands upon my
mother to disclose the name of her partner in sin, but no amount of
abuse or threats could wring this from her, and to save me from
needless torture she lied, for she told Sarkoja that she alone
knew nor would she even tell her child.

"With final imprecations, Sarkoja hastened away to Tal Hajus to
report her discovery, and while she was gone my mother, wrapping me
in the silks and furs of her night coverings, so that I was scarcely
noticeable, descended to the streets and ran wildly away toward the
outskirts of the city, in the direction which led to the far south,
out toward the man whose protection she might not claim, but on
whose face she wished to look once more before she died.

"As we neared the city's southern extremity a sound came to us from
across the mossy flat, from the direction of the only pass through
the hills which led to the gates, the pass by which caravans from
either north or south or east or west would enter the city. The
sounds we heard were the squealing of thoats and the grumbling of
zitidars, with the occasional clank of arms which announced the
approach of a body of warriors. The thought uppermost in her mind
was that it was my father returned from his expedition, but the
cunning of the Thark held her from headlong and precipitate flight
to greet him.

"Retreating into the shadows of a doorway she awaited the coming
of the cavalcade which shortly entered the avenue, breaking its
formation and thronging the thoroughfare from wall to wall. As the
head of the procession passed us the lesser moon swung clear of the
overhanging roofs and lit up the scene with all the brilliancy of
her wondrous light. My mother shrank further back into the friendly
shadows, and from her hiding place saw that the expedition was not
that of my father, but the returning caravan bearing the young
Tharks. Instantly her plan was formed, and as a great chariot
swung close to our hiding place she slipped stealthily in upon the
trailing tailboard, crouching low in the shadow of the high side,
straining me to her bosom in a frenzy of love.

"She knew, what I did not, that never again after that night would
she hold me to her breast, nor was it likely we would ever look upon
each other's face again. In the confusion of the plaza she mixed me
with the other children, whose guardians during the journey were now
free to relinquish their responsibility. We were herded together
into a great room, fed by women who had not accompanied the
expedition, and the next day we were parceled out among the
retinues of the chieftains.