A Princess of Mars Rethroned (11 page)

'The fact that
you wore no ornaments is a strong proof of your un-Barsoomian
origin, while the absence of grotesque coverings might cause a
doubt as to your earthliness.'

I then narrated
the details of my departure from the Earth, explaining that my body
there lay fully clothed in all the, to him, strange garments of
mundane dwellers. At this point Solan returned with our meager
belongings and his young Martian protege, who, of course, would
have to share the quarters with them.

Solan asked us if
we had had a visitor during his absence, and seemed much surprised
when we answered in the negative. It seemed that as he had mounted
the approach to the upper floors where our quarters were located,
he had met Sarkoja descending. We decided that he must have been
eavesdropping, but as we could recall nothing of importance that
had passed between us we dismissed the matter as of little
consequence, merely promising ourselves to be warned to the utmost
caution in the future.

Dejar Thoris and
I then fell to examining the architecture and decorations of the
beautiful chambers of the building we were occupying. He told me
that these people had presumably flourished over a hundred thousand
years before. They were the early progenitors of his race, but had
mixed with the other great race of early Martians, who were very
dark, almost black, and also with the reddish yellow race which had
flourished at the same time.

These three great
divisions of the higher Martians had been forced into a mighty
alliance as the drying up of the Martian seas had compelled them to
seek the comparatively few and always diminishing fertile areas,
and to defend themselves, under new conditions of life, against the
wild hordes of green women.

Ages of close
relationship and intermarrying had resulted in the race of red
women, of which Dejar Thoris was a fair and beautiful son. During
the ages of hardships and incessant warring between their own
various races, as well as with the green women, and before they had
fitted themselves to the changed conditions, much of the high
civilization and many of the arts of the fair-haired Martians had
become lost; but the red race of today has reached a point where it
feels that it has made up in new discoveries and in a more
practical civilization for all that lies irretrievably buried with
the ancient Barsoomians, beneath the countless intervening
ages.

These ancient
Martians had been a highly cultivated and literary race, but during
the vicissitudes of those trying centuries of readjustment to new
conditions, not only did their advancement and production cease
entirely, but practically all their archives, records, and
literature were lost.

Dejar Thoris
related many interesting facts and legends concerning this lost
race of noble and kindly people. He said that the city in which we
were camping was supposed to have been a center of commerce and
culture known as Korad. It had been built upon a beautiful, natural
harbor, landlocked by magnificent hills. The little valley on the
west front of the city, he explained, was all that remained of the
harbor, while the pass through the hills to the old sea bottom had
been the channel through which the shipping passed up to the city's
gates.

The shores of the
ancient seas were dotted with just such cities, and lesser ones, in
diminishing numbers, were to be found converging toward the center
of the oceans, as the people had found it necessary to follow the
receding waters until necessity had forced upon them their ultimate
salvation, the so-called Martian canals.

We had been so
engrossed in exploration of the building and in our conversation
that it was late in the afternoon before we realized it. We were
brought back to a realization of our present conditions by a
messenger bearing a summons from Lorqua Ptomel directing me to
appear before her forthwith. Bidding Dejar Thoris and Solan
farewell, and commanding Woolan to remain on guard, I hastened to
the audience chamber, where I found Lorqua Ptomel and Tara Tarkas
seated upon the rostrum.

CHAPTER
XII

A PRISONER WITH
POWER

As I entered and
saluted, Lorqua Ptomel signaled me to advance, and, fixing her
great, hideous eyes upon me, addressed me thus:

'You have been
with us a few days, yet during that time you have by your prowess
won a high position among us. Be that as it may, you are not one of
us; you owe us no allegiance.

'Your position is
a peculiar one,' she continued; 'you are a prisoner and yet you
give commands which must be obeyed; you are an alien and yet you
are a Tharkian chieftain; you are a midget and yet you can kill a
mighty warrior with one blow of your fist. And now you are reported
to have been plotting to escape with another prisoner of another
race; a prisoner who, from his own admission, half believes you are
returned from the valley of Dor. Either one of these accusations,
if proved, would be sufficient grounds for your execution, but we
are a just people and you shall have a trial on our return to
Thark, if Tala Hajus so commands.

'But,' she
continued, in her fierce guttural tones, 'if you run off with the
red boy it is I who shall have to account to Tala Hajus; it is I
who shall have to face Tara Tarkas, and either demonstrate my right
to command, or the metal from my dead carcass will go to a better
woman, for such is the custom of the Tharks.

'I have no
quarrel with Tara Tarkas; together we rule supreme the greatest of
the lesser communities among the green women; we do not wish to
fight between ourselves; and so if you were dead, Joan Carter, I
should be glad. Under two conditions only, however, may you be
killed by us without orders from Tala Hajus; in personal combat in
self-defense, should you attack one of us, or were you apprehended
in an attempt to escape.

'As a matter of
justice I must warn you that we only await one of these two excuses
for ridding ourselves of so great a responsibility. The safe
delivery of the red boy to Tala Hajus is of the greatest
importance. Not in a thousand years have the Tharks made such a
capture; he is the granddaughter of the greatest of the red
jeddaks, who is also our bitterest enemy. I have spoken. The red
boy told us that we were without the softer sentiments of humanity,
but we are a just and truthful race. You may go.'

Turning, I left
the audience chamber. So this was the beginning of Sarkoja's
persecution! I knew that none other could be responsible for this
report which had reached the ears of Lorqua Ptomel so quickly, and
now I recalled those portions of our conversation which had touched
upon escape and upon my origin.

Sarkoja was at
this time Tara Tarkas' oldest and most trusted male. As such he was
a mighty power behind the throne, for no warrior had the confidence
of Lorqua Ptomel to such an extent as did her ablest lieutenant,
Tara Tarkas.

However, instead
of putting thoughts of possible escape from my mind, my audience
with Lorqua Ptomel only served to center my every faculty on this
subject. Now, more than before, the absolute necessity for escape,
in so far as Dejar Thoris was concerned, was impressed upon me, for
I was convinced that some horrible fate awaited his at the
headquarters of Tala Hajus.

As described by
Solan, this monster was the exaggerated personification of all the
ages of cruelty, ferocity, and brutality from which she had
descended. Cold, cunning, calculating; she was, also, in marked
contrast to most of her fellows, a slave to that brute passion
which the waning demands for procreation upon their dying planet
has almost stilled in the Martian breast.

The thought that
the divine Dejar Thoris might fall into the clutches of such an
abysmal atavism started the cold sweat upon me. Far better that we
save friendly bullets for ourselves at the last moment, as did
those brave frontier men of my lost land, who took their own lives
rather than fall into the hands of the Indian braves.

As I wandered
about the plaza lost in my gloomy forebodings Tara Tarkas
approached me on her way from the audience chamber. Her demeanor
toward me was unchanged, and she greeted me as though we had not
just parted a few moments before.

'Where are your
quarters, Joan Carter?' she asked.

'I have selected
none,' I replied. 'It seemed best that I quartered either by myself
or among the other warriors, and I was awaiting an opportunity to
ask your advice. As you know,' and I smiled, 'I am not yet familiar
with all the customs of the Tharks.'

'Come with me,'
she directed, and together we moved off across the plaza to a
building which I was glad to see adjoined that occupied by Solan
and his charges.

'My quarters are
on the first floor of this building,' she said, 'and the second
floor also is fully occupied by warriors, but the third floor and
the floors above are vacant; you may take your choice of
these.

'I understand,'
she continued, 'that you have given up your man to the red
prisoner. Well, as you have said, your ways are not our ways, but
you can fight well enough to do about as you please, and so, if you
wish to give your man to a captive, it is your own affair; but as a
chieftain you should have those to serve you, and in accordance
with our customs you may select any or all the females from the
retinues of the chieftains whose metal you now wear.'

I thanked her,
but assured her that I could get along very nicely without
assistance except in the matter of preparing food, and so she
promised to send men to me for this purpose and also for the care
of my arms and the manufacture of my ammunition, which she said
would be necessary. I suggested that they might also bring some of
the sleeping silks and furs which belonged to me as spoils of
combat, for the nights were cold and I had none of my
own.

She promised to
do so, and departed. Left alone, I ascended the winding corridor to
the upper floors in search of suitable quarters. The beauties of
the other buildings were repeated in this, and, as usual, I was
soon lost in a tour of investigation and discovery.

I finally chose a
front room on the third floor, because this brought me nearer to
Dejar Thoris, whose apartment was on the second floor of the
adjoining building, and it flashed upon me that I could rig up some
means of communication whereby he might signal me in case he needed
either my services or my protection.

Adjoining my
sleeping apartment were baths, dressing rooms, and other sleeping
and living apartments, in all some ten rooms on this floor. The
windows of the back rooms overlooked an enormous court, which
formed the center of the square made by the buildings which faced
the four contiguous streets, and which was now given over to the
quartering of the various animals belonging to the warriors
occupying the adjoining buildings.

While the court
was entirely overgrown with the yellow, moss-like vegetation which
blankets practically the entire surface of Mars, yet numerous
fountains, statuary, benches, and pergola-like contraptions bore
witness to the beauty which the court must have presented in bygone
times, when graced by the fair-haired, laughing people whom stern
and unalterable cosmic laws had driven not only from their homes,
but from all except the vague legends of their
descendants.

One could easily
picture the gorgeous foliage of the luxuriant Martian vegetation
which once filled this scene with life and color; the graceful
figures of the beautiful men, the straight and handsome women; the
happy frolicking children--all sunlight, happiness and peace. It
was difficult to realize that they had gone; down through ages of
darkness, cruelty, and ignorance, until their hereditary instincts
of culture and humanitarianism had risen ascendant once more in the
final composite race which now is dominant upon Mars.

My thoughts were
cut short by the advent of several young females bearing loads of
weapons, silks, furs, jewels, cooking utensils, and casks of food
and drink, including considerable loot from the air craft. All
this, it seemed, had been the property of the two chieftains I had
slain, and now, by the customs of the Tharks, it had become mine.
At my direction they placed the stuff in one of the back rooms, and
then departed, only to return with a second load, which they
advised me constituted the balance of my goods. On the second trip
they were accompanied by ten or fifteen other men and youths, who,
it seemed, formed the retinues of the two chieftains.

They were not
their families, nor their husbands, nor their servants; the
relationship was peculiar, and so unlike anything known to us that
it is most difficult to describe. All property among the green
Martians is owned in common by the community, except the personal
weapons, ornaments and sleeping silks and furs of the individuals.
These alone can one claim undisputed right to, nor may she
accumulate more of these than are required for her actual needs.
The surplus she holds merely as custodian, and it is passed on to
the younger members of the community as necessity
demands.

The men and
children of a woman's retinue may be likened to a military unit for
which she is responsible in various ways, as in matters of
instruction, discipline, sustenance, and the exigencies of their
continual roamings and their unending strife with other communities
and with the red Martians. Her men are in no sense husbands. The
green Martians use no word corresponding in meaning with this
earthly word. Their mating is a matter of community interest
solely, and is directed without reference to natural selection. The
council of chieftains of each community control the matter as
surely as the owner of a Kentucky racing stud directs the
scientific breeding of her stock for the improvement of the
whole.