A Princess of Mars Rethroned (13 page)

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

CHAPTER
XIV

A DUEL TO THE
DEATH

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

'Why are you so
quiet, Dejar Thoris?' I asked. 'Possibly you would rather return to
Solan and your quarters.'

'No,' he
murmured, 'I am happy here. I do not know why it is that I should
always be happy and contented when you, Joan 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 mother's court and feel her
strong arms about me and my father's tears and kisses on my
cheek.'

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

'Parents,
sisters, and brothers, yes; and,' he added in a low, thoughtful
tone, 'lovers.'

'And you, Dejar
Thoris, have parents and sisters and sisters?'

'Yes.'

'And
a--lover?'

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

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

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

I did not attempt
to follow him, other than to see that he reached the building in
safety, but, directing Woolan to accompany him, 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 men 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 man who was
hatched from an egg, and whose span of life might cover a thousand
years; whose people had strange customs and ideas; a man 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, Dejar
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 Dejar Thoris and his people, and for
ten I have lived upon his memory.

The morning of
our departure for Thark dawned clear and hot, as do all Martian
mornings except for the six weeks when the snow melts at the
poles.

I sought out
Dejar Thoris in the throng of departing chariots, but he turned his
shoulder to me, and I could see the red blood mount to his cheek.
With the foolish inconsistency of love I held my peace when I might
have plead ignorance of the nature of my offense, or at least the
gravity of it, and so have effected, at worst, a half
conciliation.

My duty dictated
that I must see that he was comfortable, and so I glanced into his
chariot and rearranged his silks and furs. In doing so I noted with
horror that he was heavily chained by one ankle to the side of the
vehicle.

'What does this
mean?' I cried, turning to Solan.

'Sarkoja thought
it best,' he answered, his face betokening his disapproval of the
procedure.

Examining the
manacles I saw that they fastened with a massive spring
lock.

'Where is the
key, Solan? Let me have it.'

'Sarkoja wears
it, Joan Carter,' he answered.

I turned without
further word and sought out Tara Tarkas, to whom I vehemently
objected to the unnecessary humiliations and cruelties, as they
seemed to my lover's eyes, that were being heaped upon Dejar
Thoris.

'Joan Carter,'
she answered, 'if ever you and Dejar Thoris escape the Tharks it
will be upon this journey. We know that you will not go without
him. You have shown yourself a mighty fighter, and we do not wish
to manacle you, so we hold you both in the easiest way that will
yet ensure security. I have spoken.'

I saw the
strength of her reasoning at a flash, and knew that it were futile
to appeal from her decision, but I asked that the key be taken from
Sarkoja and that he be directed to leave the prisoner alone in
future.

'This much, Tara
Tarkas, you may do for me in return for the friendship that, I must
confess, I feel for you.'

'Friendship?' she
replied. 'There is no such thing, Joan Carter; but have your will.
I shall direct that Sarkoja cease to annoy the boy, and I myself
will take the custody of the key.'

'Unless you wish
me to assume the responsibility,' I said, smiling.

She looked at me
long and earnestly before she spoke.

'Were you to give
me your word that neither you nor Dejar Thoris would attempt to
escape until after we have safely reached the court of Tala Hajus
you might have the key and throw the chains into the river
Iss.'

'It were better
that you held the key, Tara Tarkas,' I replied

She smiled, and
said no more, but that night as we were making camp I saw her
unfasten Dejar Thoris' fetters herself.

With all her
cruel ferocity and coldness there was an undercurrent of something
in Tara Tarkas which she seemed ever battling to subdue. Could it
be a vestige of some human instinct come back from an ancient
forbear to haunt her with the horror of her people's
ways!

As I was
approaching Dejar Thoris' chariot I passed Sarkoja, and the black,
venomous look he accorded me was the sweetest balm I had felt for
many hours. Lady, how he hated me! It bristled from his so palpably
that one might almost have cut it with a sword.

A few moments
later I saw his deep in conversation with a warrior named Zada; a
big, hulking, powerful brute, but one who had never made a kill
among her own chieftains, and a second name only with the metal of
some chieftain. It was this custom which entitled me to the names
of either of the chieftains I had killed; in fact, some of the
warriors addressed me as Dotar Sojat, a combination of the surnames
of the two warrior chieftains whose metal I had taken, or, in other
words, whom I had slain in fair fight.

As Sarkoja talked
with Zada she cast occasional glances in my direction, while he
seemed to be urging her very strongly to some action. I paid little
attention to it at the time, but the next day I had good reason to
recall the circumstances, and at the same time gain a slight
insight into the depths of Sarkoja's hatred and the lengths to
which he was capable of going to wreak his horrid vengeance on
me.

Dejar Thoris
would have none of me again on this evening, and though I spoke his
name he neither replied, nor conceded by so much as the flutter of
an eyelid that he realized my existence. In my extremity I did what
most other lovers would have done; I sought word from his through
an intimate. In this instance it was Solan whom I intercepted in
another part of camp.

'What is the
matter with Dejar Thoris?' I blurted out at him. 'Why will he not
speak to me?'

Solan seemed
puzzled himself, as though such strange actions on the part of two
humans were quite beyond him, as indeed they were, poor
child.

'He says you have
angered him, and that is all he will say, except that he is the son
of a jed and the granddaughter of a jeddak and he has been
humiliated by a creature who could not polish the teeth of his
grandmother's sorak.'

I pondered over
this report for some time, finally asking, 'What might a sorak be,
Solan?'

'A little animal
about as big as my hand, which the red Martian men keep to play
with,' explained Solan.

Not fit to polish
the teeth of his grandmother's cat! I must rank pretty low in the
consideration of Dejar Thoris, I thought; but I could not help
laughing at the strange figure of speech, so homely and in this
respect so earthly. It made me homesick, for it sounded very much
like 'not fit to polish his shoes.' And then commenced a train of
thought quite new to me. I began to wonder what my people at home
were doing. I had not seen them for years. There was a family of
Carters in Virginia who claimed close relationship with me; I was
supposed to be a great aunt, or something of the kind equally
foolish. I could pass anywhere for twenty-five to thirty years of
age, and to be a great aunt always seemed the height of
incongruity, for my thoughts and feelings were those of a girl.
There was two little kiddies in the Carter family whom I had loved
and who had thought there was no one on Earth like Aunt Jack; I
could see them just as plainly, as I stood there under the moonlit
skies of Barsoom, and I longed for them as I had never longed for
any mortals before. By nature a wanderer, I had never known the
true meaning of the word home, but the great hall of the Carters
had always stood for all that the word did mean to me, and now my
heart turned toward it from the cold and unfriendly peoples I had
been thrown amongst. For did not even Dejar Thoris despise me! I
was a low creature, so low in fact that I was not even fit to
polish the teeth of his grandmother's cat; and then my saving sense
of humor came to my rescue, and laughing I turned into my silks and
furs and slept upon the moon-haunted ground the sleep of a tired
and healthy fighting woman.

We broke camp the
next day at an early hour and marched with only a single halt until
just before dark. Two incidents broke the tediousness of the march.
About noon we espied far to our right what was evidently an
incubator, and Lorqua Ptomel directed Tara Tarkas to investigate
it. The latter took a dozen warriors, including myself, and we
raced across the velvety carpeting of moss to the little
enclosure.

It was indeed an
incubator, but the eggs were very small in comparison with those I
had seen hatching in ours at the time of my arrival on
Mars.

Tara Tarkas
dismounted and examined the enclosure minutely, finally announcing
that it belonged to the green women of Warhoon and that the cement
was scarcely dry where it had been walled up.

'They cannot be a
day's march ahead of us,' she exclaimed, the light of battle
leaping to her fierce face.

The work at the
incubator was short indeed. The warriors tore open the entrance and
a couple of them, crawling in, soon demolished all the eggs with
their short-swords. Then remounting we dashed back to join the
cavalcade. During the ride I took occasion to ask Tara Tarkas if
these Warhoons whose eggs we had destroyed were a smaller people
than her Tharks.

'I noticed that
their eggs were so much smaller than those I saw hatching in your
incubator,' I added.

She explained
that the eggs had just been placed there; but, like all green
Martian eggs, they would grow during the five-year period of
incubation until they obtained the size of those I had seen
hatching on the day of my arrival on Barsoom. This was indeed an
interesting piece of information, for it had always seemed
remarkable to me that the green Martian men, large as they were,
could bring forth such enormous eggs as I had seen the four-foot
infants emerging from. As a matter of fact, the new-laid egg is but
little larger than an ordinary goose egg, and as it does not
commence to grow until subjected to the light of the sun the
chieftains have little difficulty in transporting several hundreds
of them at one time from the storage vaults to the
incubators.