A Princess of Mars Rethroned (14 page)

Shortly after the
incident of the Warhoon eggs we halted to rest the animals, and it
was during this halt that the second of the day's interesting
episodes occurred. I was engaged in changing my riding cloths from
one of my thoats to the other, for I divided the day's work between
them, when Zada approached me, and without a word struck my animal
a terrific blow with her long-sword.

I did not need a
manual of green Martian etiquette to know what reply to make, for,
in fact, I was so wild with anger that I could scarcely refrain
from drawing my pistol and shooting her down for the brute she was;
but she stood waiting with drawn long-sword, and my only choice was
to draw my own and meet her in fair fight with her choice of
weapons or a lesser one.

This latter
alternative is always permissible, therefore I could have used my
short-sword, my dagger, my hatchet, or my fists had I wished, and
been entirely within my rights, but I could not use firearms or a
spear while she held only her long-sword.

I chose the same
weapon she had drawn because I knew she prided herself upon her
ability with it, and I wished, if I worsted her at all, to do it
with her own weapon. The fight that followed was a long one and
delayed the resumption of the march for an hour. The entire
community surrounded us, leaving a clear space about one hundred
feet in diameter for our battle.

Zada first
attempted to rush me down as a bull might a wolf, but I was much
too quick for her, and each time I side-stepped her rushes she
would go lunging past me, only to receive a nick from my sword upon
her arm or back. She was soon streaming blood from a half dozen
minor wounds, but I could not obtain an opening to deliver an
effective thrust. Then she changed her tactics, and fighting warily
and with extreme dexterity, she tried to do by science what she was
unable to do by brute strength. I must admit that she was a
magnificent swordswoman, and had it not been for my greater
endurance and the remarkable agility the lesser gravitation of Mars
lent me I might not have been able to put up the creditable fight I
did against her.

We circled for
some time without doing much damage on either side; the long,
straight, needle-like swords flashing in the sunlight, and ringing
out upon the stillness as they crashed together with each effective
parry. Finally Zada, realizing that she was tiring more than I,
evidently decided to close in and end the battle in a final blaze
of glory for herself; just as she rushed me a blinding flash of
light struck full in my eyes, so that I could not see her approach
and could only leap blindly to one side in an effort to escape the
mighty blade that it seemed I could already feel in my vitals. I
was only partially successful, as a sharp pain in my left shoulder
attested, but in the sweep of my glance as I sought to again locate
my adversary, a sight met my astonished gaze which paid me well for
the wound the temporary blindness had caused me. There, upon Dejar
Thoris' chariot stood three figures, for the purpose evidently of
witnessing the encounter above the heads of the intervening Tharks.
There were Dejar Thoris, Solan, and Sarkoja, and as my fleeting
glance swept over them a little tableau was presented which will
stand graven in my memory to the day of my death.

As I looked,
Dejar Thoris turned upon Sarkoja with the fury of a young tigress
and struck something from his upraised hand; something which
flashed in the sunlight as it spun to the ground. Then I knew what
had blinded me at that crucial moment of the fight, and how Sarkoja
had found a way to kill me without himself delivering the final
thrust. Another thing I saw, too, which almost lost my life for me
then and there, for it took my mind for the fraction of an instant
entirely from my antagonist; for, as Dejar Thoris struck the tiny
mirror from his hand, Sarkoja, his face livid with hatred and
baffled rage, whipped out his dagger and aimed a terrific blow at
Dejar Thoris; and then Solan, our dear and faithful Solan, sprang
between them; the last I saw was the great knife descending upon
his shielding breast.

My enemy had
recovered from her thrust and was making it extremely interesting
for me, so I reluctantly gave my attention to the work in hand, but
my mind was not upon the battle.

We rushed each
other furiously time after time, 'til suddenly, feeling the sharp
point of her sword at my breast in a thrust I could neither parry
nor escape, I threw myself upon her with outstretched sword and
with all the weight of my body, determined that I would not die
alone if I could prevent it. I felt the steel tear into my bosom ,
all went black before me, my head whirled in dizziness, and I felt
my knees giving beneath me.

CHAPTER
XV

SOLA TELLS ME HER
STORY

When
consciousness returned, and, as I soon learned, I was down but a
moment, I sprang quickly to my feet searching for my sword, and
there I found it, buried to the hilt in the green breast of Zada,
who lay stone dead upon the ochre moss of the ancient sea bottom.
As I regained my full senses I found her weapon piercing my left
breast, but only through the flesh and muscles which cover my ribs,
entering near the center of my bosom and coming out below the
shoulder. As I had lunged I had turned so that her sword merely
passed beneath the muscles, inflicting a painful but not dangerous
wound.

Removing the
blade from my body I also regained my own, and turning my back upon
her 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 men, 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 man 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 Dejar Thoris,
where I found my poor Solan with his bosom swathed in bandages, but
apparently little the worse for his encounter with Sarkoja, whose
dagger it seemed had struck the edge of one of Solan's metal breast
ornaments and, thus deflected, had inflicted but a slight flesh
wound.

As I approached I
found Dejar Thoris lying prone upon his silks and furs, his lithe
form wracked with sobs. He did not notice my presence, nor did he
hear me speaking with Solan, who was standing a short distance from
the vehicle.

'Is he injured?'
I asked of Solan, indicating Dejar Thoris by an inclination of my
head.

'No,' he
answered, 'he thinks that you are dead.'

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

'I think you
wrong him, Joan Carter,' said Solan. 'I do not understand either
his 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 his affections. They are a proud race, but they
are just, as are all Barsoomians, and you must have hurt or wronged
his grievously that he will not admit your existence living, though
he mourns you dead.

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

'Your mother!' I
exclaimed, 'but, Solan, you could not have known your mother,
child.'

'But I did. And
my mother also,' he added. 'If you would like to hear the strange
and un-Barsoomian story come to the chariot tonight, Joan 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, Solan,' I promised. 'Be sure to tell Dejar Thoris I am
alive and well. I shall not force myself upon him, and be sure that
you do not let his know I saw his tears. If he would speak with me
I but await his command.'

Solan mounted the
chariot, which was swinging into its place in line, and I hastened
to my waiting thoat and galloped to my station beside Tara 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 women
and men, 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 women 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
Tara Tarkas explained to me, they require but little and can live
almost indefinitely upon the moss which covers Barsoom, and which,
she 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 Solan, whom I found working by the light of a torch upon some
of Tara Tarkas' trappings. He looked up at my approach, his face
lighting with pleasure and with welcome.

'I am glad you
came,' he said; 'Dejar Thoris sleeps and I am lonely. Mine own
people do not care for me, Joan 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 man, 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 mothers was
rather small, in fact too small to be allowed the responsibilities
of maternity, as our chieftains breed principally for size. He was
also less cold and cruel than most green Martian men, and caring
little for their society, he 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 men today may understand, for am I not the
child of my mother?

'And there among
the hills he 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. He trusted her and told her of the awful repugnance he
felt for the cruelties of their kind, for the hideous, loveless
lives they must ever lead, and then he waited for the storm of
denunciation to break from her cold, hard lips; but instead she
took his in her arms and kissed him.

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