A Princess of Mars Rethroned (19 page)

'I am of Helium,'
she said, 'but I do not recall your name.'

And then I told
her my story as I have written it here, omitting only any reference
to my love for Dejar Thoris. She was much excited by the news of
Helium's prince and seemed quite positive that he and Solan could
easily have reached a point of safety from where they left me. She
said that she knew the place well because the defile through which
the Warhoon warriors had passed when they discovered us was the
only one ever used by them when marching to the south.

'Dejar Thoris and
Solan entered the hills not five miles from a great waterway and
are now probably quite safe,' she assured me.

My fellow
prisoner was Kantoa Kan, a padwar (lieutenant) in the navy of
Helium. She had been a member of the ill-fated expedition which had
fallen into the hands of the Tharks at the time of Dejar Thoris'
capture, and she briefly related the events which followed the
defeat of the battleships.

Badly injured and
only partially manned they had limped slowly toward Helium, but
while passing near the city of Zodanga, the capital of Helium's
hereditary enemies among the red women of Barsoom, they had been
attacked by a great body of war vessels and all but the craft to
which Kantoa Kan belonged were either destroyed or captured. Her
vessel was chased for days by three of the Zodangan war ships but
finally escaped during the darkness of a moonless night.

Thirty days after
the capture of Dejar Thoris, or about the time of our coming to
Thark, her vessel had reached Helium with about ten survivors of
the original crew of seven hundred officers and women. Immediately
seven great fleets, each of one hundred mighty war ships, had been
dispatched to search for Dejar Thoris, and from these vessels two
thousand smaller craft had been kept out continuously in futile
search for the missing prince.

Two green Martian
communities had been wiped off the face of Barsoom by the avenging
fleets, but no trace of Dejar Thoris had been found. They had been
searching among the northern hordes, and only within the past few
days had they extended their quest to the south.

Kantoa Kan had
been detailed to one of the small one-man fliers and had had the
misfortune to be discovered by the Warhoons while exploring their
city. The bravery and daring of the woman won my greatest respect
and admiration. Alone she had landed at the city's boundary and on
foot had penetrated to the buildings surrounding the plaza. For two
days and nights she had explored their quarters and their dungeons
in search of her beloved prince only to fall into the hands of a
party of Warhoons as she was about to leave, after assuring herself
that Dejar Thoris was not a captive there.

During the period
of our incarceration Kantoa Kan and I became well acquainted, and
formed a warm personal friendship. A few days only elapsed,
however, before we were dragged forth from our dungeon for the
great games. We were conducted early one morning to an enormous
amphitheater, which instead of having been built upon the surface
of the ground was excavated below the surface. It had partially
filled with debris so that how large it had originally been was
difficult to say. In its present condition it held the entire
twenty thousand Warhoons of the assembled hordes.

The arena was
immense but extremely uneven and unkempt. Around it the Warhoons
had piled building stone from some of the ruined edifices of the
ancient city to prevent the animals and the captives from escaping
into the audience, and at each end had been constructed cages to
hold them until their turns came to meet some horrible death upon
the arena.

Kantoa Kan and I
were confined together in one of the cages. In the others were wild
calots, thoats, mad zitidars, green warriors, and men of other
hordes, and many strange and ferocious wild beasts of Barsoom which
I had never before seen. The din of their roaring, growling and
squealing was deafening and the formidable appearance of any one of
them was enough to make the stoutest heart feel grave
forebodings.

Kantoa Kan
explained to me that at the end of the day one of these prisoners
would gain freedom and the others would lie dead about the arena.
The winners in the various contests of the day would be pitted
against each other until only two remained alive; the victor in the
last encounter being set free, whether animal or woman. The
following morning the cages would be filled with a new consignment
of victims, and so on throughout the ten days of the
games.

Shortly after we
had been caged the amphitheater began to fill and within an hour
every available part of the seating space was occupied. Daka Kova,
with her jeds and chieftains, sat at the center of one side of the
arena upon a large raised platform.

At a signal from
Daka Kova the doors of two cages were thrown open and a dozen green
Martian females were driven to the center of the arena. Each was
given a dagger and then, at the far end, a pack of twelve calots,
or wild dogs were loosed upon them.

As the brutes,
growling and foaming, rushed upon the almost defenseless men I
turned my head that I might not see the horrid sight. The yells and
laughter of the green horde bore witness to the excellent quality
of the sport and when I turned back to the arena, as Kantoa Kan
told me it was over, I saw three victorious calots, snarling and
growling over the bodies of their prey. The men had given a good
account of themselves.

Next a mad
zitidar was loosed among the remaining dogs, and so it went
throughout the long, hot, horrible day.

During the day I
was pitted against first women and then beasts, but as I was armed
with a long-sword and always outclassed my adversary in agility and
generally in strength as well, it proved but child's play to me.
Time and time again I won the applause of the bloodthirsty
multitude, and toward the end there were cries that I be taken from
the arena and be made a member of the hordes of Warhoon.

Finally there
were but three of us left, a great green warrior of some far
northern horde, Kantoa Kan, and myself.

The other two
were to battle and then I to fight the conqueror for the liberty
which was accorded the final winner.

Kantoa Kan had
fought several times during the day and like myself had always
proven victorious, but occasionally by the smallest of margins,
especially when pitted against the green warriors. I had little
hope that she could best her giant adversary who had mowed down all
before her during the day. The fellow towered nearly sixteen feet
in height, while Kantoa Kan was some inches under six feet. As they
advanced to meet one another I saw for the first time a trick of
Martian swordswomanship which centered Kantoa Kan's every hope of
victory and life on one cast of the dice, for, as she came to
within about twenty feet of the huge fellow she threw her sword arm
far behind her over her shoulder and with a mighty sweep hurled her
weapon point foremost at the green warrior. It flew true as an
arrow and piercing the poor devil's heart laid her dead upon the
arena.

Kantoa Kan and I
were now pitted against each other but as we approached to the
encounter I whispered to her to prolong the battle until nearly
dark in the hope that we might find some means of escape. The horde
evidently guessed that we had no hearts to fight each other and so
they howled in rage as neither of us placed a fatal thrust. Just as
I saw the sudden coming of dark I whispered to Kantoa Kan to thrust
her sword between my left arm and my body. As she did so I
staggered back clasping the sword tightly with my arm and thus fell
to the ground with her weapon apparently protruding from my bosom .
Kantoa Kan perceived my coup and stepping quickly to my side she
placed her foot upon my neck and withdrawing her sword from my body
gave me the final death blow through the neck which is supposed to
sever the jugular vein, but in this instance the cold blade slipped
harmlessly into the sand of the arena. In the darkness which had
now fallen none could tell but that she had really finished me. I
whispered to her to go and claim her freedom and then look for me
in the hills east of the city, and so she left me.

When the
amphitheater had cleared I crept stealthily to the top and as the
great excavation lay far from the plaza and in an untenanted
portion of the great dead city I had little trouble in reaching the
hills beyond.

CHAPTER
XX

IN THE ATMOSPHERE
FACTORY

For two days I
waited there for Kantoa Kan, but as she did not come I started off
on foot in a northwesterly direction toward a point where she had
told me lay the nearest waterway. My only food consisted of
vegetable milk from the plants which gave so bounteously of this
priceless fluid.

Through two long
weeks I wandered, stumbling through the nights guided only by the
stars and hiding during the days behind some protruding rock or
among the occasional hills I traversed. Several times I was
attacked by wild beasts; strange, uncouth monstrosities that leaped
upon me in the dark, so that I had ever to grasp my long-sword in
my hand that I might be ready for them. Usually my strange, newly
acquired telepathic power warned me in ample time, but once I was
down with vicious fangs at my jugular and a hairy face pressed
close to mine before I knew that I was even threatened.

What manner of
thing was upon me I did not know, but that it was large and heavy
and many-legged I could feel. My hands were at its throat before
the fangs had a chance to bury themselves in my neck, and slowly I
forced the hairy face from me and closed my fingers, vise-like,
upon its windpipe.

Without sound we
lay there, the beast exerting every effort to reach me with those
awful fangs, and I straining to maintain my grip and choke the life
from it as I kept it from my throat. Slowly my arms gave to the
unequal struggle, and inch by inch the burning eyes and gleaming
tusks of my antagonist crept toward me, until, as the hairy face
touched mine again, I realized that all was over. And then a living
mass of destruction sprang from the surrounding darkness full upon
the creature that held me pinioned to the ground. The two rolled
growling upon the moss, tearing and rending one another in a
frightful manner, but it was soon over and my preserver stood with
lowered head above the throat of the dead thing which would have
killed me.

The nearer moon,
hurtling suddenly above the horizon and lighting up the Barsoomian
scene, showed me that my preserver was Woolan, but from whence she
had come, or how found me, I was at a loss to know. That I was glad
of her companionship it is needless to say, but my pleasure at
seeing hers was tempered by anxiety as to the reason of her leaving
Dejar Thoris. Only his death I felt sure, could account for her
absence from him, so faithful I knew her to be to my
commands.

By the light of
the now brilliant moons I saw that she was but a shadow of her
former self, and as she turned from my caress and commenced
greedily to devour the dead carcass at my feet I realized that the
poor fellow was more than half starved. I, myself, was in but
little better plight but I could not bring myself to eat the
uncooked flesh and I had no means of making a fire. When Woolan had
finished her meal I again took up my weary and seemingly endless
wandering in quest of the elusive waterway.

At daybreak of
the fifteenth day of my search I was overjoyed to see the high
trees that denoted the object of my search. About noon I dragged
myself wearily to the portals of a huge building which covered
perhaps four square miles and towered two hundred feet in the air.
It showed no aperture in the mighty walls other than the tiny door
at which I sank exhausted, nor was there any sign of life about
it.

I could find no
bell or other method of making my presence known to the inmates of
the place, unless a small round role in the wall near the door was
for that purpose. It was of about the bigness of a lead pencil and
thinking that it might be in the nature of a speaking tube I put my
mouth to it and was about to call into it when a voice issued from
it asking me whom I might be, where from, and the nature of my
errand.

I explained that
I had escaped from the Warhoons and was dying of starvation and
exhaustion.

'You wear the
metal of a green warrior and are followed by a calot, yet you are
of the figure of a red woman. In color you are neither green nor
red. In the name of the ninth day, what manner of creature are
you?'

'I am a friend of
the red women of Barsoom and I am starving. In the name of humanity
open to us,' I replied.

Presently the
door commenced to recede before me until it had sunk into the wall
fifty feet, then it stopped and slid easily to the left, exposing a
short, narrow corridor of concrete, at the further end of which was
another door, similar in every respect to the one I had just
passed. No one was in sight, yet immediately we passed the first
door it slid gently into place behind us and receded rapidly to its
original position in the front wall of the building. As the door
had slipped aside I had noted its great thickness, fully twenty
feet, and as it reached its place once more after closing behind
us, great cylinders of steel had dropped from the ceiling behind it
and fitted their lower ends into apertures countersunk in the
floor.