A Princess of Mars Rethroned (4 page)

My effort was
crowned with a success which appalled me no less than it seemed to
surprise the Martian warriors, for it carried me fully thirty feet
into the air and landed me a hundred feet from my pursuers and on
the opposite side of the enclosure.

I alighted upon
the soft moss easily and without mishap, and turning saw my enemies
lined up along the further wall. Some were surveying me with
expressions which I afterward discovered marked extreme
astonishment, and the others were evidently satisfying themselves
that I had not molested their young.

They were
conversing together in low tones, and gesticulating and pointing
toward me. Their discovery that I had not harmed the little
Martians, and that I was unarmed, must have caused them to look
upon me with less ferocity; but, as I was to learn later, the thing
which weighed most in my favor was my exhibition of
hurdling.

While the
Martians are immense, their bones are very large and they are
muscled only in proportion to the gravitation which they must
overcome. The result is that they are infinitely less agile and
less powerful, in proportion to their weight, than an Earth woman,
and I doubt that were one of them suddenly to be transported to
Earth she could lift her own weight from the ground; in fact, I am
convinced that she could not do so.

My feat then was
as marvelous upon Mars as it would have been upon Earth, and from
desiring to annihilate me they suddenly looked upon me as a
wonderful discovery to be captured and exhibited among their
fellows.

The respite my
unexpected agility had given me permitted me to formulate plans for
the immediate future and to note more closely the appearance of the
warriors, for I could not disassociate these people in my mind from
those other warriors who, only the day before, had been pursuing
me.

I noted that each
was armed with several other weapons in addition to the huge spear
which I have described. The weapon which caused me to decide
against an attempt at escape by flight was what was evidently a
rifle of some description, and which I felt, for some reason, they
were peculiarly efficient in handling.

These rifles were
of a white metal stocked with wood, which I learned later was a
very light and intensely hard growth much prized on Mars, and
entirely unknown to us denizens of Earth. The metal of the barrel
is an alloy composed principally of aluminum and steel which they
have learned to temper to a hardness far exceeding that of the
steel with which we are familiar. The weight of these rifles is
comparatively little, and with the small caliber, explosive, radium
projectiles which they use, and the great length of the barrel,
they are deadly in the extreme and at ranges which would be
unthinkable on Earth. The theoretic effective radius of this rifle
is three hundred miles, but the best they can do in actual service
when equipped with their wireless finders and sighters is but a
trifle over two hundred miles.

This is quite far
enough to imbue me with great respect for the Martian firearm, and
some telepathic force must have warned me against an attempt to
escape in broad daylight from under the muzzles of twenty of these
death-dealing machines.

The Martians,
after conversing for a short time, turned and rode away in the
direction from which they had come, leaving one of their number
alone by the enclosure. When they had covered perhaps two hundred
yards they halted, and turning their mounts toward us sat watching
the warrior by the enclosure.

She was the one
whose spear had so nearly transfixed me, and was evidently the
leader of the band, as I had noted that they seemed to have moved
to their present position at her direction. When her force had come
to a halt she dismounted, threw down her spear and small arms, and
came around the end of the incubator toward me, entirely unarmed
and as naked as I, except for the ornaments strapped upon her head,
limbs, and breast.

When she was
within about fifty feet of me she unclasped an enormous metal
armlet, and holding it toward me in the open palm of her hand,
addressed me in a clear, resonant voice, but in a language, it is
needless to say, I could not understand. She then stopped as though
waiting for my reply, pricking up her antennae-like ears and
cocking her strange-looking eyes still further toward
me.

As the silence
became painful I concluded to hazard a little conversation on my
own part, as I had guessed that she was making overtures of peace.
The throwing down of her weapons and the withdrawing of her troop
before her advance toward me would have signified a peaceful
mission anywhere on Earth, so why not, then, on Mars!

Placing my hand
over my heart I bowed low to the Martian and explained to her that
while I did not understand her language, her actions spoke for the
peace and friendship that at the present moment were most dear to
my heart. Of course I might have been a babbling brook for all the
intelligence my speech carried to her, but she understood the
action with which I immediately followed my words.

Stretching my
hand toward her, I advanced and took the armlet from her open palm,
clasping it about my arm above the elbow; smiled at her and stood
waiting. Her wide mouth spread into an answering smile, and locking
one of her intermediary arms in mine we turned and walked back
toward her mount. At the same time she motioned her followers to
advance. They started toward us on a wild run, but were checked by
a signal from her. Evidently she feared that were I to be really
frightened again I might jump entirely out of the
landscape.

She exchanged a
few words with her women, motioned to me that I would ride behind
one of them, and then mounted her own animal. The fellow designated
reached down two or three hands and lifted me up behind her on the
glossy back of her mount, where I hung on as best I could by the
belts and straps which held the Martian's weapons and
ornaments.

The entire
cavalcade then turned and galloped away toward the range of hills
in the distance.

CHAPTER
IV

A
PRISONER

We had gone
perhaps ten miles when the ground began to rise very rapidly. We
were, as I was later to learn, nearing the edge of one of Mars'
long-dead seas, in the bottom of which my encounter with the
Martians had taken place.

In a short time
we gained the foot of the mountains, and after traversing a narrow
gorge came to an open valley, at the far extremity of which was a
low table land upon which I beheld an enormous city. Toward this we
galloped, entering it by what appeared to be a ruined roadway
leading out from the city, but only to the edge of the table land,
where it ended abruptly in a flight of broad steps.

Upon closer
observation I saw as we passed them that the buildings were
deserted, and while not greatly decayed had the appearance of not
having been tenanted for years, possibly for ages. Toward the
center of the city was a large plaza, and upon this and in the
buildings immediately surrounding it were camped some nine or ten
hundred creatures of the same breed as my captors, for such I now
considered them despite the suave manner in which I had been
trapped.

With the
exception of their ornaments all were naked. The men varied in
appearance but little from the women, except that their tusks were
much larger in proportion to their height, in some instances
curving nearly to their high-set ears. Their bodies were smaller
and lighter in color, and their fingers and toes bore the rudiments
of nails, which were entirely lacking among the males. The adult
females ranged in height from ten to twelve feet.

The children were
light in color, even lighter than the men, and all looked precisely
alike to me, except that some were taller than others; older, I
presumed.

I saw no signs of
extreme age among them, nor is there any appreciable difference in
their appearance from the age of maturity, about forty, until, at
about the age of one thousand years, they go voluntarily upon their
last strange pilgrimage down the river Iss, which leads no living
Martian knows whither and from whose chest no Martian has ever
returned, or would be allowed to live did she return after once
embarking upon its cold, dark waters.

Only about one
Martian in a thousand dies of sickness or disease, and possibly
about twenty take the voluntary pilgrimage. The other nine hundred
and seventy-nine die violent deaths in duels, in hunting, in
aviation and in war; but perhaps by far the greatest death loss
comes during the age of childhood, when vast numbers of the little
Martians fall victims to the great white apes of Mars.

The average life
expectancy of a Martian after the age of maturity is about three
hundred years, but would be nearer the one-thousand mark were it
not for the various means leading to violent death. Owing to the
waning resources of the planet it evidently became necessary to
counteract the increasing longevity which their remarkable skill in
therapeutics and surgery produced, and so human life has come to be
considered but lightly on Mars, as is evidenced by their dangerous
sports and the almost continual warfare between the various
communities.

There are other
and natural causes tending toward a diminution of population, but
nothing contributes so greatly to this end as the fact that no
female or male Martian is ever voluntarily without a weapon of
destruction.

As we neared the
plaza and my presence was discovered we were immediately surrounded
by hundreds of the creatures who seemed anxious to pluck me from my
seat behind my guard. A word from the leader of the party stilled
their clamor, and we proceeded at a trot across the plaza to the
entrance of as magnificent an edifice as mortal eye has rested
upon.

The building was
low, but covered an enormous area. It was constructed of gleaming
white marble inlaid with gold and brilliant stones which sparkled
and scintillated in the sunlight. The main entrance was some
hundred feet in width and projected from the building proper to
form a huge canopy above the entrance hall. There was no stairway,
but a gentle incline to the first floor of the building opened into
an enormous chamber encircled by galleries.

On the floor of
this chamber, which was dotted with highly carved wooden desks and
chairs, were assembled about forty or fifty female Martians around
the steps of a rostrum. On the platform proper squatted an enormous
warrior heavily loaded with metal ornaments, gay-colored feathers
and beautifully wrought leather trappings ingeniously set with
precious stones. From her shoulders depended a short cape of white
fur lined with brilliant scarlet silk.

What struck me as
most remarkable about this assemblage and the hall in which they
were congregated was the fact that the creatures were entirely out
of proportion to the desks, chairs, and other furnishings; these
being of a size adapted to human beings such as I, whereas the
great bulks of the Martians could scarcely have squeezed into the
chairs, nor was there room beneath the desks for their long legs.
Evidently, then, there were other denizens on Mars than the wild
and grotesque creatures into whose hands I had fallen, but the
evidences of extreme antiquity which showed all around me indicated
that these buildings might have belonged to some long-extinct and
forgotten race in the dim antiquity of Mars.

Our party had
halted at the entrance to the building, and at a sign from the
leader I had been lowered to the ground. Again locking her arm in
mine, we had proceeded into the audience chamber. There were few
formalities observed in approaching the Martian chieftain. My
captor merely strode up to the rostrum, the others making way for
her as she advanced. The chieftain rose to her feet and uttered the
name of my escort who, in turn, halted and repeated the name of the
ruler followed by her title.

At the time, this
ceremony and the words they uttered meant nothing to me, but later
I came to know that this was the customary greeting between green
Martians. Had the women been strangers, and therefore unable to
exchange names, they would have silently exchanged ornaments, had
their missions been peaceful--otherwise they would have exchanged
shots, or have fought out their introduction with some other of
their various weapons.

My captor, whose
name was Tara Tarkas, was virtually the vice-chieftain of the
community, and a woman of great ability as a statesman and warrior.
She evidently explained briefly the incidents connected with her
expedition, including my capture, and when she had concluded the
chieftain addressed me at some length.

I replied in our
good old English tongue merely to convince her that neither of us
could understand the other; but I noticed that when I smiled
slightly on concluding, she did likewise. This fact, and the
similar occurrence during my first talk with Tara Tarkas, convinced
me that we had at least something in common; the ability to smile,
therefore to laugh; denoting a sense of humor. But I was to learn
that the Martian smile is merely perfunctory, and that the Martian
laugh is a thing to cause strong women to blanch in
horror.

The ideas of
humor among the green women of Mars are widely at variance with our
conceptions of incitants to merriment. The death agonies of a
fellow being are, to these strange creatures provocative of the
wildest hilarity, while their chief form of commonest amusement is
to inflict death on their prisoners of war in various ingenious and
horrible ways.