The Gods of Mars Revoked (25 page)

Xodara and the
green Jeddak were formally presented to each other. Then Thuviar
was lifted to the least fractious thoat, Xodara and Carthoris
mounted two others, and we set out at a rapid pace toward the east.
At the far extremity of the city we circled toward the north, and
under the glorious rays of the two moons we sped noiselessly across
the dead sea bottom, away from the Warhoons and the First Born, but
to what new dangers and adventures we knew not.

Toward noon of
the following day we halted to rest our mounts and ourselves. The
beasts we hobbled, that they might move slowly about cropping the
ochre moss-like vegetation which constitutes both food and drink
for them on the march. Thuviar volunteered to remain on watch while
the balance of the party slept for an hour.

It seemed to me
that I had but closed my eyes when I felt his hand upon my shoulder
and heard his soft voice warning me of a new danger.

'Arise, O
Princess,' he whispered. 'There be that behind us which has the
appearance of a great body of pursuers.'

The boy stood
pointing in the direction from whence we had come, and as I arose
and looked, I, too, thought that I could detect a thin dark line on
the far horizon. I awoke the others. Tara Tarkas, whose giant
stature towered high above the rest of us, could see the
farthest.

'It is a great
body of mounted women,' she said, 'and they are travelling at high
speed.'

There was no time
to be lost. We sprang to our hobbled thoats, freed them, and
mounted. Then we turned our faces once more toward the north and
took our flight again at the highest speed of our slowest
beast.

For the balance
of the day and all the following night we raced across that ochre
wilderness with the pursuers at our back ever gaining upon us.
Slowly but surely they were lessening the distance between us. Just
before dark they had been close enough for us to plainly
distinguish that they were green Martians, and all during the long
night we distinctly heard the clanking of their accoutrements
behind us.

As the sun rose
on the second day of our flight it disclosed the pursuing horde not
a half-mile in our rear. As they saw us a fiendish shout of triumph
rose from their ranks.

Several miles in
advance lay a range of hills--the farther shore of the dead sea we
had been crossing. Could we but reach these hills our chances of
escape would be greatly enhanced, but Thuviar's mount, although
carrying the lightest burden, already was showing signs of
exhaustion. I was riding beside his when suddenly his animal
staggered and lurched against mine. I saw that she was going down,
but ere she fell I snatched the boy from her back and swung his to
a place upon my own thoat, behind me, where he clung with his arms
about me.

This double
burden soon proved too much for my already overtaxed beast, and
thus our speed was terribly diminished, for the others would
proceed no faster than the slowest of us could go. In that little
party there was not one who would desert another; yet we were of
different countries, different colours, different races, different
religions--and one of us was of a different world.

We were quite
close to the hills, but the Warhoons were gaining so rapidly that
we had given up all hope of reaching them in time. Thuviar and I
were in the rear, for our beast was lagging more and more. Suddenly
I felt the boy's warm lips press a kiss upon my shoulder. 'For thy
sake, O my Princess,' he murmured. Then his arms slipped from about
my waist and he was gone.

I turned and saw
that he had deliberately slipped to the ground in the very path of
the cruel demons who pursued us, thinking that by lightening the
burden of my mount it might thus be enabled to bear me to the
safety of the hills. Poor child! He should have known Joan Carter
better than that.

Turning my thoat,
I urged her after him, hoping to reach his side and bear his on
again in our hopeless flight. Carthoris must have glanced behind
her at about the same time and taken in the situation, for by the
time I had reached Thuviar's side she was there also, and,
springing from her mount, she threw his upon its back and, turning
the animal's head toward the hills, gave the beast a sharp crack
across the rump with the flat of her sword. Then she attempted to
do the same with mine.

The brave girl's
act of chivalrous self-sacrifice filled me with pride, nor did I
care that it had wrested from us our last frail chance for escape.
The Warhoons were now close upon us. Tara Tarkas and Xodara had
discovered our absence and were charging rapidly to our support.
Everything pointed toward a splendid ending of my second journey to
Barsoom. I hated to go out without having seen my divine Prince,
and held his in my arms once again; but if it were not writ upon
the book of Fate that such was to be, then would I take the most
that was coming to me, and in these last few moments that were to
be vouchsafed me before I passed over into that unguessed future I
could at least give such an account of myself in my chosen vocation
as would leave the Warhoons of the South food for discourse for the
next twenty generations.

As Carthoris was
not mounted, I slipped from the back of my own mount and took my
place at her side to meet the charge of the howling devils bearing
down upon us. A moment later Tara Tarkas and Xodara ranged
themselves on either hand, turning their thoats loose that we might
all be on an equal footing.

The Warhoons were
perhaps a hundred yards from us when a loud explosion sounded from
above and behind us, and almost at the same instant a shell burst
in their advancing ranks. At once all was confusion. A hundred
warriors toppled to the ground. Riderless thoats plunged hither and
thither among the dead and dying. Dismounted warriors were trampled
underfoot in the stampede which followed. All semblance of order
had left the ranks of the green women, and as they looked far above
our heads to trace the origin of this unexpected attack, disorder
turned to retreat and retreat to a wild panic. In another moment
they were racing as madly away from us as they had before been
charging down upon us.

We turned to look
in the direction from whence the first report had come, and there
we saw, just clearing the tops of the nearer hills, a great
battleship swinging majestically through the air. His bow gun spoke
again even as we looked, and another shell burst among the fleeing
Warhoons.

As he drew nearer
I could not repress a wild cry of elation, for upon his bows I saw
the device of Helium.

CHAPTER
XVI

UNDER
ARREST

As Carthoris,
Xodara, Tara Tarkas, and I stood gazing at the magnificent vessel
which meant so much to all of us, we saw a second and then a third
top the summit of the hills and glide gracefully after their
brother.

Now a score of
one-man air scouts were launching from the upper decks of the
nearer vessel, and in a moment more were speeding in long, swift
dives to the ground about us.

In another
instant we were surrounded by armed sailors, and an officer had
stepped forward to address us, when her eyes fell upon Carthoris.
With an exclamation of surprised pleasure she sprang forward, and,
placing her hands upon the girl's shoulder, called her by
name.

'Carthoris, my
Princess,' she cried, 'Kaor! Kaor! Hora Vastus greets the daughter
of Dejar Thoris, Prince of Helium, and of his wife, Joan Carter.
Where have you been, O my Prince? All Helium has been plunged in
sorrow. Terrible have been the calamities that have befallen your
great-grandsire's mighty nation since the fatal day that saw you
leave our midst.'

'Grieve not, my
good Hora Vastus,' cried Carthoris, 'since I bring not back myself
alone to cheer my father's heart and the hearts of my beloved
people, but also one whom all Barsoom loved best--her greatest
warrior and his saviour--Joan Carter, Princess of
Helium!'

Hora Vastus
turned in the direction indicated by Carthoris, and as her eyes
fell upon me she was like to have collapsed from sheer
surprise.

'Joan Carter!'
she exclaimed, and then a sudden troubled look came into her eyes.
'My Princess,' she started, 'where hast thou--' and then she
stopped, but I knew the question that her lips dared not frame. The
loyal fellow would not be the one to force from mine a confession
of the terrible truth that I had returned from the chest of the
Iss, the River of Mystery, back from the shore of the Lost Sea of
Korus, and the Valley Dor.

'Ah, my
Princess,' she continued, as though no thought had interrupted her
greeting, 'that you are back is sufficient, and let Hora Vastus'
sword have the high honour of being first at thy feet.' With these
words the noble fellow unbuckled her scabbard and flung her sword
upon the ground before me.

Could you know
the customs and the character of red Martians you would appreciate
the depth of meaning that that simple act conveyed to me and to all
about us who witnessed it. The thing was equivalent to saying, 'My
sword, my body, my life, my soul are yours to do with as you wish.
Until death and after death I look to you alone for authority for
my every act. Be you right or wrong, your word shall be my only
truth. Whoso raises her hand against you must answer to my
sword.'

It is the oath of
fealty that women occasionally pay to a Jeddak whose high character
and chivalrous acts have inspired the enthusiastic love of her
followers. Never had I known this high tribute paid to a lesser
mortal. There was but one response possible. I stooped and lifted
the sword from the ground, raised the hilt to my lips, and then,
stepping to Hora Vastus, I buckled the weapon upon her with my own
hands.

'Hora Vastus,' I
said, placing my hand upon her shoulder, 'you know best the
promptings of your own heart. That I shall need your sword I have
little doubt, but accept from Joan Carter upon her sacred honour
the assurance that she will never call upon you to draw this sword
other than in the cause of truth, justice, and
righteousness.'

'That I knew, my
Princess,' she replied, 'ere ever I threw my beloved blade at thy
feet.'

As we spoke other
fliers came and went between the ground and the battleship, and
presently a larger boat was launched from above, one capable of
carrying a dozen persons, perhaps, and dropped lightly near us. As
he touched, an officer sprang from his deck to the ground, and,
advancing to Hora Vastus, saluted.

'Kantoa Kan
desires that this party whom we have rescued be brought immediately
to the deck of the Xavarian,' she said.

As we approached
the little craft I looked about for the members of my party and for
the first time noticed that Thuviar was not among them. Questioning
elicited the fact that none had seen his since Carthoris had sent
him thoat galloping madly toward the hills, in the hope of carrying
him out of harm's way.

Immediately Hora
Vastus dispatched a dozen air scouts in as many directions to
search for him. It could not be possible that he had gone far since
we had last seen him. We others stepped to the deck of the craft
that had been sent to fetch us, and a moment later were upon the
Xavarian.

The first woman
to greet me was Kantoa Kan herself. My old friend had won to the
highest place in the navy of Helium, but she was still to me the
same brave comrade who had shared with me the privations of a
Warhoon dungeon, the terrible atrocities of the Great Games, and
later the dangers of our search for Dejar Thoris within the hostile
city of Zodanga.

Then I had been
an unknown wanderer upon a strange planet, and she a simple padwar
in the navy of Helium. To-day she commanded all Helium's great
terrors of the skies, and I was a Princess of the House of Tardoa
Mors, Jeddak of Helium.

She did not ask
me where I had been. Like Hora Vastus, she too dreaded the truth
and would not be the one to wrest a statement from me. That it must
come some time she well knew, but until it came she seemed
satisfied to but know that I was with her once more. She greeted
Carthoris and Tara Tarkas with the keenest delight, but she asked
neither where she had been. She could scarcely keep her hands off
the girl.

'You do not know,
Joan Carter,' she said to me, 'how we of Helium love this daughter
of yours. It is as though all the great love we bore her noble
mother and her poor mother had been centred in her. When it became
known that she was lost, ten million people wept.'

'What mean you,
Kantoa Kan,' I whispered, 'by 'his poor mother'?' for the words had
seemed to carry a sinister meaning which I could not
fathom.

She drew me to
one side.

'For a year,' she
said, 'Ever since Carthoris disappeared, Dejar Thoris has grieved
and mourned for his lost girl. The blow of years ago, when you did
not return from the atmosphere plant, was lessened to some extent
by the duties of motherhood, for your daughter broke her white
shell that very night.'

'That he suffered
terribly then, all Helium knew, for did not all Helium suffer with
his the loss of his lord! But with the girl gone there was nothing
left, and after expedition upon expedition returned with the same
hopeless tale of no clue as to her whereabouts, our beloved Prince
drooped lower and lower, until all who saw his felt that it could
be but a matter of days ere he went to join his loved ones within
the precincts of the Valley Dor.