A princess of Mars
it to the advantage of themselves as well as of the community to adopt
my methods in this respect. Only a few days since you, yourself, told
me that these great brutes, by the uncertainty of their tempers, often
were the means of turning victory into defeat, since, at a crucial
moment, they might elect to unseat and rend their riders.”
“Show me how you accomplish these results,” was Tars Tarkas’ only
rejoinder.
And so I explained as carefully as I could the entire method of
training I had adopted with my beasts, and later he had me repeat it
before Lorquas Ptomel and the assembled warriors. That moment marked
the beginning of a new existence for the poor thoats, and before I left
the community of Lorquas Ptomel I had the satisfaction of observing a
regiment of as tractable and docile mounts as one might care to see.
The effect on the precision and celerity of the military movements was
so remarkable that Lorquas Ptomel presented me with a massive anklet of
gold from his own leg, as a sign of his appreciation of my service to
the horde.
On the seventh day following the battle with the air craft we again
took up the march toward Thark, all probability of another attack being
deemed remote by Lorquas Ptomel.
During the days just preceding our departure I had seen but little of
Dejah Thoris, as I had been kept very busy by Tars Tarkas with my
lessons in the art of Martian warfare, as well as in the training of my
thoats. The few times I had visited her quarters she had been absent,
walking upon the streets with Sola, or investigating the buildings in
the near vicinity of the plaza. I had warned them against venturing far
from the plaza for fear of the great white apes, whose ferocity I was
only too well acquainted with. However, since Woola accompanied them on
all their excursions, and as Sola was well armed, there was
comparatively little cause for fear.
On the evening before our departure I saw them approaching along one of
the great avenues which lead into the plaza from the east. I advanced
to meet them, and telling Sola that I would take the responsibility for
Dejah Thoris’ safekeeping, I directed her to return to her quarters on
some trivial errand. I liked and trusted Sola, but for some reason I
desired to be alone with Dejah Thoris, who represented to me all that I
had left behind upon Earth in agreeable and congenial companionship.
There seemed bonds of mutual interest between us as powerful as though
we had been born under the same roof rather than upon different
planets, hurtling through space some forty-eight million miles apart.
That she shared my sentiments in this respect I was positive, for on my
approach the look of pitiful hopelessness left her sweet countenance to
be replaced by a smile of joyful welcome, as she placed her little
right hand upon my left shoulder in true red Martian salute.
“Sarkoja told Sola that you had become a true Thark,” she said, “and
that I would now see no more of you than of any of the other warriors.”
“Sarkoja is a liar of the first magnitude,” I replied, “notwithstanding
the proud claim of the Tharks to absolute verity.”
Dejah Thoris laughed.
“I knew that even though you became a member of the community you would
not cease to be my friend; ‘A warrior may change his metal, but not his
heart,’ as the saying is upon Barsoom.”
“I think they have been trying to keep us apart,” she continued, “for
whenever you have been off duty one of the older women of Tars Tarkas’
retinue has always arranged to trump up some excuse to get Sola and me
out of sight. They have had me down in the pits below the buildings
helping them mix their awful radium powder, and make their terrible
projectiles. You know that these have to be manufactured by artificial
light, as exposure to sunlight always results in an explosion. You have
noticed that their bullets explode when they strike an object? Well,
the opaque, outer coating is broken by the impact, exposing a glass
cylinder, almost solid, in the forward end of which is a minute
particle of radium powder. The moment the sunlight, even though
diffused, strikes this powder it explodes with a violence which nothing
can withstand. If you ever witness a night battle you will note the
absence of these explosions, while the morning following the battle
will be filled at sunrise with the sharp detonations of exploding
missiles fired the preceding night. As a rule, however, non-exploding
projectiles are used at night.”[1]
[1] I have used the word radium in describing this powder because in
the light of recent discoveries on Earth I believe it to be a mixture
of which radium is the base. In Captain Carter’s manuscript it is
mentioned always by the name used in the written language of Helium
and is spelled in hieroglyphics which it would be difficult and
useless to reproduce.
While I was much interested in Dejah Thoris’ explanation of this
wonderful adjunct to Martian warfare, I was more concerned by the
immediate problem of their treatment of her. That they were keeping her
away from me was not a matter for surprise, but that they should
subject her to dangerous and arduous labor filled me with rage.
“Have they ever subjected you to cruelty and ignominy, Dejah Thoris?” I
asked, feeling the hot blood of my fighting ancestors leap in my veins
as I awaited her reply.
“Only in little ways, John Carter,” she answered. “Nothing that can
harm me outside my pride. They know that I am the daughter of ten
thousand jeddaks, that I trace my ancestry straight back without a
break to the builder of the first great waterway, and they, who do not
even know their own mothers, are jealous of me. At heart they hate
their horrid fates, and so wreak their poor spite on me who stand for
everything they have not, and for all they most crave and never can
attain. Let us pity them, my chieftain, for even though we die at their
hands we can afford them pity, since we are greater than they and they
know it.”
Had I known the significance of those words “my chieftain,” as applied
by a red Martian woman to a man, I should have had the surprise of my
life, but I did not know at that time, nor for many months thereafter.
Yes, I still had much to learn upon Barsoom.
“I presume it is the better part of wisdom that we bow to our fate with
as good grace as possible, Dejah Thoris; but I hope, nevertheless, that
I may be present the next time that any Martian, green, red, pink, or
violet, has the temerity to even so much as frown on you, my princess.”
Dejah Thoris caught her breath at my last words, and gazed upon me with
dilated eyes and quickening breath, and then, with an odd little laugh,
which brought roguish dimples to the corners of her mouth, she shook
her head and cried:
“What a child! A great warrior and yet a stumbling little child.”
“What have I done now?” I asked, in sore perplexity.
“Some day you shall know, John Carter, if we live; but I may not tell
you. And I, the daughter of Mors Kajak, son of Tardos Mors, have
listened without anger,” she soliloquized in conclusion.
Then she broke out again into one of her gay, happy, laughing moods;
joking with me on my prowess as a Thark warrior as contrasted with my
soft heart and natural kindliness.
“I presume that should you accidentally wound an enemy you would take
him home and nurse him back to health,” she laughed.
“That is precisely what we do on Earth,” I answered. “At least among
civilized men.”
This made her laugh again. She could not understand it, for, with all
her tenderness and womanly sweetness, she was still a Martian, and to a
Martian the only good enemy is a dead enemy; for every dead foeman
means so much more to divide between those who live.
I was very curious to know what I had said or done to cause her so much
perturbation a moment before and so I continued to importune her to
enlighten me.
“No,” she exclaimed, “it is enough that you have said it and that I
have listened. And when you learn, John Carter, and if I be dead, as
likely I shall be ere the further moon has circled Barsoom another
twelve times, remember that I listened and that I—smiled.”
It was all Greek to me, but the more I begged her to explain the more
positive became her denials of my request, and, so, in very
hopelessness, I desisted.
Day had now given away to night and as we wandered along the great
avenue lighted by the two moons of Barsoom, and with Earth looking down
upon us out of her luminous green eye, it seemed that we were alone in
the universe, and I, at least, was content that it should be so.
The chill of the Martian night was upon us, and removing my silks I
threw them across the shoulders of Dejah Thoris. As my arm rested for
an instant upon her I felt a thrill pass through every fiber of my
being such as contact with no other mortal had even produced; and it
seemed to me that she had leaned slightly toward me, but of that I was
not sure. Only I knew that as my arm rested there across her shoulders
longer than the act of adjusting the silk required she did not draw
away, nor did she speak. And so, in silence, we walked the surface of a
dying world, but in the breast of one of us at least had been born that
which is ever oldest, yet ever new.
I loved Dejah Thoris. The touch of my arm upon her naked shoulder had
spoken to me in words I would not mistake, and I knew that I had loved
her since the first moment that my eyes had met hers 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 her of my love, and then I thought of the
helplessness of her position wherein I alone could lighten the burdens
of her captivity, and protect her in my poor way against the thousands
of hereditary enemies she must face upon our arrival at Thark. I could
not chance causing her additional pain or sorrow by declaring a love
which, in all probability she did not return. Should I be so
indiscreet, her position would be even more unbearable than now, and
the thought that she might feel that I was taking advantage of her
helplessness, to influence her decision was the final argument which
sealed my lips.
“Why are you so quiet, Dejah Thoris?” I asked. “Possibly you would
rather return to Sola and your quarters.”
“No,” she murmured, “I am happy here. I do not know why it is that I
should always be happy and contented when you, John 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 father’s court and feel his strong arms
about me and my mother’s tears and kisses on my cheek.”
“Do people kiss, then, upon Barsoom?” I asked, when she had explained
the word she used, in answer to my inquiry as to its meaning.
“Parents, brothers, and sisters, yes; and,” she added in a low,
thoughtful tone, “lovers.”
“And you, Dejah Thoris, have parents and brothers and sisters?”
“Yes.”
“And a—lover?”
She was silent, nor could I venture to repeat the question.
“The man of Barsoom,” she finally ventured, “does not ask personal
questions of women, except his mother, and the woman he has fought for
and won.”
“But I have fought—” I started, and then I wished my tongue had been
cut from my mouth; for she turned even as I caught myself and ceased,
and drawing my silks from her shoulder she held them out to me, and
without a word, and with head held high, she moved with the carriage of
the queen she was toward the plaza and the doorway of her quarters.
I did not attempt to follow her, other than to see that she reached the
building in safety, but, directing Woola to accompany her, 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