A princess of Mars
ride after the main column.
I was strapped securely to as wild and unmanageable a thoat as I had
ever seen, and, with a mounted warrior on either side to prevent the
beast from bolting, we rode forth at a furious pace in pursuit of the
column. My wounds gave me but little pain, so wonderfully and rapidly
had the applications and injections of the female exercised their
therapeutic powers, and so deftly had she bound and plastered the
injuries.
Just before dark we reached the main body of troops shortly after they
had made camp for the night. I was immediately taken before the leader,
who proved to be the jeddak of the hordes of Warhoon.
Like the jed who had brought me, he was frightfully scarred, and also
decorated with the breastplate of human skulls and dried dead hands
which seemed to mark all the greater warriors among the Warhoons, as
well as to indicate their awful ferocity, which greatly transcends even
that of the Tharks.
The jeddak, Bar Comas, who was comparatively young, was the object of
the fierce and jealous hatred of his old lieutenant, Dak Kova, the jed
who had captured me, and I could not but note the almost studied
efforts which the latter made to affront his superior.
He entirely omitted the usual formal salutation as we entered the
presence of the jeddak, and as he pushed me roughly before the ruler he
exclaimed in a loud and menacing voice.
“I have brought a strange creature wearing the metal of a Thark whom it
is my pleasure to have battle with a wild thoat at the great games.”
“He will die as Bar Comas, your jeddak, sees fit, if at all,” replied
the young ruler, with emphasis and dignity.
“If at all?” roared Dak Kova. “By the dead hands at my throat but he
shall die, Bar Comas. No maudlin weakness on your part shall save him.
O, would that Warhoon were ruled by a real jeddak rather than by a
water-hearted weakling from whom even old Dak Kova could tear the metal
with his bare hands!”
Bar Comas eyed the defiant and insubordinate chieftain for an instant,
his expression one of haughty, fearless contempt and hate, and then
without drawing a weapon and without uttering a word he hurled himself
at the throat of his defamer.
I never before had seen two green Martian warriors battle with nature’s
weapons and the exhibition of animal ferocity which ensued was as
fearful a thing as the most disordered imagination could picture. They
tore at each others’ eyes and ears with their hands and with their
gleaming tusks repeatedly slashed and gored until both were cut fairly
to ribbons from head to foot.
Bar Comas had much the better of the battle as he was stronger, quicker
and more intelligent. It soon seemed that the encounter was done saving
only the final death thrust when Bar Comas slipped in breaking away
from a clinch. It was the one little opening that Dak Kova needed, and
hurling himself at the body of his adversary he buried his single
mighty tusk in Bar Comas’ groin and with a last powerful effort ripped
the young jeddak wide open the full length of his body, the great tusk
finally wedging in the bones of Bar Comas’ jaw. Victor and vanquished
rolled limp and lifeless upon the moss, a huge mass of torn and bloody
flesh.
Bar Comas was stone dead, and only the most herculean efforts on the
part of Dak Kova’s females saved him from the fate he deserved. Three
days later he walked without assistance to the body of Bar Comas which,
by custom, had not been moved from where it fell, and placing his foot
upon the neck of his erstwhile ruler he assumed the title of Jeddak of
Warhoon.
The dead jeddak’s hands and head were removed to be added to the
ornaments of his conqueror, and then his women cremated what remained,
amid wild and terrible laughter.
The injuries to Dak Kova had delayed the march so greatly that it was
decided to give up the expedition, which was a raid upon a small Thark
community in retaliation for the destruction of the incubator, until
after the great games, and the entire body of warriors, ten thousand in
number, turned back toward Warhoon.
My introduction to these cruel and bloodthirsty people was but an index
to the scenes I witnessed almost daily while with them. They are a
smaller horde than the Tharks but much more ferocious. Not a day passed
but that some members of the various Warhoon communities met in deadly
combat. I have seen as high as eight mortal duels within a single day.
We reached the city of Warhoon after some three days march and I was
immediately cast into a dungeon and heavily chained to the floor and
walls. Food was brought me at intervals but owing to the utter darkness
of the place I do not know whether I lay there days, or weeks, or
months. It was the most horrible experience of all my life and that my
mind did not give way to the terrors of that inky blackness has been a
wonder to me ever since. The place was filled with creeping, crawling
things; cold, sinuous bodies passed over me when I lay down, and in the
darkness I occasionally caught glimpses of gleaming, fiery eyes, fixed
in horrible intentness upon me. No sound reached me from the world
above and no word would my jailer vouchsafe when my food was brought to
me, although I at first bombarded him with questions.
Finally all the hatred and maniacal loathing for these awful creatures
who had placed me in this horrible place was centered by my tottering
reason upon this single emissary who represented to me the entire horde
of Warhoons.
I had noticed that he always advanced with his dim torch to where he
could place the food within my reach and as he stooped to place it upon
the floor his head was about on a level with my breast. So, with the
cunning of a madman, I backed into the far corner of my cell when next
I heard him approaching and gathering a little slack of the great chain
which held me in my hand I waited his coming, crouching like some beast
of prey. As he stooped to place my food upon the ground I swung the
chain above my head and crashed the links with all my strength upon his
skull. Without a sound he slipped to the floor, stone dead.
Laughing and chattering like the idiot I was fast becoming I fell upon
his prostrate form my fingers feeling for his dead throat. Presently
they came in contact with a small chain at the end of which dangled a
number of keys. The touch of my fingers on these keys brought back my
reason with the suddenness of thought. No longer was I a jibbering
idiot, but a sane, reasoning man with the means of escape within my
very hands.
As I was groping to remove the chain from about my victim’s neck I
glanced up into the darkness to see six pairs of gleaming eyes fixed,
unwinking, upon me. Slowly they approached and slowly I shrank back
from the awful horror of them. Back into my corner I crouched holding
my hands palms out, before me, and stealthily on came the awful eyes
until they reached the dead body at my feet. Then slowly they retreated
but this time with a strange grating sound and finally they disappeared
in some black and distant recess of my dungeon.
CHAPTER XIX
BATTLING IN THE ARENA
Slowly I regained my composure and finally essayed again to attempt to
remove the keys from the dead body of my former jailer. But as I
reached out into the darkness to locate it I found to my horror that it
was gone. Then the truth flashed on me; the owners of those gleaming
eyes had dragged my prize away from me to be devoured in their
neighboring lair; as they had been waiting for days, for weeks, for
months, through all this awful eternity of my imprisonment to drag my
dead carcass to their feast.
For two days no food was brought me, but then a new messenger appeared
and my incarceration went on as before, but not again did I allow my
reason to be submerged by the horror of my position.
Shortly after this episode another prisoner was brought in and chained
near me. By the dim torch light I saw that he was a red Martian and I
could scarcely await the departure of his guards to address him. As
their retreating footsteps died away in the distance, I called out
softly the Martian word of greeting, kaor.
“Who are you who speaks out of the darkness?” he answered.
“John Carter, a friend of the red men of Helium.”
“I am of Helium,” he said, “but I do not recall your name.”
And then I told him my story as I have written it here, omitting only
any reference to my love for Dejah Thoris. He was much excited by the
news of Helium’s princess and seemed quite positive that she and Sola
could easily have reached a point of safety from where they left me. He
said that he 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.
“Dejah Thoris and Sola entered the hills not five miles from a great
waterway and are now probably quite safe,” he assured me.
My fellow prisoner was Kantos Kan, a padwar (lieutenant) in the navy of
Helium. He had been a member of the ill-fated expedition which had
fallen into the hands of the Tharks at the time of Dejah Thoris’
capture, and he 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 men of Barsoom, they had been
attacked by a great body of war vessels and all but the craft to which
Kantos Kan belonged were either destroyed or captured. His 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 Dejah Thoris, or about the time of our
coming to Thark, his vessel had reached Helium with about ten survivors
of the original crew of seven hundred officers and men. Immediately
seven great fleets, each of one hundred mighty war ships, had been
dispatched to search for Dejah Thoris, and from these vessels two
thousand smaller craft had been kept out continuously in futile search
for the missing princess.
Two green Martian communities had been wiped off the face of Barsoom by
the avenging fleets, but no trace of Dejah 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.
Kantos 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 man won my greatest respect
and admiration. Alone he had landed at the city’s boundary and on foot
had penetrated to the buildings surrounding the plaza. For two days and
nights he had explored their quarters and their dungeons in search of
his beloved princess only to fall into the hands of a party of Warhoons
as he was about to leave, after assuring himself that Dejah Thoris was
not a captive there.
During the period of our incarceration Kantos 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