A princess of Mars
direction.
Running rapidly down first one and then another of them I soon became
hopelessly lost and was standing panting against a side wall when I
heard voices near me. Apparently they were coming from the opposite
side of the partition against which I leaned and presently I made out
the tones of Dejah Thoris. I could not hear the words but I knew that I
could not possibly be mistaken in the voice.
Moving on a few steps I discovered another passageway at the end of
which lay a door. Walking boldly forward I pushed into the room only to
find myself in a small antechamber in which were the four guards who
had accompanied her. One of them instantly arose and accosted me,
asking the nature of my business.
“I am from Than Kosis,” I replied, “and wish to speak privately with
Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium.”
“And your order?” asked the fellow.
I did not know what he meant, but replied that I was a member of The
Guard, and without waiting for a reply from him I strode toward the
opposite door of the antechamber, behind which I could hear Dejah
Thoris conversing.
But my entrance was not to be so easily accomplished. The guardsman
stepped before me, saying,
“No one comes from Than Kosis without carrying an order or the
password. You must give me one or the other before you may pass.”
“The only order I require, my friend, to enter where I will, hangs at
my side,” I answered, tapping my long-sword; “will you let me pass in
peace or no?”
For reply he whipped out his own sword, calling to the others to join
him, and thus the four stood, with drawn weapons, barring my further
progress.
“You are not here by the order of Than Kosis,” cried the one who had
first addressed me, “and not only shall you not enter the apartments of
the Princess of Helium but you shall go back to Than Kosis under guard
to explain this unwarranted temerity. Throw down your sword; you cannot
hope to overcome four of us,” he added with a grim smile.
My reply was a quick thrust which left me but three antagonists and I
can assure you that they were worthy of my metal. They had me backed
against the wall in no time, fighting for my life. Slowly I worked my
way to a corner of the room where I could force them to come at me only
one at a time, and thus we fought upward of twenty minutes; the
clanging of steel on steel producing a veritable bedlam in the little
room.
The noise had brought Dejah Thoris to the door of her apartment, and
there she stood throughout the conflict with Sola at her back peering
over her shoulder. Her face was set and emotionless and I knew that she
did not recognize me, nor did Sola.
Finally a lucky cut brought down a second guardsman and then, with only
two opposing me, I changed my tactics and rushed them down after the
fashion of my fighting that had won me many a victory. The third fell
within ten seconds after the second, and the last lay dead upon the
bloody floor a few moments later. They were brave men and noble
fighters, and it grieved me that I had been forced to kill them, but I
would have willingly depopulated all Barsoom could I have reached the
side of my Dejah Thoris in no other way.
Sheathing my bloody blade I advanced toward my Martian Princess, who
still stood mutely gazing at me without sign of recognition.
“Who are you, Zodangan?” she whispered. “Another enemy to harass me in
my misery?”
“I am a friend,” I answered, “a once cherished friend.”
“No friend of Helium’s princess wears that metal,” she replied, “and
yet the voice! I have heard it before; it is not—it cannot be—no, for
he is dead.”
“It is, though, my Princess, none other than John Carter,” I said. “Do
you not recognize, even through paint and strange metal, the heart of
your chieftain?”
As I came close to her she swayed toward me with outstretched hands,
but as I reached to take her in my arms she drew back with a shudder
and a little moan of misery.
“Too late, too late,” she grieved. “O my chieftain that was, and whom I
thought dead, had you but returned one little hour before—but now it is
too late, too late.”
“What do you mean, Dejah Thoris?” I cried. “That you would not have
promised yourself to the Zodangan prince had you known that I lived?”
“Think you, John Carter, that I would give my heart to you yesterday
and today to another? I thought that it lay buried with your ashes in
the pits of Warhoon, and so today I have promised my body to another to
save my people from the curse of a victorious Zodangan army.”
“But I am not dead, my princess. I have come to claim you, and all
Zodanga cannot prevent it.”
“It is too late, John Carter, my promise is given, and on Barsoom that
is final. The ceremonies which follow later are but meaningless
formalities. They make the fact of marriage no more certain than does
the funeral cortege of a jeddak again place the seal of death upon him.
I am as good as married, John Carter. No longer may you call me your
princess. No longer are you my chieftain.”
“I know but little of your customs here upon Barsoom, Dejah Thoris, but
I do know that I love you, and if you meant the last words you spoke to
me that day as the hordes of Warhoon were charging down upon us, no
other man shall ever claim you as his bride. You meant them then, my
princess, and you mean them still! Say that it is true.”
“I meant them, John Carter,” she whispered. “I cannot repeat them now
for I have given myself to another. Ah, if you had only known our ways,
my friend,” she continued, half to herself, “the promise would have
been yours long months ago, and you could have claimed me before all
others. It might have meant the fall of Helium, but I would have given
my empire for my Tharkian chief.”
Then aloud she said: “Do you remember the night when you offended me?
You called me your princess without having asked my hand of me, and
then you boasted that you had fought for me. You did not know, and I
should not have been offended; I see that now. But there was no one to
tell you what I could not, that upon Barsoom there are two kinds of
women in the cities of the red men. The one they fight for that they
may ask them in marriage; the other kind they fight for also, but never
ask their hands. When a man has won a woman he may address her as his
princess, or in any of the several terms which signify possession. You
had fought for me, but had never asked me in marriage, and so when you
called me your princess, you see,” she faltered, “I was hurt, but even
then, John Carter, I did not repulse you, as I should have done, until
you made it doubly worse by taunting me with having won me through
combat.”
“I do not need ask your forgiveness now, Dejah Thoris,” I cried. “You
must know that my fault was of ignorance of your Barsoomian customs.
What I failed to do, through implicit belief that my petition would be
presumptuous and unwelcome, I do now, Dejah Thoris; I ask you to be my
wife, and by all the Virginian fighting blood that flows in my veins
you shall be.”
“No, John Carter, it is useless,” she cried, hopelessly, “I may never
be yours while Sab Than lives.”
“You have sealed his death warrant, my princess—Sab Than dies.”
“Nor that either,” she hastened to explain. “I may not wed the man who
slays my husband, even in self-defense. It is custom. We are ruled by
custom upon Barsoom. It is useless, my friend. You must bear the sorrow
with me. That at least we may share in common. That, and the memory of
the brief days among the Tharks. You must go now, nor ever see me
again. Good-bye, my chieftain that was.”
Disheartened and dejected, I withdrew from the room, but I was not
entirely discouraged, nor would I admit that Dejah Thoris was lost to
me until the ceremony had actually been performed.
As I wandered along the corridors, I was as absolutely lost in the
mazes of winding passageways as I had been before I discovered Dejah
Thoris’ apartments.
I knew that my only hope lay in escape from the city of Zodanga, for
the matter of the four dead guardsmen would have to be explained, and
as I could never reach my original post without a guide, suspicion
would surely rest on me so soon as I was discovered wandering aimlessly
through the palace.
Presently I came upon a spiral runway leading to a lower floor, and
this I followed downward for several stories until I reached the
doorway of a large apartment in which were a number of guardsmen. The
walls of this room were hung with transparent tapestries behind which I
secreted myself without being apprehended.
The conversation of the guardsmen was general, and awakened no interest
in me until an officer entered the room and ordered four of the men to
relieve the detail who were guarding the Princess of Helium. Now, I
knew, my troubles would commence in earnest and indeed they were upon
me all too soon, for it seemed that the squad had scarcely left the
guardroom before one of their number burst in again breathlessly,
crying that they had found their four comrades butchered in the
antechamber.
In a moment the entire palace was alive with people. Guardsmen,
officers, courtiers, servants, and slaves ran helter-skelter through
the corridors and apartments carrying messages and orders, and
searching for signs of the assassin.
This was my opportunity and slim as it appeared I grasped it, for as a
number of soldiers came hurrying past my hiding place I fell in behind
them and followed through the mazes of the palace until, in passing
through a great hall, I saw the blessed light of day coming in through
a series of larger windows.
Here I left my guides, and, slipping to the nearest window, sought for
an avenue of escape. The windows opened upon a great balcony which
overlooked one of the broad avenues of Zodanga. The ground was about
thirty feet below, and at a like distance from the building was a wall
fully twenty feet high, constructed of polished glass about a foot in
thickness. To a red Martian escape by this path would have appeared
impossible, but to me, with my earthly strength and agility, it seemed
already accomplished. My only fear was in being detected before
darkness fell, for I could not make the leap in broad daylight while
the court below and the avenue beyond were crowded with Zodangans.
Accordingly I searched for a hiding place and finally found one by
accident, inside a huge hanging ornament which swung from the ceiling
of the hall, and about ten feet from the floor. Into the capacious
bowl-like vase I sprang with ease, and scarcely had I settled down
within it than I heard a number of people enter the apartment. The
group stopped beneath my hiding place and I could plainly overhear
their every word.
“It is the work of Heliumites,” said one of the men.
“Yes, O Jeddak, but how had they access to the palace? I could believe
that even with the diligent care of your guardsmen a single enemy might
reach the inner chambers, but how a force of six or eight fighting men
could have done so unobserved is beyond me. We shall soon know,
however, for here comes the royal psychologist.”
Another man now joined the group, and, after making his formal
greetings to his ruler, said:
“O mighty Jeddak, it is a strange tale I read in the dead minds of your
faithful guardsmen. They were felled not by a number of fighting men,
but by a single opponent.”
He paused to let the full weight of this announcement impress his
hearers, and that his statement was scarcely credited was evidenced by
the impatient exclamation of incredulity which escaped the lips of Than
Kosis.
“What manner of weird tale are you bringing me, Notan?” he cried.
“It is the truth, my Jeddak,” replied the psychologist. “In fact the
impressions were strongly marked on the brain of each of the four