The Chessmen of Mars
the soil of the valley was tilled was evident and that these things had
food was equally so. But who tilled the soil? Who kept and fed these
unhappy things, and for what purpose? It was an enigma beyond her
powers of deduction.
The sight of food aroused again a consciousness of her own gnawing
hunger and the thirst that parched her throat. She could see both food
and water within the enclosure; but would she dare enter even should
she find means of ingress? She doubted it, since the very thought of
possible contact with these grewsome creatures sent a shudder through
her frame.
Then her eyes wandered again out across the valley until presently they
picked out what appeared to be a tiny stream winding its way through
the center of the farm lands--a strange sight upon Barsoom. Ah, if it
were but water! Then might she hope with a real hope, for the fields
would give her sustenance which she could gain by night, while by day
she hid among the surrounding hills, and sometime, yes, sometime she
knew, the searchers would come, for John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom,
would never cease to search for his daughter until every square haad of
the planet had been combed again and again. She knew him and she knew
the warriors of Helium and so she knew that could she but manage to
escape harm until they came, they would indeed come at last.
She would have to wait until dark before she dare venture into the
valley, and in the meantime she thought it well to search out a place
of safety nearby where she might be reasonably safe from savage beasts.
It was possible that the district was free from carnivora, but one
might never be sure in a strange land. As she was about to withdraw
behind the brow of the hill her attention was again attracted to the
enclosure below. Two figures had emerged from the tower. Their
beautiful bodies seemed identical with those of the headless creatures
among which they moved, but the newcomers were not headless. Upon their
shoulders were heads that seemed human, yet which the girl intuitively
sensed were not human. They were just a trifle too far away for her to
see them distinctly in the waning light of the dying day, but she knew
that they were too large, they were out of proportion to the perfectly
proportioned bodies, and they were oblate in form. She could see that
the men wore some manner of harness to which were slung the customary
long-sword and short-sword of the Barsoomian warrior, and that about
their short necks were massive leather collars cut to fit closely over
the shoulders and snugly to the lower part of the head. Their features
were scarce discernible, but there was a suggestion of grotesqueness
about them that carried to her a feeling of revulsion.
The two carried a long rope to which were fastened, at intervals of
about two sofads, what she later guessed were light manacles, for she
saw the warriors passing among the poor creatures in the enclosure and
about the right wrist of each they fastened one of the manacles. When
all had been thus fastened to the rope one of the warriors commenced to
pull and tug at the loose end as though attempting to drag the headless
company toward the tower, while the other went among them with a long,
light whip with which he flicked them upon the naked skin. Slowly,
dully, the creatures rose to their feet and between the tugging of the
warrior in front and the lashing of him behind the hopeless band was
finally herded within the tower. Tara of Helium shuddered as she turned
away. What manner of creatures were these?
Suddenly it was night. The Barsoomian day had ended, and then the brief
period of twilight that renders the transition from daylight to
darkness almost as abrupt as the switching off of an electric light,
and Tara of Helium had found no sanctuary. But perhaps there were no
beasts to fear, or rather to avoid--Tara of Helium liked not the word
fear. She would have been glad, however, had there been a cabin, even a
very tiny cabin, upon her small flier; but there was no cabin. The
interior of the hull was completely taken up by the buoyancy tanks. Ah,
she had it! How stupid of her not to have thought of it before! She
could moor the craft to the tree beneath which it rested and let it
rise the length of the rope. Lashed to the deck rings she would then be
safe from any roaming beast of prey that chanced along. In the morning
she could drop to the ground again before the craft was discovered.
As Tara of Helium crept over the brow of the hill down toward the
valley, her presence was hidden by the darkness of the night from the
sight of any chance observer who might be loitering by a window in the
nearby tower. Cluros, the farther moon, was just rising above the
horizon to commence his leisurely journey through the heavens. Eight
zodes later he would set--a trifle over nineteen and a half Earth
hours--and during that time Thuria, his vivacious mate, would have
circled the planet twice and be more than half way around on her third
trip. She had but just set. It would be more than three and a half
hours before she shot above the opposite horizon to hurtle, swift and
low, across the face of the dying planet. During this temporary absence
of the mad moon Tara of Helium hoped to find both food and water, and
gain again the safety of her flier's deck.
She groped her way through the darkness, giving the tower and its
enclosure as wide a berth as possible. Sometimes she stumbled, for in
the long shadows cast by the rising Cluros objects were grotesquely
distorted though the light from the moon was still not sufficient to be
of much assistance to her. Nor, as a matter of fact, did she want
light. She could find the stream in the dark, by the simple expedient
of going down hill until she walked into it and she had seen that
bearing trees and many crops grew throughout the valley, so that she
would pass food in plenty ere she reached the stream. If the moon
showed her the way more clearly and thus saved her from an occasional
fall, he would, too, show her more clearly to the strange denizens of
the towers, and that, of course, must not be. Could she have waited
until the following night conditions would have been better, since
Cluros would not appear in the heavens at all and so, during Thuria's
absence, utter darkness would reign; but the pangs of thirst and the
gnawing of hunger could be endured no longer with food and drink both
in sight, and so she had decided to risk discovery rather than suffer
longer.
Safely past the nearest tower, she moved as rapidly as she felt
consistent with safety, choosing her way wherever possible so that she
might take advantage of the shadows of the trees that grew at intervals
and at the same time discover those which bore fruit. In this latter
she met with almost immediate success, for the very third tree beneath
which she halted was heavy with ripe fruit. Never, thought Tara of
Helium, had aught so delicious impinged upon her palate, and yet it was
naught else than the almost tasteless usa, which is considered to be
palatable only after having been cooked and highly spiced. It grows
easily with little irrigation and the trees bear abundantly. The fruit,
which ranks high in food value, is one of the staple foods of the less
well-to-do, and because of its cheapness and nutritive value forms one
of the principal rations of both armies and navies upon Barsoom, a use
which has won for it a Martian sobriquet which, freely translated into
English, would be, The Fighting Potato. The girl was wise enough to eat
but sparingly, but she filled her pocket-pouch with the fruit before
she continued upon her way.
Two towers she passed before she came at last to the stream, and here
again was she temperate, drinking but little and that very slowly,
contenting herself with rinsing her mouth frequently and bathing her
face, her hands, and her feet; and even though the night was cold, as
Martian nights are, the sensation of refreshment more than compensated
for the physical discomfort of the low temperature. Replacing her
sandals she sought among the growing track near the stream for whatever
edible berries or tubers might be planted there, and found a couple of
varieties that could be eaten raw. With these she replaced some of the
usa in her pocket-pouch, not only to insure a variety but because she
found them more palatable. Occasionally she returned to the stream to
drink, but each time moderately. Always were her eyes and ears alert
for the first signs of danger, but she had neither seen nor heard aught
to disturb her. And presently the time approached when she felt she
must return to her flier lest she be caught in the revealing light of
low swinging Thuria. She dreaded leaving the water for she knew that
she must become very thirsty before she could hope to come again to the
stream. If she only had some little receptacle in which to carry water,
even a small amount would tide her over until the following night; but
she had nothing and so she must content herself as best she could with
the juices of the fruit and tubers she had gathered.
After a last drink at the stream, the longest and deepest she had
allowed herself, she rose to retrace her steps toward the hills; but
even as she did so she became suddenly tense with apprehension. What
was that? She could have sworn that she saw something move in the
shadows beneath a tree not far away. For a long minute the girl did not
move--she scarce breathed. Her eyes remained fixed upon the dense
shadows below the tree, her ears strained through the silence of the
night. A low moaning came down from the hills where her flier was
hidden. She knew it well--the weird note of the hunting banth. And the
great carnivore lay directly in her path. But he was not so close as
this other thing, hiding there in the shadows just a little way off.
What was it? It was the strain of uncertainty that weighed heaviest
upon her. Had she known the nature of the creature lurking there half
its menace would have vanished. She cast quickly about her in search of
some haven of refuge should the thing prove dangerous.
Again arose the moaning from the hills, but this time closer. Almost
immediately it was answered from the opposite side of the valley,
behind her, and then from the distance to the right of her, and twice
upon her left. Her eyes had found a tree, quite near. Slowly, and
without taking her eyes from the shadows of that other tree, she moved
toward the overhanging branches that might afford her sanctuary in the
event of need, and at her first move a low growl rose from the spot she
had been watching and she heard the sudden moving of a big body.
Simultaneously the creature shot into the moonlight in full charge upon
her, its tail erect, its tiny ears laid flat, its great mouth with its
multiple rows of sharp and powerful fangs already yawning for its prey,
its ten legs carrying it forward in great leaps, and now from the
beast's throat issued the frightful roar with which it seeks to
paralyze its prey. It was a banth--the great, maned lion of Barsoom.
Tara of Helium saw it coming and leaped for the tree toward which she
had been moving, and the banth realized her intention and redoubled his
speed. As his hideous roar awakened the echoes in the hills, so too it
awakened echoes in the valley; but these echoes came from the living
throats of others of his kind, until it seemed to the girl that Fate
had thrown her into the midst of a countless multitude of these savage
beasts.
Almost incredibly swift is the speed of a charging banth, and fortunate
it was that the girl had not been caught farther in the open. As it
was, her margin of safety was next to negligible, for as she swung
nimbly to the lower branches the creature in pursuit of her crashed