The gods of Mars
killed who return from the bosom of the River of Mystery.
“But now we know that it was no blasphemy, that the legend is a true
one, and that the man told only of what he saw; but what does it profit
us, John Carter, since even should we escape, we also would be treated
as blasphemers? We are between the wild thoat of certainty and the mad
zitidar of fact—we can escape neither.”
“As Earth men say, we are between the devil and the deep sea, Tars
Tarkas,” I replied, nor could I help but smile at our dilemma.
“There is naught that we can do but take things as they come, and at
least have the satisfaction of knowing that whoever slays us eventually
will have far greater numbers of their own dead to count than they will
get in return. White ape or plant man, green Barsoomian or red man,
whosoever it shall be that takes the last toll from us will know that
it is costly in lives to wipe out John Carter, Prince of the House of
Tardos Mors, and Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, at the same time.”
I could not help but laugh at his grim humour, and he joined in with me
in one of those rare laughs of real enjoyment which was one of the
attributes of this fierce Tharkian chief which marked him from the
others of his kind.
“But about yourself, John Carter,” he cried at last. “If you have not
been here all these years where indeed have you been, and how is it
that I find you here to-day?”
“I have been back to Earth,” I replied. “For ten long Earth years I
have been praying and hoping for the day that would carry me once more
to this grim old planet of yours, for which, with all its cruel and
terrible customs, I feel a bond of sympathy and love even greater than
for the world that gave me birth.
“For ten years have I been enduring a living death of uncertainty and
doubt as to whether Dejah Thoris lived, and now that for the first time
in all these years my prayers have been answered and my doubt relieved
I find myself, through a cruel whim of fate, hurled into the one tiny
spot of all Barsoom from which there is apparently no escape, and if
there were, at a price which would put out for ever the last flickering
hope which I may cling to of seeing my princess again in this life—and
you have seen to-day with what pitiful futility man yearns toward a
material hereafter.
“Only a bare half-hour before I saw you battling with the plant men I
was standing in the moonlight upon the banks of a broad river that taps
the eastern shore of Earth’s most blessed land. I have answered you, my
friend. Do you believe?”
“I believe,” replied Tars Tarkas, “though I cannot understand.”
As we talked I had been searching the interior of the chamber with my
eyes. It was, perhaps, two hundred feet in length and half as broad,
with what appeared to be a doorway in the centre of the wall directly
opposite that through which we had entered.
The apartment was hewn from the material of the cliff, showing mostly
dull gold in the dim light which a single minute radium illuminator in
the centre of the roof diffused throughout its great dimensions. Here
and there polished surfaces of ruby, emerald, and diamond patched the
golden walls and ceiling. The floor was of another material, very hard,
and worn by much use to the smoothness of glass. Aside from the two
doors I could discern no sign of other aperture, and as one we knew to
be locked against us I approached the other.
As I extended my hand to search for the controlling button, that cruel
and mocking laugh rang out once more, so close to me this time that I
involuntarily shrank back, tightening my grip upon the hilt of my great
sword.
And then from the far corner of the great chamber a hollow voice
chanted: “There is no hope, there is no hope; the dead return not, the
dead return not; nor is there any resurrection. Hope not, for there is
no hope.”
Though our eyes instantly turned toward the spot from which the voice
seemed to emanate, there was no one in sight, and I must admit that
cold shivers played along my spine and the short hairs at the base of
my head stiffened and rose up, as do those upon a hound’s neck when in
the night his eyes see those uncanny things which are hidden from the
sight of man.
Quickly I walked toward the mournful voice, but it had ceased ere I
reached the further wall, and then from the other end of the chamber
came another voice, shrill and piercing:
“Fools! Fools!” it shrieked. “Thinkest thou to defeat the eternal laws
of life and death? Wouldst cheat the mysterious Issus, Goddess of
Death, of her just dues? Did not her mighty messenger, the ancient Iss,
bear you upon her leaden bosom at your own behest to the Valley Dor?
“Thinkest thou, O fools, that Issus wilt give up her own? Thinkest thou
to escape from whence in all the countless ages but a single soul has
fled?
“Go back the way thou camest, to the merciful maws of the children of
the Tree of Life or the gleaming fangs of the great white apes, for
there lies speedy surcease from suffering; but insist in your rash
purpose to thread the mazes of the Golden Cliffs of the Mountains of
Otz, past the ramparts of the impregnable fortresses of the Holy
Therns, and upon your way Death in its most frightful form will
overtake you—a death so horrible that even the Holy Therns themselves,
who conceived both Life and Death, avert their eyes from its
fiendishness and close their ears against the hideous shrieks of its
victims.
“Go back, O fools, the way thou camest.”
And then the awful laugh broke out from another part of the chamber.
“Most uncanny,” I remarked, turning to Tars Tarkas.
“What shall we do?” he asked. “We cannot fight empty air; I would
almost sooner return and face foes into whose flesh I may feel my blade
bite and know that I am selling my carcass dearly before I go down to
that eternal oblivion which is evidently the fairest and most desirable
eternity that mortal man has the right to hope for.”
“If, as you say, we cannot fight empty air, Tars Tarkas,” I replied,
“neither, on the other hand, can empty air fight us. I, who have faced
and conquered in my time thousands of sinewy warriors and tempered
blades, shall not be turned back by wind; nor no more shall you,
Thark.”
“But unseen voices may emanate from unseen and unseeable creatures who
wield invisible blades,” answered the green warrior.
“Rot, Tars Tarkas,” I cried, “those voices come from beings as real as
you or as I. In their veins flows lifeblood that may be let as easily
as ours, and the fact that they remain invisible to us is the best
proof to my mind that they are mortal; nor overly courageous mortals at
that. Think you, Tars Tarkas, that John Carter will fly at the first
shriek of a cowardly foe who dare not come out into the open and face a
good blade?”
I had spoken in a loud voice that there might be no question that our
would-be terrorizers should hear me, for I was tiring of this
nerve-racking fiasco. It had occurred to me, too, that the whole
business was but a plan to frighten us back into the valley of death
from which we had escaped, that we might be quickly disposed of by the
savage creatures there.
For a long period there was silence, then of a sudden a soft, stealthy
sound behind me caused me to turn suddenly to behold a great
many-legged banth creeping sinuously upon me.
The banth is a fierce beast of prey that roams the low hills
surrounding the dead seas of ancient Mars. Like nearly all Martian
animals it is almost hairless, having only a great bristly mane about
its thick neck.
Its long, lithe body is supported by ten powerful legs, its enormous
jaws are equipped, like those of the calot, or Martian hound, with
several rows of long needle-like fangs; its mouth reaches to a point
far back of its tiny ears, while its enormous, protruding eyes of green
add the last touch of terror to its awful aspect.
As it crept toward me it lashed its powerful tail against its yellow
sides, and when it saw that it was discovered it emitted the terrifying
roar which often freezes its prey into momentary paralysis in the
instant that it makes its spring.
And so it launched its great bulk toward me, but its mighty voice had
held no paralysing terrors for me, and it met cold steel instead of the
tender flesh its cruel jaws gaped so widely to engulf.
An instant later I drew my blade from the still heart of this great
Barsoomian lion, and turning toward Tars Tarkas was surprised to see
him facing a similar monster.
No sooner had he dispatched his than I, turning, as though drawn by the
instinct of my guardian subconscious mind, beheld another of the savage
denizens of the Martian wilds leaping across the chamber toward me.
From then on for the better part of an hour one hideous creature after
another was launched upon us, springing apparently from the empty air
about us.
Tars Tarkas was satisfied; here was something tangible that he could
cut and slash with his great blade, while I, for my part, may say that
the diversion was a marked improvement over the uncanny voices from
unseen lips.
That there was nothing supernatural about our new foes was well
evidenced by their howls of rage and pain as they felt the sharp steel
at their vitals, and the very real blood which flowed from their
severed arteries as they died the real death.
I noticed during the period of this new persecution that the beasts
appeared only when our backs were turned; we never saw one really
materialize from thin air, nor did I for an instant sufficiently lose
my excellent reasoning faculties to be once deluded into the belief
that the beasts came into the room other than through some concealed
and well-contrived doorway.
Among the ornaments of Tars Tarkas’ leather harness, which is the only
manner of clothing worn by Martians other than silk capes and robes of
silk and fur for protection from the cold after dark, was a small
mirror, about the bigness of a lady’s hand glass, which hung midway
between his shoulders and his waist against his broad back.
Once as he stood looking down at a newly fallen antagonist my eyes
happened to fall upon this mirror and in its shiny surface I saw
pictured a sight that caused me to whisper:
“Move not, Tars Tarkas! Move not a muscle!”
He did not ask why, but stood like a graven image while my eyes watched
the strange thing that meant so much to us.
What I saw was the quick movement of a section of the wall behind me.
It was turning upon pivots, and with it a section of the floor directly
in front of it was turning. It was as though you placed a visiting-card
upon end on a silver dollar that you had laid flat upon a table, so
that the edge of the card perfectly bisected the surface of the coin.
The card might represent the section of the wall that turned and the
silver dollar the section of the floor. Both were so nicely fitted into
the adjacent portions of the floor and wall that no crack had been
noticeable in the dim light of the chamber.
As the turn was half completed a great beast was revealed sitting upon
its haunches upon that part of the revolving floor that had been on the
opposite side before the wall commenced to move; when the section
stopped, the beast was facing toward me on our side of the partition—it
was very simple.
But what had interested me most was the sight that the half-turned
section had presented through the opening that it had made. A great
chamber, well lighted, in which were several men and women chained to
the wall, and in front of them, evidently directing and operating the
movement of the secret doorway, a wicked-faced man, neither red as are
the red men of Mars, nor green as are the green men, but white, like
myself, with a great mass of flowing yellow hair.