The warlord of Mars
apartment, stubbornly resisting the advance of a handful of red men who
faced them and forced them slowly but inevitably back.
Above the heads of the contestants I could see from my elevated station
upon the dais the face of my old friend Kantos Kan. He was leading the
little party that had won its way into the very heart of the palace of
Salensus Oll.
In an instant I saw that by attacking the Okarians from the rear I
could so quickly disorganize them that their further resistance would
be short-lived, and with this idea in mind I sprang from the dais,
casting a word of explanation to Dejah Thoris over my shoulder, though
I did not turn to look at her.
With myself ever between her enemies and herself, and with Kantos Kan
and his warriors winning to the apartment, there could be no danger to
Dejah Thoris standing there alone beside the throne.
I wanted the men of Helium to see me and to know that their beloved
princess was here, too, for I knew that this knowledge would inspire
them to even greater deeds of valor than they had performed in the
past, though great indeed must have been those which won for them a way
into the almost impregnable palace of the tyrant of the north.
As I crossed the chamber to attack the Kadabrans from the rear a small
doorway at my left opened, and, to my surprise, revealed the figures of
Matai Shang, Father of Therns and Phaidor, his daughter, peering into
the room.
A quick glance about they took. Their eyes rested for a moment, wide in
horror, upon the dead body of Salensus Oll, upon the blood that
crimsoned the floor, upon the corpses of the nobles who had fallen
thick before the throne, upon me, and upon the battling warriors at the
other door.
They did not essay to enter the apartment, but scanned its every corner
from where they stood, and then, when their eyes had sought its entire
area, a look of fierce rage overspread the features of Matai Shang, and
a cold and cunning smile touched the lips of Phaidor.
Then they were gone, but not before a taunting laugh was thrown
directly in my face by the woman.
I did not understand then the meaning of Matai Shang’s rage or
Phaidor’s pleasure, but I knew that neither boded good for me.
A moment later I was upon the backs of the yellow men, and as the red
men of Helium saw me above the shoulders of their antagonists a great
shout rang through the corridor, and for a moment drowned the noise of
battle.
“For the Prince of Helium!” they cried. “For the Prince of Helium!”
and, like hungry lions upon their prey, they fell once more upon the
weakening warriors of the north.
The yellow men, cornered between two enemies, fought with the
desperation that utter hopelessness often induces. Fought as I should
have fought had I been in their stead, with the determination to take
as many of my enemies with me when I died as lay within the power of my
sword arm.
It was a glorious battle, but the end seemed inevitable, when presently
from down the corridor behind the red men came a great body of
reenforcing yellow warriors.
Now were the tables turned, and it was the men of Helium who seemed
doomed to be ground between two millstones. All were compelled to turn
to meet this new assault by a greatly superior force, so that to me was
left the remnants of the yellow men within the throneroom.
They kept me busy, too; so busy that I began to wonder if indeed I
should ever be done with them. Slowly they pressed me back into the
room, and when they had all passed in after me, one of them closed and
bolted the door, effectually barring the way against the men of Kantos
Kan.
It was a clever move, for it put me at the mercy of a dozen men within
a chamber from which assistance was locked out, and it gave the red men
in the corridor beyond no avenue of escape should their new antagonists
press them too closely.
But I have faced heavier odds myself than were pitted against me that
day, and I knew that Kantos Kan had battled his way from a hundred more
dangerous traps than that in which he now was. So it was with no
feelings of despair that I turned my attention to the business of the
moment.
Constantly my thoughts reverted to Dejah Thoris, and I longed for the
moment when, the fighting done, I could fold her in my arms, and hear
once more the words of love which had been denied me for so many years.
During the fighting in the chamber I had not even a single chance to so
much as steal a glance at her where she stood behind me beside the
throne of the dead ruler. I wondered why she no longer urged me on with
the strains of the martial hymn of Helium; but I did not need more than
the knowledge that I was battling for her to bring out the best that is
in me.
It would be wearisome to narrate the details of that bloody struggle;
of how we fought from the doorway, the full length of the room to the
very foot of the throne before the last of my antagonists fell with my
blade piercing his heart.
And then, with a glad cry, I turned with outstretched arms to seize my
princess, and as my lips smothered hers to reap the reward that would
be thrice ample payment for the bloody encounters through which I had
passed for her dear sake from the south pole to the north.
The glad cry died, frozen upon my lips; my arms dropped limp and
lifeless to my sides; as one who reels beneath the burden of a mortal
wound I staggered up the steps before the throne.
Dejah Thoris was gone.
REWARDS
With the realization that Dejah Thoris was no longer within the
throneroom came the belated recollection of the dark face that I had
glimpsed peering from behind the draperies that backed the throne of
Salensus Oll at the moment that I had first come so unexpectedly upon
the strange scene being enacted within the chamber.
Why had the sight of that evil countenance not warned me to greater
caution? Why had I permitted the rapid development of new situations to
efface the recollection of that menacing danger? But, alas, vain regret
would not erase the calamity that had befallen.
Once again had Dejah Thoris fallen into the clutches of that archfiend,
Thurid, the black dator of the First Born. Again was all my arduous
labor gone for naught. Now I realized the cause of the rage that had
been writ so large upon the features of Matai Shang and the cruel
pleasure that I had seen upon the face of Phaidor.
They had known or guessed the truth, and the hekkador of the Holy
Therns, who had evidently come to the chamber in the hope of thwarting
Salensus Oll in his contemplated perfidy against the high priest who
coveted Dejah Thoris for himself, realized that Thurid had stolen the
prize from beneath his very nose.
Phaidor’s pleasure had been due to her realization of what this last
cruel blow would mean to me, as well as to a partial satisfaction of
her jealous hatred for the Princess of Helium.
My first thought was to look beyond the draperies at the back of the
throne, for there it was that I had seen Thurid. With a single jerk I
tore the priceless stuff from its fastenings, and there before me was
revealed a narrow doorway behind the throne.
No question entered my mind but that here lay the opening of the avenue
of escape which Thurid had followed, and had there been it would have
been dissipated by the sight of a tiny, jeweled ornament which lay a
few steps within the corridor beyond.
As I snatched up the bauble I saw that it bore the device of the
Princess of Helium, and then pressing it to my lips I dashed madly
along the winding way that led gently downward toward the lower
galleries of the palace.
I had followed but a short distance when I came upon the room in which
Solan formerly had held sway. His dead body still lay where I had left
it, nor was there any sign that another had passed through the room
since I had been there; but I knew that two had done so—Thurid, the
black dator, and Dejah Thoris.
For a moment I paused uncertain as to which of the several exits from
the apartment would lead me upon the right path. I tried to recollect
the directions which I had heard Thurid repeat to Solan, and at last,
slowly, as though through a heavy fog, the memory of the words of the
First Born came to me:
“Follow a corridor, passing three diverging corridors upon the right;
then into the fourth right-hand corridor to where three corridors meet;
here again follow to the right, hugging the left wall closely to avoid
the pit. At the end of this corridor I shall come to a spiral runway
which I must follow down instead of up; after that the way is along but
a single branchless corridor.”
And I recalled the exit at which he had pointed as he spoke.
It did not take me long to start upon that unknown way, nor did I go
with caution, although I knew that there might be grave dangers before
me.
Part of the way was black as sin, but for the most it was fairly well
lighted. The stretch where I must hug the left wall to avoid the pits
was darkest of them all, and I was nearly over the edge of the abyss
before I knew that I was near the danger spot. A narrow ledge, scarce a
foot wide, was all that had been left to carry the initiated past that
frightful cavity into which the unknowing must surely have toppled at
the first step. But at last I had won safely beyond it, and then a
feeble light made the balance of the way plain, until, at the end of
the last corridor, I came suddenly out into the glare of day upon a
field of snow and ice.
Clad for the warm atmosphere of the hothouse city of Kadabra, the
sudden change to arctic frigidity was anything but pleasant; but the
worst of it was that I knew I could not endure the bitter cold, almost
naked as I was, and that I would perish before ever I could overtake
Thurid and Dejah Thoris.
To be thus blocked by nature, who had had all the arts and wiles of
cunning man pitted against him, seemed a cruel fate, and as I staggered
back into the warmth of the tunnel’s end I was as near hopelessness as
I ever have been.
I had by no means given up my intention of continuing the pursuit, for
if needs be I would go ahead though I perished ere ever I reached my
goal, but if there were a safer way it were well worth the delay to
attempt to discover it, that I might come again to the side of Dejah
Thoris in fit condition to do battle for her.
Scarce had I returned to the tunnel than I stumbled over a portion of a
fur garment that seemed fastened to the floor of the corridor close to
the wall. In the darkness I could not see what held it, but by groping
with my hands I discovered that it was wedged beneath the bottom of a
closed door.
Pushing the portal aside, I found myself upon the threshold of a small
chamber, the walls of which were lined with hooks from which depended
suits of the complete outdoor apparel of the yellow men.
Situated as it was at the mouth of a tunnel leading from the palace, it
was quite evident that this was the dressing-room used by the nobles
leaving and entering the hothouse city, and that Thurid, having
knowledge of it, had stopped here to outfit himself and Dejah Thoris
before venturing into the bitter cold of the arctic world beyond.
In his haste he had dropped several garments upon the floor, and the
telltale fur that had fallen partly within the corridor had proved the
means of guiding me to the very spot he would least have wished me to
have knowledge of.
It required but the matter of a few seconds to don the necessary
orluk-skin clothing, with the heavy, fur-lined boots that are so
essential a part of the garmenture of one who would successfully
contend with the frozen trails and the icy winds of the bleak
northland.
Once more I stepped beyond the tunnel’s mouth to find the fresh tracks