The warlord of Mars
Never had I had the heart to punish Woola during the long years that
had passed since that first day upon Mars when the green jed of the
Tharks had placed him on guard over me, and I had won his love and
loyalty from the cruel and loveless masters of his former life, yet I
believe he would have submitted to any cruelty that I might have
inflicted upon him, so wondrous was his affection for me.
The diadem in the center of the circlet of gold upon the brow of Lakor
proclaimed him a Holy Thern, while his companion, not thus adorned, was
a lesser thern, though from his harness I gleaned that he had reached
the Ninth Cycle, which is but one below that of the Holy Therns.
As I stood for a moment looking at the gruesome havoc Woola had
wrought, there recurred to me the memory of that other occasion upon
which I had masqueraded in the wig, diadem, and harness of Sator Throg,
the Holy Thern whom Thuvia of Ptarth had slain, and now it occurred to
me that it might prove of worth to utilize Lakor’s trappings for the
same purpose.
A moment later I had torn his yellow wig from his bald pate and
transferred it and the circlet, as well as all his harness, to my own
person.
Woola did not approve of the metamorphosis. He sniffed at me and
growled ominously, but when I spoke to him and patted his huge head he
at length became reconciled to the change, and at my command trotted
off along the corridor in the direction we had been going when our
progress had been interrupted by the therns.
We moved cautiously now, warned by the fragment of conversation I had
overheard. I kept abreast of Woola that we might have the benefit of
all our eyes for what might appear suddenly ahead to menace us, and
well it was that we were forewarned.
At the bottom of a flight of narrow steps the corridor turned sharply
back upon itself, immediately making another turn in the original
direction, so that at that point it formed a perfect letter S, the top
leg of which debouched suddenly into a large chamber, illy lighted, and
the floor of which was completely covered by venomous snakes and
loathsome reptiles.
To have attempted to cross that floor would have been to court instant
death, and for a moment I was almost completely discouraged. Then it
occurred to me that Thurid and Matai Shang with their party must have
crossed it, and so there was a way.
Had it not been for the fortunate accident by which I overheard even so
small a portion of the therns’ conversation we should have blundered at
least a step or two into that wriggling mass of destruction, and a
single step would have been all-sufficient to have sealed our doom.
These were the only reptiles I had ever seen upon Barsoom, but I knew
from their similarity to the fossilized remains of supposedly extinct
species I had seen in the museums of Helium that they comprised many of
the known prehistoric reptilian genera, as well as others undiscovered.
A more hideous aggregation of monsters had never before assailed my
vision. It would be futile to attempt to describe them to Earth men,
since substance is the only thing which they possess in common with any
creature of the past or present with which you are familiar—even their
venom is of an unearthly virulence that, by comparison, would make the
cobra de capello seem quite as harmless as an angleworm.
As they spied me there was a concerted rush by those nearest the
entrance where we stood, but a line of radium bulbs inset along the
threshold of their chamber brought them to a sudden halt—evidently they
dared not cross that line of light.
I had been quite sure that they would not venture beyond the room in
which I had discovered them, though I had not guessed at what deterred
them. The simple fact that we had found no reptiles in the corridor
through which we had just come was sufficient assurance that they did
not venture there.
I drew Woola out of harm’s way, and then began a careful survey of as
much of the Chamber of Reptiles as I could see from where I stood. As
my eyes became accustomed to the dim light of its interior I gradually
made out a low gallery at the far end of the apartment from which
opened several exits.
Coming as close to the threshold as I dared, I followed this gallery
with my eyes, discovering that it circled the room as far as I could
see. Then I glanced above me along the upper edge of the entrance to
which we had come, and there, to my delight, I saw an end of the
gallery not a foot above my head. In an instant I had leaped to it and
called Woola after me.
Here there were no reptiles—the way was clear to the opposite side of
the hideous chamber—and a moment later Woola and I dropped down to
safety in the corridor beyond.
Not ten minutes later we came into a vast circular apartment of white
marble, the walls of which were inlaid with gold in the strange
hieroglyphics of the First Born.
From the high dome of this mighty apartment a huge circular column
extended to the floor, and as I watched I saw that it slowly revolved.
I had reached the base of the Temple of the Sun!
Somewhere above me lay Dejah Thoris, and with her were Phaidor,
daughter of Matai Shang, and Thuvia of Ptarth. But how to reach them,
now that I had found the only vulnerable spot in their mighty prison,
was still a baffling riddle.
Slowly I circled the great shaft, looking for a means of ingress. Part
way around I found a tiny radium flash torch, and as I examined it in
mild curiosity as to its presence there in this almost inaccessible and
unknown spot, I came suddenly upon the insignia of the house of Thurid
jewel-inset in its metal case.
I am upon the right trail, I thought, as I slipped the bauble into the
pocket-pouch which hung from my harness. Then I continued my search for
the entrance, which I knew must be somewhere about; nor had I long to
search, for almost immediately thereafter I came upon a small door so
cunningly inlaid in the shaft’s base that it might have passed
unnoticed by a less keen or careful observer.
There was the door that would lead me within the prison, but where was
the means to open it? No button or lock were visible. Again and again I
went carefully over every square inch of its surface, but the most that
I could find was a tiny pinhole a little above and to the right of the
door’s center—a pinhole that seemed only an accident of manufacture or
an imperfection of material.
Into this minute aperture I attempted to peer, but whether it was but a
fraction of an inch deep or passed completely through the door I could
not tell—at least no light showed beyond it. I put my ear to it next
and listened, but again my efforts brought negligible results.
During these experiments Woola had been standing at my side gazing
intently at the door, and as my glance fell upon him it occurred to me
to test the correctness of my hypothesis, that this portal had been the
means of ingress to the temple used by Thurid, the black dator, and
Matai Shang, Father of Therns.
Turning away abruptly, I called to him to follow me. For a moment he
hesitated, and then leaped after me, whining and tugging at my harness
to draw me back. I walked on, however, some distance from the door
before I let him have his way, that I might see precisely what he would
do. Then I permitted him to lead me wherever he would.
Straight back to that baffling portal he dragged me, again taking up
his position facing the blank stone, gazing straight at its shining
surface. For an hour I worked to solve the mystery of the combination
that would open the way before me.
Carefully I recalled every circumstance of my pursuit of Thurid, and my
conclusion was identical with my original belief—that Thurid had come
this way without other assistance than his own knowledge and passed
through the door that barred my progress, unaided from within. But how
had he accomplished it?
I recalled the incident of the Chamber of Mystery in the Golden Cliffs
that time I had freed Thuvia of Ptarth from the dungeon of the therns,
and she had taken a slender, needle-like key from the keyring of her
dead jailer to open the door leading back into the Chamber of Mystery
where Tars Tarkas fought for his life with the great banths. Such a
tiny keyhole as now defied me had opened the way to the intricate lock
in that other door.
Hastily I dumped the contents of my pocket-pouch upon the ground before
me. Could I but find a slender bit of steel I might yet fashion a key
that would give me ingress to the temple prison.
As I examined the heterogeneous collection of odds and ends that is
always to be found in the pocket-pouch of a Martian warrior my hand
fell upon the emblazoned radium flash torch of the black dator.
As I was about to lay the thing aside as of no value in my present
predicament my eyes chanced upon a few strange characters roughly and
freshly scratched upon the soft gold of the case.
Casual curiosity prompted me to decipher them, but what I read carried
no immediate meaning to my mind. There were three sets of characters,
one below another:
3 |—| 50 T 1 |—| 1 X 9 |—| 25 T
For only an instant my curiosity was piqued, and then I replaced the
torch in my pocket-pouch, but my fingers had not unclasped from it when
there rushed to my memory the recollection of the conversation between
Lakor and his companion when the lesser thern had quoted the words of
Thurid and scoffed at them: “And what think you of the ridiculous
matter of the light? Let the light shine with the intensity of three
radium units for fifty tals”—ah, there was the first line of characters
upon the torch’s metal case—3—50 T; “and for one xat let it shine with
the intensity of one radium unit”—there was the second line; “and then
for twenty-five tals with nine units.”
The formula was complete; but—what did it mean?
I thought I knew, and, seizing a powerful magnifying glass from the
litter of my pocket-pouch, I applied myself to a careful examination of
the marble immediately about the pinhole in the door. I could have
cried aloud in exultation when my scrutiny disclosed the almost
invisible incrustation of particles of carbonized electrons which are
thrown off by these Martian torches.
It was evident that for countless ages radium torches had been applied
to this pinhole, and for what purpose there could be but a single
answer—the mechanism of the lock was actuated by light rays; and I,
John Carter, Prince of Helium, held the combination in my
hand—scratched by the hand of my enemy upon his own torch case.
In a cylindrical bracelet of gold about my wrist was my Barsoomian
chronometer—a delicate instrument that records the tals and xats and
zodes of Martian time, presenting them to view beneath a strong crystal
much after the manner of an earthly odometer.
Timing my operations carefully, I held the torch to the small aperture
in the door, regulating the intensity of the light by means of the
thumb-lever upon the side of the case.
For fifty tals I let three units of light shine full in the pinhole,
then one unit for one xat, and for twenty-five tals nine units. Those
last twenty-five tals were the longest twenty-five seconds of my life.
Would the lock click at the end of those seemingly interminable
intervals of time?
Twenty-three! Twenty-four! Twenty-five!
I shut off the light with a snap. For seven tals I waited—there had
been no appreciable effect upon the lock’s mechanism. Could it be that
my theory was entirely wrong?
Hold! Had the nervous strain resulted in a hallucination, or did the
door really move? Slowly the solid stone sank noiselessly back into the
wall—there was no hallucination here.
Back and back it slid for ten feet until it had disclosed at its right
a narrow doorway leading into a dark and narrow corridor that