The warlord of Mars
My upstretched fingers never reached the window’s sill. At the first
sound of the voices I drew back my hand and clung there to my perilous
perch, flattened against the perpendicular wall, scarce daring to
breathe.
What a horrible position, indeed, in which to be discovered by Thurid!
He had but to lean from the window to push me with his sword’s point
into eternity.
Presently the sound of the voices became fainter, and once again I took
up my hazardous ascent, now more difficult, since more circuitous, for
I must climb so as to avoid the windows.
Matai Shang’s reference to the hangar and the fliers indicated that my
destination lay nothing short of the roof of the tower, and toward this
seemingly distant goal I set my face.
The most difficult and dangerous part of the journey was accomplished
at last, and it was with relief that I felt my fingers close about the
lowest of the stone cylinders.
It is true that these projections were too far apart to make the
balance of the ascent anything of a sinecure, but I at least had always
within my reach a point of safety to which I might cling in case of
accident.
Some ten feet below the roof, the wall inclined slightly inward
possibly a foot in the last ten feet, and here the climbing was indeed
immeasurably easier, so that my fingers soon clutched the eaves.
As I drew my eyes above the level of the tower’s top I saw a flier all
but ready to rise.
Upon her deck were Matai Shang, Phaidor, Dejah Thoris, Thuvia of
Ptarth, and a few thern warriors, while near her was Thurid in the act
of clambering aboard.
He was not ten paces from me, facing in the opposite direction; and
what cruel freak of fate should have caused him to turn about just as
my eyes topped the roof’s edge I may not even guess.
But turn he did; and when his eyes met mine his wicked face lighted
with a malignant smile as he leaped toward me, where I was hastening to
scramble to the secure footing of the roof.
Dejah Thoris must have seen me at the same instant, for she screamed a
useless warning just as Thurid’s foot, swinging in a mighty kick,
landed full in my face.
Like a felled ox, I reeled and tumbled backward over the tower’s side.
ON THE KAOLIAN ROAD
If there be a fate that is sometimes cruel to me, there surely is a
kind and merciful Providence which watches over me.
As I toppled from the tower into the horrid abyss below I counted
myself already dead; and Thurid must have done likewise, for he
evidently did not even trouble himself to look after me, but must have
turned and mounted the waiting flier at once.
Ten feet only I fell, and then a loop of my tough, leathern harness
caught upon one of the cylindrical stone projections in the tower’s
surface—and held. Even when I had ceased to fall I could not believe
the miracle that had preserved me from instant death, and for a moment
I hung there, cold sweat exuding from every pore of my body.
But when at last I had worked myself back to a firm position I
hesitated to ascend, since I could not know that Thurid was not still
awaiting me above.
Presently, however, there came to my ears the whirring of the
propellers of a flier, and as each moment the sound grew fainter I
realized that the party had proceeded toward the south without assuring
themselves as to my fate.
Cautiously I retraced my way to the roof, and I must admit that it was
with no pleasant sensation that I raised my eyes once more above its
edge; but, to my relief, there was no one in sight, and a moment later
I stood safely upon its broad surface.
To reach the hangar and drag forth the only other flier which it
contained was the work of but an instant; and just as the two thern
warriors whom Matai Shang had left to prevent this very contingency
emerged upon the roof from the tower’s interior, I rose above them with
a taunting laugh.
Then I dived rapidly to the inner court where I had last seen Woola,
and to my immense relief found the faithful beast still there.
The twelve great banths lay in the doorways of their lairs, eyeing him
and growling ominously, but they had not disobeyed Thuvia’s injunction;
and I thanked the fate that had made her their keeper within the Golden
Cliffs, and endowed her with the kind and sympathetic nature that had
won the loyalty and affection of these fierce beasts for her.
Woola leaped in frantic joy when he discovered me; and as the flier
touched the pavement of the court for a brief instant he bounded to the
deck beside me, and in the bearlike manifestation of his exuberant
happiness all but caused me to wreck the vessel against the courtyard’s
rocky wall.
Amid the angry shouting of thern guardsmen we rose high above the last
fortress of the Holy Therns, and then raced straight toward the
northeast and Kaol, the destination which I had heard from the lips of
Matai Shang.
Far ahead, a tiny speck in the distance, I made out another flier late
in the afternoon. It could be none other than that which bore my lost
love and my enemies.
I had gained considerably on the craft by night; and then, knowing that
they must have sighted me and would show no lights after dark, I set my
destination compass upon her—that wonderful little Martian mechanism
which, once attuned to the object of destination, points away toward
it, irrespective of every change in its location.
All that night we raced through the Barsoomian void, passing over low
hills and dead sea bottoms; above long-deserted cities and populous
centers of red Martian habitation upon the ribbon-like lines of
cultivated land which border the globe-encircling waterways, which
Earth men call the canals of Mars.
Dawn showed that I had gained appreciably upon the flier ahead of me.
It was a larger craft than mine, and not so swift; but even so, it had
covered an immense distance since the flight began.
The change in vegetation below showed me that we were rapidly nearing
the equator. I was now near enough to my quarry to have used my bow
gun; but, though I could see that Dejah Thoris was not on deck, I
feared to fire upon the craft which bore her.
Thurid was deterred by no such scruples; and though it must have been
difficult for him to believe that it was really I who followed them, he
could not very well doubt the witness of his own eyes; and so he
trained their stern gun upon me with his own hands, and an instant
later an explosive radium projectile whizzed perilously close above my
deck.
The black’s next shot was more accurate, striking my flier full upon
the prow and exploding with the instant of contact, ripping wide open
the bow buoyancy tanks and disabling the engine.
So quickly did my bow drop after the shot that I scarce had time to
lash Woola to the deck and buckle my own harness to a gunwale ring
before the craft was hanging stern up and making her last long drop to
ground.
Her stern buoyancy tanks prevented her dropping with great rapidity;
but Thurid was firing rapidly now in an attempt to burst these also,
that I might be dashed to death in the swift fall that would instantly
follow a successful shot.
Shot after shot tore past or into us, but by a miracle neither Woola
nor I was hit, nor were the after tanks punctured. This good fortune
could not last indefinitely, and, assured that Thurid would not again
leave me alive, I awaited the bursting of the next shell that hit; and
then, throwing my hands above my head, I let go my hold and crumpled,
limp and inert, dangling in my harness like a corpse.
The ruse worked, and Thurid fired no more at us. Presently I heard the
diminishing sound of whirring propellers and realized that again I was
safe.
Slowly the stricken flier sank to the ground, and when I had freed
myself and Woola from the entangling wreckage I found that we were upon
the verge of a natural forest—so rare a thing upon the bosom of dying
Mars that, outside of the forest in the Valley Dor beside the Lost Sea
of Korus, I never before had seen its like upon the planet.
From books and travelers I had learned something of the little-known
land of Kaol, which lies along the equator almost halfway round the
planet to the east of Helium.
It comprises a sunken area of extreme tropical heat, and is inhabited
by a nation of red men varying but little in manners, customs, and
appearance from the balance of the red men of Barsoom.
I knew that they were among those of the outer world who still clung
tenaciously to the discredited religion of the Holy Therns, and that
Matai Shang would find a ready welcome and safe refuge among them;
while John Carter could look for nothing better than an ignoble death
at their hands.
The isolation of the Kaolians is rendered almost complete by the fact
that no waterway connects their land with that of any other nation, nor
have they any need of a waterway since the low, swampy land which
comprises the entire area of their domain self-waters their abundant
tropical crops.
For great distances in all directions rugged hills and arid stretches
of dead sea bottom discourage intercourse with them, and since there is
practically no such thing as foreign commerce upon warlike Barsoom,
where each nation is sufficient to itself, really little has been known
relative to the court of the Jeddak of Kaol and the numerous strange,
but interesting, people over whom he rules.
Occasional hunting parties have traveled to this out-of-the-way corner
of the globe, but the hostility of the natives has usually brought
disaster upon them, so that even the sport of hunting the strange and
savage creatures which haunt the jungle fastnesses of Kaol has of later
years proved insufficient lure even to the most intrepid warriors.
It was upon the verge of the land of the Kaols that I now knew myself
to be, but in what direction to search for Dejah Thoris, or how far
into the heart of the great forest I might have to penetrate I had not
the faintest idea.
But not so Woola.
Scarcely had I disentangled him than he raised his head high in air and
commenced circling about at the edge of the forest. Presently he
halted, and, turning to see if I were following, set off straight into
the maze of trees in the direction we had been going before Thurid’s
shot had put an end to our flier.
As best I could, I stumbled after him down a steep declivity beginning
at the forest’s edge.
Immense trees reared their mighty heads far above us, their broad
fronds completely shutting off the slightest glimpse of the sky. It was
easy to see why the Kaolians needed no navy; their cities, hidden in
the midst of this towering forest, must be entirely invisible from
above, nor could a landing be made by any but the smallest fliers, and
then only with the greatest risk of accident.
How Thurid and Matai Shang were to land I could not imagine, though
later I was to learn that to the level of the forest top there rises in
each city of Kaol a slender watchtower which guards the Kaolians by day
and by night against the secret approach of a hostile fleet. To one of
these the hekkador of the Holy Therns had no difficulty in approaching,
and by its means the party was safely lowered to the ground.
As Woola and I approached the bottom of the declivity the ground became
soft and mushy, so that it was with the greatest difficulty that we
made any headway whatever.
Slender purple grasses topped with red and yellow fern-like fronds grew
rankly all about us to the height of several feet above my head.
Myriad creepers hung festooned in graceful loops from tree to tree, and
among them were several varieties of the Martian “man-flower,” whose
blooms have eyes and hands with which to see and seize the insects
which form their diet.
The repulsive calot tree was, too, much in evidence. It is a