The warlord of Mars
carnivorous plant of about the bigness of a large sage-brush such as
dots our western plains. Each branch ends in a set of strong jaws,
which have been known to drag down and devour large and formidable
beasts of prey.
Both Woola and I had several narrow escapes from these greedy,
arboreous monsters.
Occasional areas of firm sod gave us intervals of rest from the arduous
labor of traversing this gorgeous, twilight swamp, and it was upon one
of these that I finally decided to make camp for the night which my
chronometer warned me would soon be upon us.
Many varieties of fruit grew in abundance about us; and as Martian
calots are omnivorous, Woola had no difficulty in making a square meal
after I had brought down the viands for him. Then, having eaten, too, I
lay down with my back to that of my faithful hound, and dropped into a
deep and dreamless sleep.
The forest was shrouded in impenetrable darkness when a low growl from
Woola awakened me. All about us I could hear the stealthy movement of
great, padded feet, and now and then the wicked gleam of green eyes
upon us. Arising, I drew my long-sword and waited.
Suddenly a deep-toned, horrid roar burst from some savage throat almost
at my side. What a fool I had been not to have found safer lodgings for
myself and Woola among the branches of one of the countless trees that
surrounded us!
By daylight it would have been comparatively easy to have hoisted Woola
aloft in one manner or another, but now it was too late. There was
nothing for it but to stand our ground and take our medicine, though,
from the hideous racket which now assailed our ears, and for which that
first roar had seemed to be the signal, I judged that we must be in the
midst of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the fierce, man-eating
denizens of the Kaolian jungle.
All the balance of the night they kept up their infernal din, but why
they did not attack us I could not guess, nor am I sure to this day,
unless it is that none of them ever venture upon the patches of scarlet
sward which dot the swamp.
When morning broke they were still there, walking about as in a circle,
but always just beyond the edge of the sward. A more terrifying
aggregation of fierce and blood-thirsty monsters it would be difficult
to imagine.
Singly and in pairs they commenced wandering off into the jungle
shortly after sunrise, and when the last of them had departed Woola and
I resumed our journey.
Occasionally we caught glimpses of horrid beasts all during the day;
but, fortunately, we were never far from a sward island, and when they
saw us their pursuit always ended at the verge of the solid sod.
Toward noon we stumbled upon a well-constructed road running in the
general direction we had been pursuing. Everything about this highway
marked it as the work of skilled engineers, and I was confident, from
the indications of antiquity which it bore, as well as from the very
evident signs of its being still in everyday use, that it must lead to
one of the principal cities of Kaol.
Just as we entered it from one side a huge monster emerged from the
jungle upon the other, and at sight of us charged madly in our
direction.
Imagine, if you can, a bald-faced hornet of your earthly experience
grown to the size of a prize Hereford bull, and you will have some
faint conception of the ferocious appearance and awesome formidability
of the winged monster that bore down upon me.
Frightful jaws in front and mighty, poisoned sting behind made my
relatively puny long-sword seem a pitiful weapon of defense indeed. Nor
could I hope to escape the lightning-like movements or hide from those
myriad facet eyes which covered three-fourths of the hideous head,
permitting the creature to see in all directions at one and the same
time.
Even my powerful and ferocious Woola was as helpless as a kitten before
that frightful thing. But to flee were useless, even had it ever been
to my liking to turn my back upon a danger; so I stood my ground, Woola
snarling at my side, my only hope to die as I had always
lived—fighting.
The creature was upon us now, and at the instant there seemed to me a
single slight chance for victory. If I could but remove the terrible
menace of certain death hidden in the poison sacs that fed the sting
the struggle would be less unequal.
At the thought I called to Woola to leap upon the creature’s head and
hang there, and as his mighty jaws closed upon that fiendish face, and
glistening fangs buried themselves in the bone and cartilage and lower
part of one of the huge eyes, I dived beneath the great body as the
creature rose, dragging Woola from the ground, that it might bring its
sting beneath and pierce the body of the thing hanging to its head.
To put myself in the path of that poison-laden lance was to court
instant death, but it was the only way; and as the thing shot
lightning-like toward me I swung my long-sword in a terrific cut that
severed the deadly member close to the gorgeously marked body.
Then, like a battering-ram, one of the powerful hind legs caught me
full in the chest and hurled me, half stunned and wholly winded, clear
across the broad highway and into the underbrush of the jungle that
fringes it.
Fortunately, I passed between the boles of trees; had I struck one of
them I should have been badly injured, if not killed, so swiftly had I
been catapulted by that enormous hind leg.
Dazed though I was, I stumbled to my feet and staggered back to Woola’s
assistance, to find his savage antagonist circling ten feet above the
ground, beating madly at the clinging calot with all six powerful legs.
Even during my sudden flight through the air I had not once released my
grip upon my long-sword, and now I ran beneath the two battling
monsters, jabbing the winged terror repeatedly with its sharp point.
The thing might easily have risen out of my reach, but evidently it
knew as little concerning retreat in the face of danger as either Woola
or I, for it dropped quickly toward me, and before I could escape had
grasped my shoulder between its powerful jaws.
Time and again the now useless stub of its giant sting struck futilely
against my body, but the blows alone were almost as effective as the
kick of a horse; so that when I say futilely, I refer only to the
natural function of the disabled member—eventually the thing would have
hammered me to a pulp. Nor was it far from accomplishing this when an
interruption occurred that put an end forever to its hostilities.
From where I hung a few feet above the road I could see along the
highway a few hundred yards to where it turned toward the east, and
just as I had about given up all hope of escaping the perilous position
in which I now was I saw a red warrior come into view from around the
bend.
He was mounted on a splendid thoat, one of the smaller species used by
red men, and in his hand was a wondrous long, light lance.
His mount was walking sedately when I first perceived them, but the
instant that the red man’s eyes fell upon us a word to the thoat
brought the animal at full charge down upon us. The long lance of the
warrior dipped toward us, and as thoat and rider hurtled beneath, the
point passed through the body of our antagonist.
With a convulsive shudder the thing stiffened, the jaws relaxed,
dropping me to the ground, and then, careening once in mid air, the
creature plunged headforemost to the road, full upon Woola, who still
clung tenaciously to its gory head.
By the time I had regained my feet the red man had turned and ridden
back to us. Woola, finding his enemy inert and lifeless, released his
hold at my command and wriggled from beneath the body that had covered
him, and together we faced the warrior looking down upon us.
I started to thank the stranger for his timely assistance, but he cut
me off peremptorily.
“Who are you,” he asked, “who dare enter the land of Kaol and hunt in
the royal forest of the jeddak?”
Then, as he noted my white skin through the coating of grime and blood
that covered me, his eyes went wide and in an altered tone he
whispered: “Can it be that you are a Holy Thern?”
I might have deceived the fellow for a time, as I had deceived others,
but I had cast away the yellow wig and the holy diadem in the presence
of Matai Shang, and I knew that it would not be long ere my new
acquaintance discovered that I was no thern at all.
“I am not a thern,” I replied, and then, flinging caution to the winds,
I said: “I am John Carter, Prince of Helium, whose name may not be
entirely unknown to you.”
If his eyes had gone wide when he thought that I was a Holy Thern, they
fairly popped now that he knew that I was John Carter. I grasped my
long-sword more firmly as I spoke the words which I was sure would
precipitate an attack, but to my surprise they precipitated nothing of
the kind.
“John Carter, Prince of Helium,” he repeated slowly, as though he could
not quite grasp the truth of the statement. “John Carter, the mightiest
warrior of Barsoom!”
And then he dismounted and placed his hand upon my shoulder after the
manner of most friendly greeting upon Mars.
“It is my duty, and it should be my pleasure, to kill you, John
Carter,” he said, “but always in my heart of hearts have I admired your
prowess and believed in your sincerity the while I have questioned and
disbelieved the therns and their religion.
“It would mean my instant death were my heresy to be suspected in the
court of Kulan Tith, but if I may serve you, Prince, you have but to
command Torkar Bar, Dwar of the Kaolian Road.”
Truth and honesty were writ large upon the warrior’s noble countenance,
so that I could not but have trusted him, enemy though he should have
been. His title of Captain of the Kaolian Road explained his timely
presence in the heart of the savage forest, for every highway upon
Barsoom is patrolled by doughty warriors of the noble class, nor is
there any service more honorable than this lonely and dangerous duty in
the less frequented sections of the domains of the red men of Barsoom.
“Torkar Bar has already placed a great debt of gratitude upon my
shoulders,” I replied, pointing to the carcass of the creature from
whose heart he was dragging his long spear.
The red man smiled.
“It was fortunate that I came when I did,” he said. “Only this poisoned
spear pricking the very heart of a sith can kill it quickly enough to
save its prey. In this section of Kaol we are all armed with a long
sith spear, whose point is smeared with the poison of the creature it
is intended to kill; no other virus acts so quickly upon the beast as
its own.
“Look,” he continued, drawing his dagger and making an incision in the
carcass a foot above the root of the sting, from which he presently
drew forth two sacs, each of which held fully a gallon of the deadly
liquid.
“Thus we maintain our supply, though were it not for certain commercial
uses to which the virus is put, it would scarcely be necessary to add
to our present store, since the sith is almost extinct.
“Only occasionally do we now run upon one. Of old, however, Kaol was
overrun with the frightful monsters that often came in herds of twenty
or thirty, darting down from above into our cities and carrying away
women, children, and even warriors.”
As he spoke I had been wondering just how much I might safely tell this
man of the mission which brought me to his land, but his next words
anticipated the broaching of the subject on my part, and rendered me
thankful that I had not spoken too soon.
“And now as to yourself, John Carter,” he said, “I shall not ask your
business here, nor do I wish to hear it. I have eyes and ears and
ordinary intelligence, and yesterday morning I saw the party that came