Thuvia, maid of Mars
curved his lips.
The man upon the dais was eyeing him intently, and Carthoris of Helium
was looking straight in the other’s face.
“Who be these, Jav?” asked the man of him who crawled upon his belly
along the floor.
“O Tario, most glorious Jeddak,” replied Jav, “these be strangers who
came with the hordes of Torquas to our gates, saying that they were
prisoners of the green men. They tell strange tales of cities far
beyond Lothar.”
“Arise, Jav,” commanded Tario, “and ask these two why they show not to
Tario the respect that is his due.”
Jav arose and faced the strangers. At sight of their erect positions
his face went livid. He leaped toward them.
“Creatures!” he screamed. “Down! Down upon your bellies before the last
of the jeddaks of Barsoom!”
[1] On Barsoom the _ad_ is the basis of linear measurement. It is the
equivalent of an Earthly foot, measuring about 11.694 Earth inches. As
has been my custom in the past, I have generally translated Barsoomian
symbols of time, distance, etc., into their Earthly equivalent, as
being more easily understood by Earth readers. For those of a more
studious turn of mind it may be interesting to know the Martian table
of linear measurement, and so I give it here:
10 sofads = 1 ad
200 ads = 1 haad
100 haads = 1 karad
360 karads = 1 circumference of Mars at equator.
A haad, or Barsoomian mile, contains about 2,339 Earth feet. A karad is
one degree. A sofad about 1.17 Earth inches.
CHAPTER VII.
THE PHANTOM BOWMEN
As Jav leaped toward him Carthoris laid his hand upon the hilt of his
long-sword. The Lotharian halted. The great apartment was empty save
for the four at the dais, yet as Jav stepped back from the menace of
the Heliumite’s threatening attitude the latter found himself
surrounded by a score of bowmen.
From whence had they sprung? Both Carthoris and Thuvia looked their
astonishment.
Now the former’s sword leaped from its scabbard, and at the same
instant the bowmen drew back their slim shafts.
Tario had half raised himself upon one elbow. For the first time he saw
the full figure of Thuvia, who had been concealed behind the person of
Carthoris.
“Enough!” cried the jeddak, raising a protesting hand, but at that very
instant the sword of the Heliumite cut viciously at its nearest
antagonist.
As the keen edge reached its goal Carthoris let the point fall to the
floor, as with wide eyes he stepped backward in consternation, throwing
the back of his left hand across his brow. His steel had cut but empty
air—his antagonist had vanished—there were no bowmen in the room!
“It is evident that these are strangers,” said Tario to Jav. “Let us
first determine that they knowingly affronted us before we take
measures for punishment.”
Then he turned to Carthoris, but ever his gaze wandered to the perfect
lines of Thuvia’s glorious figure, which the harness of a Barsoomian
princess accentuated rather than concealed.
“Who are you,” he asked, “who knows not the etiquette of the court of
the last of jeddaks?”
“I am Carthoris, Prince of Helium,” replied the Heliumite. “And this is
Thuvia, Princess of Ptarth. In the courts of our fathers men do not
prostrate themselves before royalty. Not since the First Born tore
their immortal goddess limb from limb have men crawled upon their
bellies to any throne upon Barsoom. Now think you that the daughter of
one mighty jeddak and the son of another would so humiliate
themselves?”
Tario looked at Carthoris for a long time. At last he spoke.
“There is no other jeddak upon Barsoom than Tario,” he said. “There is
no other race than that of Lothar, unless the hordes of Torquas may be
dignified by such an appellation. Lotharians are white; your skins are
red. There are no women left upon Barsoom. Your companion is a woman.”
He half rose from the couch, leaning far forward and pointing an
accusing finger at Carthoris.
“You are a lie!” he shrieked. “You are both lies, and you dare to come
before Tario, last and mightiest of the jeddaks of Barsoom, and assert
your reality. Some one shall pay well for this, Jav, and unless I
mistake it is yourself who has dared thus flippantly to trifle with the
good nature of your jeddak.
“Remove the man. Leave the woman. We shall see if both be lies. And
later, Jav, you shall suffer for your temerity. There be few of us
left, but—Komal must be fed. Go!”
Carthoris could see that Jav trembled as he prostrated himself once
more before his ruler, and then, rising, turned toward the Prince of
Helium.
“Come!” he said.
“And leave the Princess of Ptarth here alone?” cried Carthoris.
Jav brushed closely past him, whispering:
“Follow me—he cannot harm her, except to kill; and that he can do
whether you remain or not. We had best go now—trust me.”
Carthoris did not understand, but something in the urgency of the
other’s tone assured him, and so he turned away, but not without a
glance toward Thuvia in which he attempted to make her understand that
it was in her own interest that he left her.
For answer she turned her back full upon him, but not without first
throwing him such a look of contempt that brought the scarlet to his
cheek.
Then he hesitated, but Jav seized him by the wrist.
“Come!” he whispered. “Or he will have the bowmen upon you, and this
time there will be no escape. Did you not see how futile is your steel
against thin air!”
Carthoris turned unwillingly to follow. As the two left the room he
turned to his companion.
“If I may not kill thin air,” he asked, “how, then, shall I fear that
thin air may kill me?”
“You saw the Torquasians fall before the bowmen?” asked Jav.
Carthoris nodded.
“So would you fall before them, and without one single chance for
self-defence or revenge.”
As they talked Jav led Carthoris to a small room in one of the numerous
towers of the palace. Here were couches, and Jav bid the Heliumite be
seated.
For several minutes the Lotharian eyed his prisoner, for such Carthoris
now realized himself to be.
“I am half convinced that you are real,” he said at last.
Carthoris laughed.
“Of course I am real,” he said. “What caused you to doubt it? Can you
not see me, feel me?”
“So may I see and feel the bowmen,” replied Jav, “and yet we all know
that they, at least, are not real.”
Carthoris showed by the expression of his face his puzzlement at each
new reference to the mysterious bowmen—the vanishing soldiery of
Lothar.
“What, then, may they be?” he asked.
“You really do not know?” asked Jav.
Carthoris shook his head negatively.
“I can almost believe that you have told us the truth and that you are
really from another part of Barsoom, or from another world. But tell
me, in your own country have you no bowmen to strike terror to the
hearts of the green hordesmen as they slay in company with the fierce
banths of war?”
“We have soldiers,” replied Carthoris. “We of the red race are all
soldiers, but we have no bowmen to defend us, such as yours. We defend
ourselves.”
“You go out and get killed by your enemies!” cried Jav incredulously.
“Certainly,” replied Carthoris. “How do the Lotharians?”
“You have seen,” replied the other. “We send out our deathless
archers—deathless because they are lifeless, existing only in the
imaginations of our enemies. It is really our giant minds that defend
us, sending out legions of imaginary warriors to materialize before the
mind’s eye of the foe.
“They see them—they see their bows drawn back—they see their slender
arrows speed with unerring precision toward their hearts. And they
die—killed by the power of suggestion.”
“But the archers that are slain?” exclaimed Carthoris. “You call them
deathless, and yet I saw their dead bodies piled high upon the
battlefield. How may that be?”
“It is but to lend reality to the scene,” replied Jav. “We picture many
of our own defenders killed that the Torquasians may not guess that
there are really no flesh and blood creatures opposing them.
“Once that truth became implanted in their minds, it is the theory of
many of us, no longer would they fall prey to the suggestion of the
deadly arrows, for greater would be the suggestion of the truth, and
the more powerful suggestion would prevail—it is law.”
“And the banths?” questioned Carthoris. “They, too, were but creatures
of suggestion?”
“Some of them were real,” replied Jav. “Those that accompanied the
archers in pursuit of the Torquasians were unreal. Like the archers,
they never returned, but, having served their purpose, vanished with
the bowmen when the rout of the enemy was assured.
“Those that remained about the field were real. Those we loosed as
scavengers to devour the bodies of the dead of Torquas. This thing is
demanded by the realists among us. I am a realist. Tario is an
etherealist.
“The etherealists maintain that there is no such thing as matter—that
all is mind. They say that none of us exists, except in the imagination
of his fellows, other than as an intangible, invisible mentality.
“According to Tario, it is but necessary that we all unite in imagining
that there are no dead Torquasians beneath our walls, and there will be
none, nor any need of scavenging banths.”
“You, then, do not hold Tario’s beliefs?” asked Carthoris.
“In part only,” replied the Lotharian. “I believe, in fact I know, that
there are some truly ethereal creatures. Tario is one, I am convinced.
He has no existence except in the imaginations of his people.
“Of course, it is the contention of all us realists that all
etherealists are but figments of the imagination. They contend that no
food is necessary, nor do they eat; but any one of the most rudimentary
intelligence must realize that food is a necessity to creatures having
actual existence.”
“Yes,” agreed Carthoris, “not having eaten to-day I can readily agree
with you.”
“Ah, pardon me,” exclaimed Jav. “Pray be seated and satisfy your
hunger,” and with a wave of his hand he indicated a bountifully laden
table that had not been there an instant before he spoke. Of that
Carthoris was positive, for he had searched the room diligently with
his eyes several times.
“It is well,” continued Jav, “that you did not fall into the hands of
an etherealist. Then, indeed, would you have gone hungry.”
“But,” exclaimed Carthoris, “this is not real food—it was not here an
instant since, and real food does not materialize out of thin air.”
Jav looked hurt.
“There is no real food or water in Lothar,” he said; “nor has there
been for countless ages. Upon such as you now see before you have we
existed since the dawn of history. Upon such, then, may you exist.”
“But I thought you were a realist,” exclaimed Carthoris.
“Indeed,” cried Jav, “what more realistic than this bounteous feast? It
is just here that we differ most from the etherealists. They claim that
it is unnecessary to imagine food; but we have found that for the
maintenance of life we must thrice daily sit down to hearty meals.
“The food that one eats is supposed to undergo certain chemical changes
during the process of digestion and assimilation, the result, of
course, being the rebuilding of wasted tissue.
“Now we all know that mind is all, though we may differ in the
interpretation of its various manifestations. Tario maintains that
there is no such thing as substance, all being created from the
substanceless matter of the brain.
“We realists, however, know better. We know that mind has the power to
maintain substance even though it may not be able to create
substance—the latter is still an open question. And so we know that in
order to maintain our physical bodies we must cause all our organs
properly to function.