Thuvia, maid of Mars
might wield the same power that brought me into existence.”
“You are right,” said Carthoris. “Still, I hate to leave them, though
there is naught else to do,” and so the two turned from the courtyard,
and making their way into one of the broad avenues, crept stealthily in
the shadows of the building toward the great central plaza upon which
were the buildings occupied by the green warriors when they visited the
deserted city.
When they had come to the plaza’s edge Carthoris halted.
“Wait here,” he whispered. “I go to fetch thoats, since on foot we may
never hope to escape the clutches of these green fiends.”
To reach the courtyard where the thoats were kept it was necessary for
Carthoris to pass through one of the buildings which surrounded the
square. Which were occupied and which not he could not even guess, so
he was compelled to take considerable chances to gain the enclosure in
which he could hear the restless beasts squealing and quarrelling among
themselves.
Chance carried him through a dark doorway into a large chamber in which
lay a score or more green warriors wrapped in their sleeping silks and
furs. Scarce had Carthoris passed through the short hallway that
connected the door of the building and the great room beyond it than he
became aware of the presence of something or some one in the hallway
through which he had but just passed.
He heard a man yawn, and then, behind him, he saw the figure of a
sentry rise from where the fellow had been dozing, and stretching
himself resume his wakeful watchfulness.
Carthoris realized that he must have passed within a foot of the
warrior, doubtless rousing him from his slumber. To retreat now would
be impossible. Yet to cross through that roomful of sleeping warriors
seemed almost equally beyond the pale of possibility.
Carthoris shrugged his broad shoulders and chose the lesser evil.
Warily he entered the room. At his right, against the wall, leaned
several swords and rifles and spears—extra weapons which the warriors
had stacked here ready to their hands should there be a night alarm
calling them suddenly from slumber. Beside each sleeper lay his
weapon—these were never far from their owners from childhood to death.
The sight of the swords made the young man’s palm itch. He stepped
quickly to them, selecting two short-swords—one for Kar Komak, the
other for himself; also some trappings for his naked comrade.
Then he started directly across the centre of the apartment among the
sleeping Torquasians.
Not a man of them moved until Carthoris had completed more than half of
the short though dangerous journey. Then a fellow directly in his path
turned restlessly upon his sleeping silks and furs.
The Heliumite paused above him, one of the short-swords in readiness
should the warrior awaken. For what seemed an eternity to the young
prince the green man continued to move uneasily upon his couch, then,
as though actuated by springs, he leaped to his feet and faced the red
man.
Instantly Carthoris struck, but not before a savage grunt escaped the
other’s lips. In an instant the room was in turmoil. Warriors leaped to
their feet, grasping their weapons as they rose, and shouting to one
another for an explanation of the disturbance.
To Carthoris all within the room was plainly visible in the dim light
reflected from without, for the further moon stood directly at zenith;
but to the eyes of the newly-awakened green men objects as yet had not
taken on familiar forms—they but saw vaguely the figures of warriors
moving about their apartment.
Now one stumbled against the corpse of him whom Carthoris had slain.
The fellow stooped and his hand came in contact with the cleft skull.
He saw about him the giant figures of other green men, and so he jumped
to the only conclusion that was open to him.
“The Thurds!” he cried. “The Thurds are upon us! Rise, warriors of
Torquas, and drive home your swords within the hearts of Torquas’
ancient enemies!”
Instantly the green men began to fall upon one another with naked
swords. Their savage lust of battle was aroused. To fight, to kill, to
die with cold steel buried in their vitals! Ah, that to them was
Nirvana.
Carthoris was quick to guess their error and take advantage of it. He
knew that in the pleasure of killing they might fight on long after
they had discovered their mistake, unless their attention was
distracted by sight of the real cause of the altercation, and so he
lost no time in continuing across the room to the doorway upon the
opposite side, which opened into the inner court, where the savage
thoats were squealing and fighting among themselves.
Once here he had no easy task before him. To catch and mount one of
these habitually rageful and intractable beasts was no child’s play
under the best of conditions; but now, when silence and time were such
important considerations, it might well have seemed quite hopeless to a
less resourceful and optimistic man than the son of the great warlord.
From his father he had learned much concerning the traits of these
mighty beasts, and from Tars Tarkas, also, when he had visited that
great green jeddak among his horde at Thark. So now he centred upon the
work in hand all that he had ever learned about them from others and
from his own experience, for he, too, had ridden and handled them many
times.
The temper of the thoats of Torquas appeared even shorter than their
vicious cousins among the Tharks and Warhoons, and for a time it seemed
unlikely that he should escape a savage charge on the part of a couple
of old bulls that circled, squealing, about him; but at last he managed
to get close enough to one of them to touch the beast. With the feel of
his hand upon the sleek hide the creature quieted, and in answer to the
telepathic command of the red man sank to its knees.
In a moment Carthoris was upon its back, guiding it toward the great
gate that leads from the courtyard through a large building at one end
into an avenue beyond.
The other bull, still squealing and enraged, followed after his fellow.
There was no bridle upon either, for these strange creatures are
controlled entirely by suggestion—when they are controlled at all.
Even in the hands of the giant green men bridle reins would be
hopelessly futile against the mad savagery and mastodonic strength of
the thoat, and so they are guided by that strange telepathic power with
which the men of Mars have learned to communicate in a crude way with
the lower orders of their planet.
With difficulty Carthoris urged the two beasts to the gate, where,
leaning down, he raised the latch. Then the thoat that he was riding
placed his great shoulder to the skeel-wood planking, pushed through,
and a moment later the man and the two beasts were swinging silently
down the avenue to the edge of the plaza, where Kar Komak hid.
Here Carthoris found considerable difficulty in subduing the second
thoat, and as Kar Komak had never before ridden one of the beasts, it
seemed a most hopeless job; but at last the bowman managed to scramble
to the sleek back, and again the two beasts fled softly down the
moss-grown avenues toward the open sea-bottom beyond the city.
All that night and the following day and the second night they rode
toward the north-east. No indication of pursuit developed, and at dawn
of the second day Carthoris saw in the distance the waving ribbon of
great trees that marked one of the long Barsoomian water-ways.
Immediately they abandoned their thoats and approached the cultivated
district on foot. Carthoris also discarded the metal from his harness,
or such of it as might serve to identify him as a Heliumite, or of
royal blood, for he did not know to what nation belonged this waterway,
and upon Mars it is always well to assume every man and nation your
enemy until you have learned the contrary.
It was mid-forenoon when the two at last entered one of the roads that
cut through the cultivated districts at regular intervals, joining the
arid wastes on either side with the great, white, central highway that
follows through the centre from end to end of the far-reaching,
threadlike farm lands.
The high wall surrounding the fields served as a protection against
surprise by raiding green hordes, as well as keeping the savage banths
and other carnivora from the domestic animals and the human beings upon
the farms.
Carthoris stopped before the first gate he came to, pounding for
admission. The young man who answered his summons greeted the two
hospitably, though he looked with considerable wonder upon the white
skin and auburn hair of the bowman.
After he had listened for a moment to a partial narration of their
escape from the Torquasians, he invited them within, took them to his
house and bade the servants there prepare food for them.
As they waited in the low-ceiled, pleasant living room of the farmhouse
until the meal should be ready, Carthoris drew his host into
conversation that he might learn his nationality, and thus the nation
under whose dominion lay the waterway where circumstance had placed
him.
“I am Hal Vas,” said the young man, “son of Vas Kor, of Dusar, a noble
in the retinue of Astok, Prince of Dusar. At present I am Dwar of the
Road for this district.”
Carthoris was very glad that he had not disclosed his identity, for
though he had no idea of anything that had transpired since he had left
Helium, or that Astok was at the bottom of all his misfortunes, he well
knew that the Dusarian had no love for him, and that he could hope for
no assistance within the dominions of Dusar.
“And who are you?” asked Hal Vas. “By your appearance I take you for a
fighting man, but I see no insignia upon your harness. Can it be that
you are a panthan?”
Now, these wandering soldiers of fortune are common upon Barsoom, where
most men love to fight. They sell their services wherever war exists,
and in the occasional brief intervals when there is no organized
warfare between the red nations, they join one of the numerous
expeditions that are constantly being dispatched against the green men
in protection of the waterways that traverse the wilder portions of the
globe.
When their service is over they discard the metal of the nation they
have been serving until they shall have found a new master. In the
intervals they wear no insignia, their war-worn harness and grim
weapons being sufficient to attest their calling.
The suggestion was a happy one, and Carthoris embraced the chance it
afforded to account satisfactorily for himself. There was, however, a
single drawback. In times of war such panthans as happened to be within
the domain of a belligerent nation were compelled to don the insignia
of that nation and fight with her warriors.
As far as Carthoris knew Dusar was not at war with any other nation,
but there was never any telling when one red nation would be flying at
the throat of a neighbour, even though the great and powerful alliance
at the head of which was his father, John Carter, had managed to
maintain a long peace upon the greater portion of Barsoom.
A pleasant smile lighted Hal Vas’ face as Carthoris admitted his
vocation.
“It is well,” exclaimed the young man, “that you chanced to come
hither, for here you will find the means of obtaining service in short
order. My father, Vas Kor, is even now with me, having come hither to
recruit a force for the new war against Helium.”
CHAPTER XII.
TO SAVE DUSAR
Thuvia of Ptarth, battling for more than life against the lust of Jav,
cast a quick glance over her shoulder toward the forest from which had
rumbled the fierce growl. Jav looked, too.
What they saw filled each with apprehension. It was Komal, the
banth-god, rushing wide-jawed upon them!