Thuvia, maid of Mars
At the sound of his step she turned quickly toward him. Ah, how
beautiful she was! His sudden determination faded beneath the glorious
light of her wondrous beauty. He would wait until he had returned from
his little journey of deception—maybe there might be some other way
then. Some other hand to strike the blow—with that face, with those
eyes before him, he could never do it. Of that he was positive. He had
always gloried in the cruelty of his nature, but, Issus! he was not
that cruel. No, another must be found—one whom he could trust.
He was still looking at her as she stood there before him meeting his
gaze steadily and unafraid. He felt the hot passion of his love
mounting higher and higher.
Why not sue once more? If she would relent, all might yet be well. Even
if his father could not be persuaded, they could fly to Ptarth, laying
all the blame of the knavery and intrigue that had thrown four great
nations into war, upon the shoulders of Nutus. And who was there that
would doubt the justice of the charge?
“Thuvia,” he said, “I come once again, for the last time, to lay my
heart at your feet. Ptarth and Kaol and Dusar are battling with Helium
because of you. Wed me, Thuvia, and all may yet be as it should be.”
The girl shook her head.
“Wait!” he commanded, before she could speak. “Know the truth before
you speak words that may seal, not only your own fate, but that of the
thousands of warriors who battle because of you.
“Refuse to wed me willingly, and Dusar would be laid waste should ever
the truth be known to Ptarth and Kaol and Helium. They would raze our
cities, leaving not one stone upon another. They would scatter our
peoples across the face of Barsoom from the frozen north to the frozen
south, hunting them down and slaying them, until this great nation
remained only as a hated memory in the minds of men.
“But while they are exterminating the Dusarians, countless thousands of
their own warriors must perish—and all because of the stubbornness of a
single woman who would not wed the prince who loves her.
“Refuse, Thuvia of Ptarth, and there remains but a single
alternative—no man must ever know your fate. Only a handful of loyal
servitors besides my royal father and myself know that you were stolen
from the gardens of Thuvan Dihn by Astok, Prince of Dusar, or that
to-day you be imprisoned in my palace.
“Refuse, Thuvia of Ptarth, and you must die to save Dusar—there is no
other way. Nutus, the jeddak, has so decreed. I have spoken.”
For a long moment the girl let her level gaze rest full upon the face
of Astok of Dusar. Then she spoke, and though the words were few, the
unimpassioned tone carried unfathomable depths of cold contempt.
“Better all that you have threatened,” she said, “than you.”
Then she turned her back upon him and went to stand once more before
the east window, gazing with sad eyes toward distant Ptarth.
Astok wheeled and left the room, returning after a short interval of
time with food and drink.
“Here,” he said, “is sustenance until I return again. The next to enter
this apartment will be your executioner. Commend yourself to your
ancestors, Thuvia of Ptarth, for within a few days you shall be with
them.”
Then he was gone.
Half an hour later he was interviewing an officer high in the navy of
Dusar.
“Whither went Vas Kor?” he asked. “He is not at his palace.”
“South, to the great waterway that skirts Torquas,” replied the other.
“His son, Hal Vas, is Dwar of the Road there, and thither has Vas Kor
gone to enlist recruits among the workers on the farms.”
“Good,” said Astok, and a half-hour more found him rising above Dusar
in his swiftest flier.
CHAPTER XIII.
TURJUN, THE PANTHAN
The face of Carthoris of Helium gave no token of the emotions that
convulsed him inwardly as he heard from the lips of Hal Vas that Helium
was at war with Dusar, and that fate had thrown him into the service of
the enemy.
That he might utilize this opportunity to the good of Helium scarce
sufficed to outweigh the chagrin he felt that he was not fighting in
the open at the head of his own loyal troops.
To escape the Dusarians might prove an easy matter; and then again it
might not. Should they suspect his loyalty (and the loyalty of an
impressed panthan was always open to suspicion), he might not find an
opportunity to elude their vigilance until after the termination of the
war, which might occur within days, or, again, only after long and
weary years of bloodshed.
He recalled that history recorded wars in which actual military
operations had been carried on without cessation for five or six
hundred years, and even now there were nations upon Barsoom with which
Helium had made no peace within the history of man.
The outlook was not cheering. He could not guess that within a few
hours he would be blessing the fate that had thrown him into the
service of Dusar.
“Ah!” exclaimed Hal Vas. “Here is my father now. Kaor! Vas Kor. Here is
one you will be glad to meet—a doughty panthan—” He hesitated.
“Turjun,” interjected Carthoris, seizing upon the first appellation
that occurred to him.
As he spoke his eyes crossed quickly to the tall warrior who was
entering the room. Where before had he seen that giant figure, that
taciturn countenance, and the livid sword-cut from temple to mouth?
“Vas Kor,” repeated Carthoris mentally. “Vas Kor!” Where had he seen
the man before?
And then the noble spoke, and like a flash it all came back to
Carthoris—the forward servant upon the landing stage at Ptarth that
time that he had been explaining the intricacies of his new compass to
Thuvan Dihn; the lone slave that had guarded his own hangar that night
he had left upon his ill-fated journey for Ptarth—the journey that had
brought him so mysteriously to far Aaanthor.
“Vas Kor,” he repeated aloud, “blessed be your ancestors for this
meeting,” nor did the Dusarian guess the wealth of meaning that lay
beneath that hackneyed phrase with which a Barsoomian acknowledges an
introduction.
“And blessed be yours, Turjun,” replied Vas Kor.
Now came the introduction of Kar Komak to Vas Kor, and as Carthoris
went through the little ceremony there came to him the only explanation
he might make to account for the white skin and auburn hair of the
bowman; for he feared that the truth might not be believed and thus
suspicion be cast upon them both from the beginning.
“Kar Komak,” he explained, “is, as you can see, a thern. He has
wandered far from his icebound southern temples in search of adventure.
I came upon him in the pits of Aaanthor; but though I have known him so
short a time, I can vouch for his bravery and loyalty.”
Since the destruction of the fabric of their false religion by John
Carter, the majority of the therns had gladly accepted the new order of
things, so that it was now no longer uncommon to see them mingling with
the multitudes of red men in any of the great cities of the outer
world, so Vas Kor neither felt nor expressed any great astonishment.
All during the interview Carthoris watched, catlike, for some
indication that Vas Kor recognized in the battered panthan the
erstwhile gorgeous Prince of Helium; but the sleepless nights, the long
days of marching and fighting, the wounds and the dried blood had
evidently sufficed to obliterate the last remnant of his likeness to
his former self; and then Vas Kor had seen him but twice in all his
life. Little wonder that he did not know him.
During the evening Vas Kor announced that on the morrow they should
depart north toward Dusar, picking up recruits at various stations
along the way.
In a great field behind the house a flier lay—a fair-sized
cruiser-transport that would accommodate many men, yet swift and well
armed also. Here Carthoris slept, and Kar Komak, too, with the other
recruits, under guard of the regular Dusarian warriors that manned the
craft.
Toward midnight Vas Kor returned to the vessel from his son’s house,
repairing at once to his cabin. Carthoris, with one of the Dusarians,
was on watch. It was with difficulty that the Heliumite repressed a
cold smile as the noble passed within a foot of him—within a foot of
the long, slim, Heliumitic blade that swung in his harness.
How easy it would have been! How easy to avenge the cowardly trick that
had been played upon him—to avenge Helium and Ptarth and Thuvia!
But his hand moved not toward the dagger’s hilt, for first Vas Kor must
serve a better purpose—he might know where Thuvia of Ptarth lay hidden
now, if it had truly been Dusarians that had spirited her away during
the fight before Aaanthor.
And then, too, there was the instigator of the entire foul plot. HE
must pay the penalty; and who better than Vas Kor could lead the Prince
of Helium to Astok of Dusar?
Faintly out of the night there came to Carthoris’s ears the purring of
a distant motor. He scanned the heavens.
Yes, there it was far in the north, dimly outlined against the dark
void of space that stretched illimitably beyond it, the faint
suggestion of a flier passing, unlighted, through the Barsoomian night.
Carthoris, knowing not whether the craft might be friend or foe of
Dusar, gave no sign that he had seen, but turned his eyes in another
direction, leaving the matter to the Dusarian who stood watch with him.
Presently the fellow discovered the oncoming craft, and sounded the low
alarm which brought the balance of the watch and an officer from their
sleeping silks and furs upon the deck near by.
The cruiser-transport lay without lights, and, resting as she was upon
the ground, must have been entirely invisible to the oncoming flier,
which all presently recognized as a small craft.
It soon became evident that the stranger intended making a landing, for
she was now spiraling slowly above them, dropping lower and lower in
each graceful curve.
“It is the _Thuria_,” whispered one of the Dusarian warriors. “I would
know her in the blackness of the pits among ten thousand other craft.”
“Right you are!” exclaimed Vas Kor, who had come on deck. And then he
hailed:
“Kaor, _Thuria_!”
“Kaor!” came presently from above after a brief silence. Then: “What
ship?”
“Cruiser-transport Kalksus, Vas Kor of Dusar.”
“Good!” came from above. “Is there safe landing alongside?”
“Yes, close in to starboard. Wait, we will show our lights,” and a
moment later the smaller craft settled close beside the Kalksus, and
the lights of the latter were immediately extinguished once more.
Several figures could be seen slipping over the side of the _Thuria_
and advancing toward the Kalksus. Ever suspicious, the Dusarians stood
ready to receive the visitors as friends or foes as closer inspection
might prove them. Carthoris stood quite near the rail, ready to take
sides with the new-comers should chance have it that they were
Heliumites playing a bold stroke of strategy upon this lone Dusarian
ship. He had led like parties himself, and knew that such a contingency
was quite possible.
But the face of the first man to cross the rail undeceived him with a
shock that was not at all unpleasurable—it was the face of Astok,
Prince of Dusar.
Scarce noticing the others upon the deck of the Kalksus, Astok strode
forward to accept Vas Kor’s greeting, then he summoned the noble below.
The warriors and officers returned to their sleeping silks and furs,
and once more the deck was deserted except for the Dusarian warrior and
Turjun, the panthan, who stood guard.
The latter walked quietly to and fro. The former leaned across the
rail, wishing for the hour that would bring him relief. He did not see
his companion approach the lights of the cabin of Vas Kor. He did not
see him stoop with ear close pressed to a tiny ventilator.