Thuvia, maid of Mars
flowers, the sward—all must have read the love that has filled my heart
since first my eyes were made new by imaging your perfect face and
form; so how could you alone have been blind to it?”
“Do the maids of Helium pay court to their men?” asked Thuvia.
“You are playing with me!” exclaimed Carthoris. “Say that you are but
playing, and that after all you love me, Thuvia!”
“I cannot tell you that, Carthoris, for I am promised to another.”
Her tone was level, but was there not within it the hint of an infinite
depth of sadness? Who may say?
“Promised to another?” Carthoris scarcely breathed the words. His face
went almost white, and then his head came up as befitted him in whose
veins flowed the blood of the overlord of a world.
“Carthoris of Helium wishes you every happiness with the man of your
choice,” he said. “With—” and then he hesitated, waiting for her to
fill in the name.
“Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol,” she replied. “My father’s friend and
Ptarth’s most puissant ally.”
The young man looked at her intently for a moment before he spoke
again.
“You love him, Thuvia of Ptarth?” he asked.
“I am promised to him,” she replied simply.
He did not press her. “He is of Barsoom’s noblest blood and mightiest
fighters,” mused Carthoris. “My father’s friend and mine—would that it
might have been another!” he muttered almost savagely. What the girl
thought was hidden by the mask of her expression, which was tinged only
by a little shadow of sadness that might have been for Carthoris,
herself, or for them both.
Carthoris of Helium did not ask, though he noted it, for his loyalty to
Kulan Tith was the loyalty of the blood of John Carter of Virginia for
a friend, greater than which could be no loyalty.
He raised a jewel-encrusted bit of the girl’s magnificent trappings to
his lips.
“To the honour and happiness of Kulan Tith and the priceless jewel that
has been bestowed upon him,” he said, and though his voice was husky
there was the true ring of sincerity in it. “I told you that I loved
you, Thuvia, before I knew that you were promised to another. I may not
tell you it again, but I am glad that you know it, for there is no
dishonour in it either to you or to Kulan Tith or to myself. My love is
such that it may embrace as well Kulan Tith—if you love him.” There was
almost a question in the statement.
“I am promised to him,” she replied.
Carthoris backed slowly away. He laid one hand upon his heart, the
other upon the pommel of his long-sword.
“These are yours—always,” he said. A moment later he had entered the
palace, and was gone from the girl’s sight.
Had he returned at once he would have found her prone upon the ersite
bench, her face buried in her arms. Was she weeping? There was none to
see.
Carthoris of Helium had come all unannounced to the court of his
father’s friend that day. He had come alone in a small flier, sure of
the same welcome that always awaited him at Ptarth. As there had been
no formality in his coming there was no need of formality in his going.
To Thuvan Dihn he explained that he had been but testing an invention
of his own with which his flier was equipped—a clever improvement of
the ordinary Martian air compass, which, when set for a certain
destination, will remain constantly fixed thereon, making it only
necessary to keep a vessel’s prow always in the direction of the
compass needle to reach any given point upon Barsoom by the shortest
route.
Carthoris’ improvement upon this consisted of an auxiliary device which
steered the craft mechanically in the direction of the compass, and
upon arrival directly over the point for which the compass was set,
brought the craft to a standstill and lowered it, also automatically,
to the ground.
“You readily discern the advantages of this invention,” he was saying
to Thuvan Dihn, who had accompanied him to the landing stage upon the
palace roof to inspect the compass and bid his young friend farewell.
A dozen officers of the court with several body servants were grouped
behind the jeddak and his guest, eager listeners to the conversation—so
eager on the part of one of the servants that he was twice rebuked by a
noble for his forwardness in pushing himself ahead of his betters to
view the intricate mechanism of the wonderful “controlling destination
compass,” as the thing was called.
“For example,” continued Carthoris, “I have an all-night trip before
me, as to-night. I set the pointer here upon the right-hand dial which
represents the eastern hemisphere of Barsoom, so that the point rests
upon the exact latitude and longitude of Helium. Then I start the
engine, roll up in my sleeping silks and furs, and with lights burning,
race through the air toward Helium, confident that at the appointed
hour I shall drop gently toward the landing stage upon my own palace,
whether I am still asleep or no.”
“Provided,” suggested Thuvan Dihn, “you do not chance to collide with
some other night wanderer in the meanwhile.”
Carthoris smiled. “No danger of that,” he replied. “See here,” and he
indicated a device at the right of the destination compass. “This is my
‘obstruction evader,’ as I call it. This visible device is the switch
which throws the mechanism on or off. The instrument itself is below
deck, geared both to the steering apparatus and the control levers.
“It is quite simple, being nothing more than a radium generator
diffusing radio-activity in all directions to a distance of a hundred
yards or so from the flier. Should this enveloping force be interrupted
in any direction a delicate instrument immediately apprehends the
irregularity, at the same time imparting an impulse to a magnetic
device which in turn actuates the steering mechanism, diverting the bow
of the flier away from the obstacle until the craft’s radio-activity
sphere is no longer in contact with the obstruction, then she falls
once more into her normal course. Should the disturbance approach from
the rear, as in case of a faster-moving craft overhauling me, the
mechanism actuates the speed control as well as the steering gear, and
the flier shoots ahead and either up or down, as the oncoming vessel is
upon a lower or higher plane than herself.
“In aggravated cases, that is when the obstructions are many, or of
such a nature as to deflect the bow more than forty-five degrees in any
direction, or when the craft has reached its destination and dropped to
within a hundred yards of the ground, the mechanism brings her to a
full stop, at the same time sounding a loud alarm which will instantly
awaken the pilot. You see I have anticipated almost every contingency.”
Thuvan Dihn smiled his appreciation of the marvellous device. The
forward servant pushed almost to the flier’s side. His eyes were
narrowed to slits.
“All but one,” he said.
The nobles looked at him in astonishment, and one of them grasped the
fellow none too gently by the shoulder to push him back to his proper
place. Carthoris raised his hand.
“Wait,” he urged. “Let us hear what the man has to say—no creation of
mortal mind is perfect. Perchance he has detected a weakness that it
will be well to know at once. Come, my good fellow, and what may be the
one contingency I have overlooked?”
As he spoke Carthoris observed the servant closely for the first time.
He saw a man of giant stature and handsome, as are all those of the
race of Martian red men; but the fellow’s lips were thin and cruel, and
across one cheek was the faint, white line of a sword-cut from the
right temple to the corner of the mouth.
“Come,” urged the Prince of Helium. “Speak!”
The man hesitated. It was evident that he regretted the temerity that
had made him the centre of interested observation. But at last, seeing
no alternative, he spoke.
“It might be tampered with,” he said, “by an enemy.”
Carthoris drew a small key from his leathern pocket-pouch.
“Look at this,” he said, handing it to the man. “If you know aught of
locks, you will know that the mechanism which this unlooses is beyond
the cunning of a picker of locks. It guards the vitals of the
instrument from crafty tampering. Without it an enemy must half wreck
the device to reach its heart, leaving his handiwork apparent to the
most casual observer.”
The servant took the key, glanced at it shrewdly, and then as he made
to return it to Carthoris dropped it upon the marble flagging. Turning
to look for it he planted the sole of his sandal full upon the
glittering object. For an instant he bore all his weight upon the foot
that covered the key, then he stepped back and with an exclamation as
of pleasure that he had found it, stooped, recovered it, and returned
it to the Heliumite. Then he dropped back to his station behind the
nobles and was forgotten.
A moment later Carthoris had made his adieux to Thuvan Dihn and his
nobles, and with lights twinkling had risen into the star-shot void of
the Martian night.
CHAPTER II.
SLAVERY
As the ruler of Ptarth, followed by his courtiers, descended from the
landing stage above the palace, the servants dropped into their places
in the rear of their royal or noble masters, and behind the others one
lingered to the last. Then quickly stooping he snatched the sandal from
his right foot, slipping it into his pocket-pouch.
When the party had come to the lower levels, and the jeddak had
dispersed them by a sign, none noticed that the forward fellow who had
drawn so much attention to himself before the Prince of Helium
departed, was no longer among the other servants.
To whose retinue he had been attached none had thought to inquire, for
the followers of a Martian noble are many, coming and going at the whim
of their master, so that a new face is scarcely ever questioned, as the
fact that a man has passed within the palace walls is considered proof
positive that his loyalty to the jeddak is beyond question, so rigid is
the examination of each who seeks service with the nobles of the court.
A good rule that, and only relaxed by courtesy in favour of the retinue
of visiting royalty from a friendly foreign power.
It was late in the morning of the next day that a giant serving man in
the harness of the house of a great Ptarth noble passed out into the
city from the palace gates. Along one broad avenue and then another he
strode briskly until he had passed beyond the district of the nobles
and had come to the place of shops. Here he sought a pretentious
building that rose spire-like toward the heavens, its outer walls
elaborately wrought with delicate carvings and intricate mosaics.
It was the Palace of Peace in which were housed the representatives of
the foreign powers, or rather in which were located their embassies;
for the ministers themselves dwelt in gorgeous palaces within the
district occupied by the nobles.
Here the man sought the embassy of Dusar. A clerk arose questioningly
as he entered, and at his request to have a word with the minister
asked his credentials. The visitor slipped a plain metal armlet from
above his elbow, and pointing to an inscription upon its inner surface,
whispered a word or two to the clerk.
The latter’s eyes went wide, and his attitude turned at once to one of
deference. He bowed the stranger to a seat, and hastened to an inner
room with the armlet in his hand. A moment later he reappeared and
conducted the caller into the presence of the minister.
For a long time the two were closeted together, and when at last the
giant serving man emerged from the inner office his expression was cast
in a smile of sinister satisfaction. From the Palace of Peace he
hurried directly to the palace of the Dusarian minister.
That night two swift fliers left the same palace top. One sped its
rapid course toward Helium; the other—