Thuvia, maid of Mars
of the palace. Opening the door, he grasped the still form of the slave
and pushed it out upon the floor. Then he banged the gate and resumed
the downward drop.
Once more he sighted the top of the cage that held Astok and Vas Kor.
An instant later it had stopped, and as he brought his car to a halt,
he saw the two men disappear through one of the exits of the corridor
beyond.
CHAPTER XIV.
KULAN TITH’S SACRIFICE
The morning of the second day of her incarceration in the east tower of
the palace of Astok, Prince of Dusar, found Thuvia of Ptarth waiting in
dull apathy the coming of the assassin.
She had exhausted every possibility of escape, going over and over
again the door and the windows, the floor and the walls.
The solid ersite slabs she could not even scratch; the tough Barsoomian
glass of the windows would have shattered to nothing less than a heavy
sledge in the hands of a strong man. The door and the lock were
impregnable. There was no escape. And they had stripped her of her
weapons so that she could not even anticipate the hour of her doom,
thus robbing them of the satisfaction of witnessing her last moments.
When would they come? Would Astok do the deed with his own hands? She
doubted that he had the courage for it. At heart he was a coward—she
had known it since first she had heard him brag as, a visitor at the
court of her father, he had sought to impress her with his valour.
She could not help but compare him with another. And with whom would an
affianced bride compare an unsuccessful suitor? With her betrothed? And
did Thuvia of Ptarth now measure Astok of Dusar by the standards of
Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol?
She was about to die; her thoughts were her own to do with as she
pleased; yet furthest from them was Kulan Tith. Instead the figure of
the tall and comely Heliumite filled her mind, crowding therefrom all
other images.
She dreamed of his noble face, the quiet dignity of his bearing, the
smile that lit his eyes as he conversed with his friends, and the smile
that touched his lips as he fought with his enemies—the fighting smile
of his Virginian sire.
And Thuvia of Ptarth, true daughter of Barsoom, found her breath
quickening and heart leaping to the memory of this other smile—the
smile that she would never see again. With a little half-sob the girl
sank to the pile of silks and furs that were tumbled in confusion
beneath the east windows, burying her face in her arms.
In the corridor outside her prison-room two men had paused in heated
argument.
“I tell you again, Astok,” one was saying, “that I shall not do this
thing unless you be present in the room.”
There was little of the respect due royalty in the tone of the
speaker’s voice. The other, noting it, flushed.
“Do not impose too far upon my friendship for you, Vas Kor,” he
snapped. “There is a limit to my patience.”
“There is no question of royal prerogative here,” returned Vas Kor.
“You ask me to become an assassin in your stead, and against your
jeddak’s strict injunctions. You are in no position, Astok, to dictate
to me; but rather should you be glad to accede to my reasonable request
that you be present, thus sharing the guilt with me. Why should I bear
it all?”
The younger man scowled, but he advanced toward the locked door, and as
it swung in upon its hinges, he entered the room beyond at the side of
Vas Kor.
Across the chamber the girl, hearing them enter, rose to her feet and
faced them. Under the soft copper of her skin she blanched just a
trifle; but her eyes were brave and level, and the haughty tilt of her
firm little chin was eloquent of loathing and contempt.
“You still prefer death?” asked Astok.
“To _you_, yes,” replied the girl coldly.
The Prince of Dusar turned to Vas Kor and nodded. The noble drew his
short-sword and crossed the room toward Thuvia.
“Kneel!” he commanded.
“I prefer to die standing,” she replied.
“As you will,” said Vas Kor, feeling the point of his blade with his
left thumb. “In the name of Nutus, Jeddak of Dusar!” he cried, and ran
quickly toward her.
“In the name of Carthoris, Prince of Helium!” came in low tones from
the doorway.
Vas Kor turned to see the panthan he had recruited at his son’s house
leaping across the floor toward him. The fellow brushed past Astok with
an: “After him, you—calot!”
Vas Kor wheeled to meet the charging man.
“What means this treason?” he cried.
Astok, with bared sword, leaped to Vas Kor’s assistance. The panthan’s
sword clashed against that of the noble, and in the first encounter Vas
Kor knew that he faced a master swordsman.
Before he half realized the stranger’s purpose he found the man between
himself and Thuvia of Ptarth, at bay facing the two swords of the
Dusarians. But he fought not like a man at bay. Ever was he the
aggressor, and though always he kept his flashing blade between the
girl and her enemies, yet he managed to force them hither and thither
about the room, calling to the girl to follow close behind him.
Until it was too late neither Vas Kor nor Astok dreamed of that which
lay in the panthan’s mind; but at last as the fellow stood with his
back toward the door, both understood—they were penned in their own
prison, and now the intruder could slay them at his will, for Thuvia of
Ptarth was bolting the door at the man’s direction, first taking the
key from the opposite side, where Astok had left it when they had
entered.
Astok, as was his way, finding that the enemy did not fall immediately
before their swords, was leaving the brunt of the fighting to Vas Kor,
and now as his eyes appraised the panthan carefully they presently went
wider and wider, for slowly he had come to recognize the features of
the Prince of Helium.
The Heliumite was pressing close upon Vas Kor. The noble was bleeding
from a dozen wounds. Astok saw that he could not for long withstand the
cunning craft of that terrible sword hand.
“Courage, Vas Kor!” he whispered in the other’s ear. “I have a plan.
Hold him but a moment longer and all will be well,” but the balance of
the sentence, “with Astok, Prince of Dusar,” he did not voice aloud.
Vas Kor, dreaming no treachery, nodded his head, and for a moment
succeeded in holding Carthoris at bay. Then the Heliumite and the girl
saw the Dusarian prince run swiftly to the opposite side of the
chamber, touch something in the wall that sent a great panel swinging
inward, and disappear into the black vault beyond.
It was done so quickly that by no possibility could they have
intercepted him. Carthoris, fearful lest Vas Kor might similarly elude
him, or Astok return immediately with reinforcements, sprang viciously
in upon his antagonist, and a moment later the headless body of the
Dusarian noble rolled upon the ersite floor.
“Come!” cried Carthoris. “There is no time to be lost. Astok will be
back in a moment with enough warriors to overpower me.”
But Astok had no such plan in mind, for such a move would have meant
the spreading of the fact among the palace gossips that the Ptarthian
princess was a prisoner in the east tower. Quickly would the word have
come to his father, and no amount of falsifying could have explained
away the facts that the jeddak’s investigation would have brought to
light.
Instead Astok was racing madly through a long corridor to reach the
door of the tower-room before Carthoris and Thuvia left the apartment.
He had seen the girl remove the key and place it in her pocket-pouch,
and he knew that a dagger point driven into the keyhole from the
opposite side would imprison them in the secret chamber till eight dead
worlds circled a cold, dead sun.
As fast as he could run Astok entered the main corridor that led to the
tower chamber. Would he reach the door in time? What if the Heliumite
should have already emerged and he should run upon him in the
passageway? Astok felt a cold chill run up his spine. He had no stomach
to face that uncanny blade.
He was almost at the door. Around the next turn of the corridor it
stood. No, they had not left the apartment. Evidently Vas Kor was still
holding the Heliumite!
Astok could scarce repress a grin at the clever manner in which he had
outwitted the noble and disposed of him at the same time. And then he
rounded the turn and came face to face with an auburn-haired, white
giant.
The fellow did not wait to ask the reason for his coming; instead he
leaped upon him with a long-sword, so that Astok had to parry a dozen
vicious cuts before he could disengage himself and flee back down the
runway.
A moment later Carthoris and Thuvia entered the corridor from the
secret chamber.
“Well, Kar Komak?” asked the Heliumite.
“It is fortunate that you left me here, red man,” said the bowman. “I
but just now intercepted one who seemed over-anxious to reach this
door—it was he whom they call Astok, Prince of Dusar.”
Carthoris smiled.
“Where is he now?” he asked.
“He escaped my blade, and ran down this corridor,” replied Kar Komak.
“We must lose no time, then!” exclaimed Carthoris. “He will have the
guard upon us yet!”
Together the three hastened along the winding passages through which
Carthoris and Kar Komak had tracked the Dusarians by the marks of the
latter’s sandals in the thin dust that overspread the floors of these
seldom-used passage-ways.
They had come to the chamber at the entrances to the lifts before they
met with opposition. Here they found a handful of guardsmen, and an
officer, who, seeing that they were strangers, questioned their
presence in the palace of Astok.
Once more Carthoris and Kar Komak had recourse to their blades, and
before they had won their way to one of the lifts the noise of the
conflict must have aroused the entire palace, for they heard men
shouting, and as they passed the many levels on their quick passage to
the landing stage they saw armed men running hither and thither in
search of the cause of the commotion.
Beside the stage lay the _Thuria_, with three warriors on guard. Again
the Heliumite and the Lotharian fought shoulder to shoulder, but the
battle was soon over, for the Prince of Helium alone would have been a
match for any three that Dusar could produce.
Scarce had the _Thuria_ risen from the ways ere a hundred or more
fighting men leaped to view upon the landing stage. At their head was
Astok of Dusar, and as he saw the two he had thought so safely in his
power slipping from his grasp, he danced with rage and chagrin, shaking
his fists and hurling abuse and vile insults at them.
With her bow inclined upward at a dizzy angle, the _Thuria_ shot
meteor-like into the sky. From a dozen points swift patrol boats darted
after her, for the scene upon the landing stage above the palace of the
Prince of Dusar had not gone unnoticed.
A dozen times shots grazed the _Thuria_’s side, and as Carthoris could
not leave the control levers, Thuvia of Ptarth turned the muzzles of
the craft’s rapid-fire guns upon the enemy as she clung to the steep
and slippery surface of the deck.
It was a noble race and a noble fight. One against a score now, for
other Dusarian craft had joined in the pursuit; but Astok, Prince of
Dusar, had built well when he built the _Thuria_. None in the navy of
his sire possessed a swifter flier; no other craft so well armoured or
so well armed.
One by one the pursuers were distanced, and as the last of them fell
out of range behind, Carthoris dropped the _Thuria_’s nose to a
horizontal plane, as with lever drawn to the last notch, she tore
through the thin air of dying Mars toward the east and Ptarth.
Thirteen and a half thousand haads away lay Ptarth—a stiff thirty-hour
journey for the swiftest of fliers, and between Dusar and Ptarth might