Thuvia, maid of Mars
Beyond the gatekeeper he came to a slowly moving line of what to
Earthly eyes would have appeared to be conical-nosed, eight-foot
projectiles for some giant gun. In slow procession the things moved in
single file along a grooved track. A half dozen attendants assisted
passengers to enter, or directed these carriers to their proper
destination.
Vas Kor approached one that was empty. Upon its nose was a dial and a
pointer. He set the pointer for a certain station in Greater Helium,
raised the arched lid of the thing, stepped in and lay down upon the
upholstered bottom. An attendant closed the lid, which locked with a
little click, and the carrier continued its slow way.
Presently it switched itself automatically to another track, to enter,
a moment later, one of the series of dark-mouthed tubes.
The instant that its entire length was within the black aperture it
sprang forward with the speed of a rifle ball. There was an instant of
whizzing—a soft, though sudden, stop, and slowly the carrier emerged
upon another platform, another attendant raised the lid and Vas Kor
stepped out at the station beneath the centre of Greater Helium,
seventy-five miles from the point at which he had embarked.
Here he sought the street level, stepping immediately into a waiting
ground flier. He spoke no word to the slave sitting in the driver’s
seat. It was evident that he had been expected, and that the fellow had
received his instructions before his coming.
Scarcely had Vas Kor taken his seat when the flier went quickly into
the fast-moving procession, turning presently from the broad and
crowded avenue into a less congested street. Presently it left the
thronged district behind to enter a section of small shops, where it
stopped before the entrance to one which bore the sign of a dealer in
foreign silks.
Vas Kor entered the low-ceiling room. A man at the far end motioned him
toward an inner apartment, giving no further sign of recognition until
he had passed in after the caller and closed the door.
Then he faced his visitor, saluting deferentially.
“Most noble—” he commenced, but Vas Kor silenced him with a gesture.
“No formalities,” he said. “We must forget that I am aught other than
your slave. If all has been as carefully carried out as it has been
planned, we have no time to waste. Instead we should be upon our way to
the slave market. Are you ready?”
The merchant nodded, and, turning to a great chest, produced the
unemblazoned trappings of a slave. These Vas Kor immediately donned.
Then the two passed from the shop through a rear door, traversed a
winding alley to an avenue beyond, where they entered a flier which
awaited them.
Five minutes later the merchant was leading his slave to the public
market, where a great concourse of people filled the great open space
in the centre of which stood the slave block.
The crowds were enormous to-day, for Carthoris, Prince of Helium, was
to be the principal bidder.
One by one the masters mounted the rostrum beside the slave block upon
which stood their chattels. Briefly and clearly each recounted the
virtues of his particular offering.
When all were done, the major-domo of the Prince of Helium recalled to
the block such as had favourably impressed him. For such he had made a
fair offer.
There was little haggling as to price, and none at all when Vas Kor was
placed upon the block. His merchant-master accepted the first offer
that was made for him, and thus a Dusarian noble entered the household
of Carthoris.
CHAPTER III.
TREACHERY
The day following the coming of Vas Kor to the palace of the Prince of
Helium great excitement reigned throughout the twin cities, reaching
its climax in the palace of Carthoris. Word had come of the abduction
of Thuvia of Ptarth from her father’s court, and with it the veiled
hint that the Prince of Helium might be suspected of considerable
knowledge of the act and the whereabouts of the princess.
In the council chamber of John Carter, Warlord of Mars, was Tardos
Mors, Jeddak of Helium; Mors Kajak, his son, Jed of Lesser Helium;
Carthoris, and a score of the great nobles of the empire.
“There must be no war between Ptarth and Helium, my son,” said John
Carter. “That you are innocent of the charge that has been placed
against you by insinuation, we well know; but Thuvan Dihn must know it
well, too.
“There is but one who may convince him, and that one be you. You must
hasten at once to the court of Ptarth, and by your presence there as
well as by your words assure him that his suspicions are groundless.
Bear with you the authority of the Warlord of Barsoom, and of the
Jeddak of Helium to offer every resource of the allied powers to assist
Thuvan Dihn to recover his daughter and punish her abductors,
whomsoever they may be.
“Go! I know that I do not need to urge upon you the necessity for
haste.”
Carthoris left the council chamber, and hastened to his palace.
Here slaves were busy in a moment setting things to rights for the
departure of their master. Several worked about the swift flier that
would bear the Prince of Helium rapidly toward Ptarth.
At last all was done. But two armed slaves remained on guard. The
setting sun hung low above the horizon. In a moment darkness would
envelop all.
One of the guardsmen, a giant of a fellow across whose right cheek
there ran a thin scar from temple to mouth, approached his companion.
His gaze was directed beyond and above his comrade. When he had come
quite close he spoke.
“What strange craft is that?” he asked.
The other turned about quickly to gaze heavenward. Scarce was his back
turned toward the giant than the short-sword of the latter was plunged
beneath his left shoulder blade, straight through his heart.
Voiceless, the soldier sank in his tracks—stone dead. Quickly the
murderer dragged the corpse into the black shadows within the hangar.
Then he returned to the flier.
Drawing a cunningly wrought key from his pocket-pouch, he removed the
cover of the right-hand dial of the controlling destination compass.
For a moment he studied the construction of the mechanism beneath. Then
he returned the dial to its place, set the pointer, and removed it
again to note the resultant change in the position of the parts
affected by the act.
A smile crossed his lips. With a pair of cutters he snipped off the
projection which extended through the dial from the external
pointer—now the latter might be moved to any point upon the dial
without affecting the mechanism below. In other words, the eastern
hemisphere dial was useless.
Now he turned his attention to the western dial. This he set upon a
certain point. Afterward he removed the cover of this dial also, and
with keen tool cut the steel finger from the under side of the pointer.
As quickly as possible he replaced the second dial cover, and resumed
his place on guard. To all intents and purposes the compass was as
efficient as before; but, as a matter of fact, the moving of the
pointers upon the dials resulted now in no corresponding shift of the
mechanism beneath—and the device was set, immovably, upon a destination
of the slave’s own choosing.
Presently came Carthoris, accompanied by but a handful of his
gentlemen. He cast but a casual glance upon the single slave who stood
guard. The fellow’s thin, cruel lips, and the sword-cut that ran from
temple to mouth aroused the suggestion of an unpleasant memory within
him. He wondered where Saran Tal had found the man— then the matter
faded from his thoughts, and in another moment the Prince of Helium was
laughing and chatting with his companions, though below the surface his
heart was cold with dread, for what contingencies confronted Thuvia of
Ptarth he could not even guess.
First to his mind, naturally, had sprung the thought that Astok of
Dusar had stolen the fair Ptarthian; but almost simultaneously with the
report of the abduction had come news of the great fetes at Dusar in
honour of the return of the jeddak’s son to the court of his father.
It could not have been he, thought Carthoris, for on the very night
that Thuvia was taken Astok had been in Dusar, and yet—
He entered the flier, exchanging casual remarks with his companions as
he unlocked the mechanism of the compass and set the pointer upon the
capital city of Ptarth.
With a word of farewell he touched the button which controlled the
repulsive rays, and as the flier rose lightly into the air, the engine
purred in answer to the touch of his finger upon a second button, the
propellers whirred as his hand drew back the speed lever, and
Carthoris, Prince of Helium, was off into the gorgeous Martian night
beneath the hurtling moons and the million stars.
Scarce had the flier found its speed ere the man, wrapping his sleeping
silks and furs about him, stretched at full length upon the narrow deck
to sleep.
But sleep did not come at once at his bidding.
Instead, his thoughts ran riot in his brain, driving sleep away. He
recalled the words of Thuvia of Ptarth, words that had half assured him
that she loved him; for when he had asked her if she loved Kulan Tith,
she had answered only that she was promised to him.
Now he saw that her reply was open to more than a single construction.
It might, of course, mean that she did not love Kulan Tith; and so, by
inference, be taken to mean that she loved another.
But what assurance was there that the other was Carthoris of Helium?
The more he thought upon it the more positive he became that not only
was there no assurance in her words that she loved him, but none either
in any act of hers. No, the fact was, she did not love him. She loved
another. She had not been abducted—she had fled willingly with her
lover.
With such pleasant thoughts filling him alternately with despair and
rage, Carthoris at last dropped into the sleep of utter mental
exhaustion.
The breaking of the sudden dawn found him still asleep. His flier was
rushing swiftly above a barren, ochre plain—the world-old bottom of a
long-dead Martian sea.
In the distance rose low hills. Toward these the craft was headed. As
it approached them, a great promontory might have been seen from its
deck, stretching out into what had once been a mighty ocean, and
circling back once more to enclose the forgotten harbour of a forgotten
city, which still stretched back from its deserted quays, an imposing
pile of wondrous architecture of a long-dead past.
The countless dismal windows, vacant and forlorn, stared, sightless,
from their marble walls; the whole sad city taking on the semblance of
scattered mounds of dead men’s sun-bleached skulls—the casements having
the appearance of eyeless sockets, the portals, grinning jaws.
Closer came the flier, but now its speed was diminishing—yet this was
not Ptarth.
Above the central plaza it stopped, slowly settling Marsward. Within a
hundred yards of the ground it came to rest, floating gently in the
light air, and at the same instant an alarm sounded at the sleeper’s
ear.
Carthoris sprang to his feet. Below him he looked to see the teeming
metropolis of Ptarth. Beside him, already, there should have been an
air patrol.
He gazed about in bewildered astonishment. There indeed was a great
city, but it was not Ptarth. No multitudes surged through its broad
avenues. No signs of life broke the dead monotony of its deserted roof
tops. No gorgeous silks, no priceless furs lent life and colour to the
cold marble and the gleaming ersite.
No patrol boat lay ready with its familiar challenge. Silent and empty
lay the great city—empty and silent the surrounding air.
What had happened?
Carthoris examined the dial of his compass. The pointer was set upon
Ptarth. Could the creature of his genius have thus betrayed him? He