Thuvia, maid of Mars
They had lost the girl. That would be a difficult thing to explain to
Astok; but some leniency might be expected could they carry the Prince
of Helium to their master instead.
So the three who remained set upon Carthoris with their long-swords,
crying to him to surrender; but they might as successfully have cried
aloud to _Thuria_ to cease her mad hurtling through the Barsoomian sky,
for Carthoris of Helium was a true son of the Warlord of Mars and his
incomparable Dejah Thoris.
Carthoris’ long-sword had been already in his hand as he leaped from
the deck of the flier, so the instant that he realized the menace of
the three red warriors, he wheeled to face them, meeting their
onslaught as only John Carter himself might have done.
So swift his sword, so mighty and agile his half-earthly muscles, that
one of his opponents was down, crimsoning the ochre moss with his
life-blood, when he had scarce made a single pass at Carthoris.
Now the two remaining Dusarians rushed simultaneously upon the
Heliumite. Three long-swords clashed and sparkled in the moonlight,
until the great white apes, roused from their slumbers, crept to the
lowering windows of the dead city to view the bloody scene beneath
them.
Thrice was Carthoris touched, so that the red blood ran down his face,
blinding him and dyeing his broad chest. With his free hand he wiped
the gore from his eyes, and with the fighting smile of his father
touching his lips, leaped upon his antagonists with renewed fury.
A single cut of his heavy sword severed the head of one of them, and
then the other, backing away clear of that point of death, turned and
fled toward the palace at his back.
Carthoris made no step to pursue. He had other concern than the meting
of even well-deserved punishment to strange men who masqueraded in the
metal of his own house, for he had seen that these men were tricked out
in the insignia that marked his personal followers.
Turning quickly toward his flier, he was soon rising from the plaza in
pursuit of Thar Ban.
The red warrior whom he had put to flight turned in the entrance to the
palace, and, seeing Carthoris’ intent, snatched a rifle from those that
he and his fellows had left leaning against the wall as they had rushed
out with drawn swords to prevent the theft of their prisoner.
Few red men are good shots, for the sword is their chosen weapon; so
now as the Dusarian drew bead upon the rising flier, and touched the
button upon his rifle’s stock, it was more to chance than proficiency
that he owed the partial success of his aim.
The projectile grazed the flier’s side, the opaque coating breaking
sufficiently to permit daylight to strike in upon the powder phial
within the bullet’s nose. There was a sharp explosion. Carthoris felt
his craft reel drunkenly beneath him, and the engine stopped.
The momentum the air boat had gained carried her on over the city
toward the sea-bottom beyond.
The red warrior in the plaza fired several more shots, none of which
scored. Then a lofty minaret shut the drifting quarry from his view.
In the distance before him Carthoris could see the green warrior
bearing Thuvia of Ptarth away upon his mighty thoat. The direction of
his flight was toward the north-west of Aaanthor, where lay a
mountainous country little known to red men.
The Heliumite now gave his attention to his injured craft. A close
examination revealed the fact that one of the buoyancy tanks had been
punctured, but the engine itself was uninjured.
A splinter from the projectile had damaged one of the control levers
beyond the possibility of repair outside a machine shop; but after
considerable tinkering, Carthoris was able to propel his wounded flier
at low speed, a rate which could not approach the rapid gait of the
thoat, whose eight long, powerful legs carried it over the ochre
vegetation of the dead sea-bottom at terrific speed.
The Prince of Helium chafed and fretted at the slowness of his pursuit,
yet he was thankful that the damage was no worse, for now he could at
least move more rapidly than on foot.
But even this meagre satisfaction was soon to be denied him, for
presently the flier commenced to sag toward the port and by the bow.
The damage to the buoyancy tanks had evidently been more grievous than
he had at first believed.
All the balance of that long day Carthoris crawled erratically through
the still air, the bow of the flier sinking lower and lower, and the
list to port becoming more and more alarming, until at last, near dark,
he was floating almost bow-down, his harness buckled to a heavy deck
ring to keep him from being precipitated to the ground below.
His forward movement was now confined to a slow drifting with the
gentle breeze that blew out of the south-east, and when this died down
with the setting of the sun, he let the flier sink gently to the mossy
carpet beneath.
Far before him loomed the mountains toward which the green man had been
fleeing when last he had seen him, and with dogged resolution the son
of John Carter, endowed with the indomitable will of his mighty sire,
took up the pursuit on foot.
All that night he forged ahead until, with the dawning of a new day, he
entered the low foothills that guard the approach to the fastness of
the mountains of Torquas.
Rugged, granitic walls towered before him. Nowhere could he discern an
opening through the formidable barrier; yet somewhere into this
inhospitable world of stone the green warrior had borne the woman of
the red man’s heart’s desire.
Across the yielding moss of the sea-bottom there had been no spoor to
follow, for the soft pads of the thoat but pressed down in his swift
passage the resilient vegetation which sprang up again behind his
fleeting feet, leaving no sign.
But here in the hills, where loose rock occasionally strewed the way;
where black loam and wild flowers partially replaced the sombre
monotony of the waste places of the lowlands, Carthoris hoped to find
some sign that would lead him in the right direction.
Yet, search as he would, the baffling mystery of the trail seemed
likely to remain for ever unsolved.
It was drawing toward the day’s close once more when the keen eyes of
the Heliumite discerned the tawny yellow of a sleek hide moving among
the boulders several hundred yards to his left.
Crouching quickly behind a large rock, Carthoris watched the thing
before him. It was a huge banth, one of those savage Barsoomian lions
that roam the desolate hills of the dying planet.
The creature’s nose was close to the ground. It was evident that he was
following the spoor of meat by scent.
As Carthoris watched him, a great hope leaped into the man’s heart.
Here, possibly, might lie the solution to the mystery he had been
endeavouring to solve. This hungry carnivore, keen always for the flesh
of man, might even now be trailing the two whom Carthoris sought.
Cautiously the youth crept out upon the trail of the man-eater. Along
the foot of the perpendicular cliff the creature moved, sniffing at the
invisible spoor, and now and then emitting the low moan of the hunting
banth.
Carthoris had followed the creature for but a few minutes when it
disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as though dissolved into thin
air.
The man leaped to his feet. Not again was he to be cheated as the man
had cheated him. He sprang forward at a reckless pace to the spot at
which he last had seen the great, skulking brute.
Before him loomed the sheer cliff, its face unbroken by any aperture
into which the huge banth might have wormed its great carcass. Beside
him was a small, flat boulder, not larger than the deck of a ten-man
flier, nor standing to a greater height than twice his own stature.
Perhaps the banth was in hiding behind this? The brute might have
discovered the man upon his trail, and even now be lying in wait for
his easy prey.
Cautiously, with drawn long-sword, Carthoris crept around the corner of
the rock. There was no banth there, but something which surprised him
infinitely more than would the presence of twenty banths.
Before him yawned the mouth of a dark cave leading downward into the
ground. Through this the banth must have disappeared. Was it his lair?
Within its dark and forbidding interior might there not lurk not one
but many of the fearsome creatures?
Carthoris did not know, nor, with the thought that had been spurring
him onward upon the trail of the creature uppermost in his mind, did he
much care; for into this gloomy cavern he was sure the banth had
trailed the green man and his captive, and into it he, too, would
follow, content to give his life in the service of the woman he loved.
Not an instant did he hesitate, nor yet did he advance rashly; but with
ready sword and cautious steps, for the way was dark, he stole on. As
he advanced, the obscurity became impenetrable blackness.
CHAPTER V.
THE FAIR RACE
Downward along a smooth, broad floor led the strange tunnel, for such
Carthoris was now convinced was the nature of the shaft he at first had
thought but a cave.
Before him he could hear the occasional low moans of the banth, and
presently from behind came a similar uncanny note. Another banth had
entered the passageway on _his_ trail!
His position was anything but pleasant. His eyes could not penetrate
the darkness even to the distinguishing of his hand before his face,
while the banths, he knew, could see quite well, though absence of
light were utter.
No other sounds came to his ears than the dismal, bloodthirsty moanings
of the beast ahead and the beast behind.
The tunnel had led straight, from where he had entered it beneath the
side of the rock furthest from the unscaleable cliffs, toward the
mighty barrier that had baffled him so long.
Now it was running almost level, and presently he noted a gradual
ascent.
The beast behind him was gaining upon him, crowding him perilously
close upon the heels of the beast in front. Presently he should have to
do battle with one, or both. More firmly he gripped his weapon.
Now he could hear the breathing of the banth at his heels. Not for much
longer could he delay the encounter.
Long since he had become assured that the tunnel led beneath the cliffs
to the opposite side of the barrier, and he had hoped that he might
reach the moonlit open before being compelled to grapple with either of
the monsters.
The sun had been setting as he entered the tunnel, and the way had been
sufficiently long to assure him that darkness now reigned upon the
world without. He glanced behind him. Blazing out of the darkness,
seemingly not ten paces behind, glared two flaming points of fire. As
the savage eyes met his, the beast emitted a frightful roar and then he
charged.
To face that savage mountain of onrushing ferocity, to stand unshaken
before the hideous fangs that he knew were bared in slavering
blood-thirstiness, though he could not see them, required nerves of
steel; but of such were the nerves of Carthoris of Helium.
He had the brute’s eyes to guide his point, and, as true as the sword
hand of his mighty sire, his guided the keen point to one of those
blazing orbs, even as he leaped lightly to one side.
With a hideous scream of pain and rage, the wounded banth hurtled,
clawing, past him. Then it turned to charge once more; but this time
Carthoris saw but a single gleaming point of fiery hate directed upon
him.
Again the needle point met its flashing target. Again the horrid cry of
the stricken beast reverberated through the rocky tunnel, shocking in
its torture-laden shrillness, deafening in its terrific volume.
But now, as it turned to charge again, the man had no guide whereby to
direct his point. He heard the scraping of the padded feet upon the