Thuvia, maid of Mars
rocky floor. He knew the thing was charging down upon him once again,
but he could see nothing.
Yet, if he could not see his antagonist, neither could his antagonist
now see him.
Leaping, as he thought, to the exact centre of the tunnel, he held his
sword point ready on a line with the beast’s chest. It was all that he
could do, hoping that chance might send the point into the savage heart
as he went down beneath the great body.
So quickly was the thing over that Carthoris could scarce believe his
senses as the mighty body rushed madly past him. Either he had not
placed himself in the centre of the tunnel, or else the blinded banth
had erred in its calculations.
However, the huge body missed him by a foot, and the creature continued
on down the tunnel as though in pursuit of the prey that had eluded
him.
Carthoris, too, followed the same direction, nor was it long before his
heart was gladdened by the sight of the moonlit exit from the long,
dark passage.
Before him lay a deep hollow, entirely surrounded by gigantic cliffs.
The surface of the valley was dotted with enormous trees, a strange
sight so far from a Martian waterway. The ground itself was clothed in
brilliant scarlet sward, picked out with innumerable patches of
gorgeous wild flowers.
Beneath the glorious effulgence of the two moons the scene was one of
indescribable loveliness, tinged with the weirdness of strange
enchantment.
For only an instant, however, did his gaze rest upon the natural
beauties outspread before him. Almost immediately they were riveted
upon the figure of a great banth standing across the carcass of a
new-killed thoat.
The huge beast, his tawny mane bristling around his hideous head, kept
his eyes fixed upon another banth that charged erratically hither and
thither, with shrill screams of pain, and horrid roars of hate and
rage.
Carthoris quickly guessed that the second brute was the one he had
blinded during the fight in the tunnel, but it was the dead thoat that
centred his interest more than either of the savage carnivores.
The harness was still upon the body of the huge Martian mount, and
Carthoris could not doubt but that this was the very animal upon which
the green warrior had borne away Thuvia of Ptarth.
But where were the rider and his prisoner? The Prince of Helium
shuddered as he thought upon the probability of the fate that had
overtaken them.
Human flesh is the food most craved by the fierce Barsoomian lion,
whose great carcass and giant thews require enormous quantities of meat
to sustain them.
Two human bodies would have but whetted the creature’s appetite, and
that he had killed and eaten the green man and the red girl seemed only
too likely to Carthoris. He had left the carcass of the mighty thoat to
be devoured after having consumed the more tooth-some portion of his
banquet.
Now the sightless banth, in its savage, aimless charging and
counter-charging, had passed beyond the kill of its fellow, and there
the light breeze that was blowing wafted the scent of new blood to its
nostrils.
No longer were its movements erratic. With outstretched tail and
foaming jaws it charged straight as an arrow, for the body of the thoat
and the mighty creature of destruction that stood with forepaws upon
the slate-grey side, waiting to defend its meat.
When the charging banth was twenty paces from the dead thoat the killer
gave vent to its hideous challenge, and with a mighty spring leaped
forward to meet it.
The battle that ensued awed even the warlike Barsoomian. The mad
rending, the hideous and deafening roaring, the implacable savagery of
the blood-stained beasts held him in the paralysis of fascination, and
when it was over and the two creatures, their heads and shoulders torn
to ribbons, lay with their dead jaws still buried in each other’s
bodies, Carthoris tore himself from the spell only by an effort of the
will.
Hurrying to the side of the dead thoat, he searched for traces of the
girl he feared had shared the thoat’s fate, but nowhere could he
discover anything to confirm his fears.
With slightly lightened heart he started out to explore the valley, but
scarce a dozen steps had he taken when the glistening of a jewelled
bauble lying on the sward caught his eye.
As he picked it up his first glance showed him that it was a woman’s
hair ornament, and emblazoned upon it was the insignia of the royal
house of Ptarth.
But, sinister discovery, blood, still wet, splotched the magnificent
jewels of the setting.
Carthoris half choked as the dire possibilities which the thing
suggested presented themselves to his imagination. Yet he could not,
would not believe it.
It was impossible that that radiant creature could have met so hideous
an end. It was incredible that the glorious Thuvia should ever cease to
be.
Upon his already jewel-encrusted harness, to the strap that crossed his
great chest beneath which beat his loyal heart, Carthoris, Prince of
Helium, fastened the gleaming thing that Thuvia of Ptarth had worn, and
wearing, had made holy to the Heliumite.
Then he proceeded upon his way into the heart of the unknown valley.
For the most part the giant trees shut off his view to any but the most
limited distances. Occasionally he caught glimpses of the towering
hills that bounded the valley upon every side, and though they stood
out clear beneath the light of the two moons, he knew that they were
far off, and that the extent of the valley was immense.
For half the night he continued his search, until presently he was
brought to a sudden halt by the distant sound of squealing thoats.
Guided by the noise of these habitually angry beasts, he stole forward
through the trees until at last he came upon a level, treeless plain,
in the centre of which a mighty city reared its burnished domes and
vividly coloured towers.
About the walled city the red man saw a huge encampment of the green
warriors of the dead sea-bottoms, and as he let his eyes rove carefully
over the city he realized that here was no deserted metropolis of a
dead past.
But what city could it be? His studies had taught him that in this
little-explored portion of Barsoom the fierce tribe of Torquasian green
men ruled supreme, and that as yet no red man had succeeded in piercing
to the heart of their domain to return again to the world of
civilization.
The men of Torquas had perfected huge guns with which their uncanny
marksmanship had permitted them to repulse the few determined efforts
that near-by red nations had made to explore their country by means of
battle fleets of airships.
That he was within the boundary of Torquas, Carthoris was sure, but
that there existed there such a wondrous city he never had dreamed, nor
had the chronicles of the past even hinted at such a possibility, for
the Torquasians were known to live, as did the other green men of Mars,
within the deserted cities that dotted the dying planet, nor ever had
any green horde built so much as a single edifice, other than the
low-walled incubators where their young are hatched by the sun’s heat.
The encircling camp of green warriors lay about five hundred yards from
the city’s walls. Between it and the city was no semblance of
breastwork or other protection against rifle or cannon fire; yet
distinctly now in the light of the rising sun Carthoris could see many
figures moving along the summit of the high wall, and upon the roof
tops beyond.
That they were beings like himself he was sure, though they were at too
great distance from him for him to be positive that they were red men.
Almost immediately after sunrise the green warriors commenced firing
upon the little figures upon the wall. To Carthoris’ surprise the fire
was not returned, but presently the last of the city’s inhabitants had
sought shelter from the weird marksmanship of the green men, and no
further sign of life was visible beyond the wall.
Then Carthoris, keeping within the shelter of the trees that fringed
the plain, began circling the rear of the besiegers’ line, hoping
against hope that somewhere he would obtain sight of Thuvia of Ptarth,
for even now he could not believe that she was dead.
That he was not discovered was a miracle, for mounted warriors were
constantly riding back and forth from the camp into the forest; but the
long day wore on and still he continued his seemingly fruitless quest,
until, near sunset, he came opposite a mighty gate in the city’s
western wall.
Here seemed to be the principal force of the attacking horde. Here a
great platform had been erected whereon Carthoris could see squatting a
huge green warrior, surrounded by others of his kind.
This, then, must be the notorious Hortan Gur, Jeddak of Torquas, the
fierce old ogre of the south-western hemisphere, as only for a jeddak
are platforms raised in temporary camps or upon the march by the green
hordes of Barsoom.
As the Heliumite watched he saw another green warrior push his way
forward toward the rostrum. Beside him he dragged a captive, and as the
surrounding warriors parted to let the two pass, Carthoris caught a
fleeting glimpse of the prisoner.
His heart leaped in rejoicing. Thuvia of Ptarth still lived!
It was with difficulty that Carthoris restrained the impulse to rush
forward to the side of the Ptarthian princess; but in the end his
better judgment prevailed, for in the face of such odds he knew that he
should have been but throwing away, uselessly, any future opportunity
he might have to succour her.
He saw her dragged to the foot of the rostrum. He saw Hortan Gur
address her. He could not hear the creature’s words, nor Thuvia’s
reply; but it must have angered the green monster, for Carthoris saw
him leap toward the prisoner, striking her a cruel blow across the face
with his metal-banded arm.
Then the son of John Carter, Jeddak of Jeddaks, Warlord of Barsoom,
went mad. The old, blood-red haze through which his sire had glared at
countless foes, floated before his eyes.
His half-Earthly muscles, responding quickly to his will, sent him in
enormous leaps and bounds toward the green monster that had struck the
woman he loved.
The Torquasians were not looking in the direction of the forest. All
eyes had been upon the figures of the girl and their jeddak, and loud
was the hideous laughter that rang out in appreciation of the wit of
the green emperor’s reply to his prisoner’s appeal for liberty.
Carthoris had covered about half the distance between the forest and
the green warriors, when a new factor succeeded in still further
directing the attention of the latter from him.
Upon a high tower within the beleaguered city a man appeared. From his
upturned mouth there issued a series of frightful shrieks; uncanny
shrieks that swept, shrill and terrifying, across the city’s walls,
over the heads of the besiegers, and out across the forest to the
uttermost confines of the valley.
Once, twice, thrice the fearsome sound smote upon the ears of the
listening green men and then far, far off across the broad woods came
sharp and clear from the distance an answering shriek.
It was but the first. From every point rose similar savage cries, until
the world seemed to tremble to their reverberations.
The green warriors looked nervously this way and that. They knew not
fear, as Earth men may know it; but in the face of the unusual their
wonted self-assurance deserted them.
And then the great gate in the city wall opposite the platform of
Hortan Gur swung suddenly wide. From it issued as strange a sight as
Carthoris ever had witnessed, though at the moment he had time to cast
but a single fleeting glance at the tall bowmen emerging through the
portal behind their long, oval shields; to note their flowing auburn