Thuvia, maid of Mars
hair; and to realize that the growling things at their side were fierce
Barsoomian lions.
Then he was in the midst of the astonished Torquasians. With drawn
long-sword he was among them, and to Thuvia of Ptarth, whose startled
eyes were the first to fall upon him, it seemed that she was looking
upon John Carter himself, so strangely similar to the fighting of the
father was that of the son.
Even to the famous fighting smile of the Virginian was the resemblance
true. And the sword arm! Ah, the subtleness of it, and the speed!
All about was turmoil and confusion. Green warriors were leaping to the
backs of their restive, squealing thoats. Calots were growling out
their savage gutturals, whining to be at the throats of the oncoming
foemen.
Thar Ban and another by the side of the rostrum had been the first to
note the coming of Carthoris, and it was with them he battled for
possession of the red girl, while the others hastened to meet the host
advancing from the beleaguered city.
Carthoris sought both to defend Thuvia of Ptarth and reach the side of
the hideous Hortan Gur that he might avenge the blow the creature had
struck the girl.
He succeeded in reaching the rostrum, over the dead bodies of two
warriors who had turned to join Thar Ban and his companion in repulsing
this adventurous red man, just as Hortan Gur was about to leap from it
to the back of his thoat.
The attention of the green warriors turned principally upon the bowmen
advancing upon them from the city, and upon the savage banths that
paced beside them—cruel beasts of war, infinitely more terrible than
their own savage calots.
As Carthoris leaped to the rostrum he drew Thuvia up beside him, and
then he turned upon the departing jeddak with an angry challenge and a
sword thrust.
As the Heliumite’s point pricked his green hide, Hortan Gur turned upon
his adversary with a snarl, but at the same instant two of his
chieftains called to him to hasten, for the charge of the fair-skinned
inhabitants of the city was developing into a more serious matter than
the Torquasians had anticipated.
Instead of remaining to battle with the red man, Hortan Gur promised
him his attention after he had disposed of the presumptuous citizens of
the walled city, and, leaping astride his thoat, galloped off to meet
the rapidly advancing bowmen.
The other warriors quickly followed their jeddak, leaving Thuvia and
Carthoris alone upon the platform.
Between them and the city raged a terrific battle. The fair-skinned
warriors, armed only with their long bows and a kind of short-handled
war-axe, were almost helpless beneath the savage mounted green men at
close quarters; but at a distance their sharp arrows did fully as much
execution as the radium projectiles of the green men.
But if the warriors themselves were outclassed, not so their savage
companions, the fierce banths. Scarce had the two lines come together
when hundreds of these appalling creatures had leaped among the
Torquasians, dragging warriors from their thoats—dragging down the huge
thoats themselves, and bringing consternation to all before them.
The numbers of the citizenry, too, was to their advantage, for it
seemed that scarce a warrior fell but his place was taken by a score
more, in such a constant stream did they pour from the city’s great
gate.
And so it came, what with the ferocity of the banths and the numbers of
the bowmen, that at last the Torquasians fell back, until presently the
platform upon which stood Carthoris and Thuvia lay directly in the
centre of the fight.
That neither was struck by a bullet or an arrow seemed a miracle to
both; but at last the tide had rolled completely past them, so that
they were alone between the fighters and the city, except for the dying
and the dead, and a score or so of growling banths, less well trained
than their fellows, who prowled among the corpses seeking meat.
To Carthoris the strangest part of the battle had been the terrific
toll taken by the bowmen with their relatively puny weapons. Nowhere
that he could see was there a single wounded green man, but the corpses
of their dead lay thick upon the field of battle.
Death seemed to follow instantly the slightest pinprick of a bowman’s
arrow, nor apparently did one ever miss its goal. There could be but
one explanation: the missiles were poison-tipped.
Presently the sounds of conflict died in the distant forest. Quiet
reigned, broken only by the growling of the devouring banths. Carthoris
turned toward Thuvia of Ptarth. As yet neither had spoken.
“Where are we, Thuvia?” he asked.
The girl looked at him questioningly. His very presence had seemed to
proclaim a guilty knowledge of her abduction. How else might he have
known the destination of the flier that brought her!
“Who should know better than the Prince of Helium?” she asked in
return. “Did he not come hither of his own free will?”
“From Aaanthor I came voluntarily upon the trail of the green man who
had stolen you, Thuvia,” he replied; “but from the time I left Helium
until I awoke above Aaanthor I thought myself bound for Ptarth.
“It had been intimated that I had guilty knowledge of your abduction,”
he explained simply, “and I was hastening to the jeddak, your father,
to convince him of the falsity of the charge, and to give my service to
your recovery. Before I left Helium some one tampered with my compass,
so that it bore me to Aaanthor instead of to Ptarth. That is all. You
believe me?”
“But the warriors who stole me from the garden!” she exclaimed. “After
we arrived at Aaanthor they wore the metal of the Prince of Helium.
When they took me they were trapped in Dusarian harness. There seemed
but a single explanation. Whoever dared the outrage wished to put the
onus upon another, should he be detected in the act; but once safely
away from Ptarth he felt safe in having his minions return to their own
harness.”
“You believe that I did this thing, Thuvia?” he asked.
“Ah, Carthoris,” she replied sadly, “I did not wish to believe it; but
when everything pointed to you—even then I would not believe it.”
“I did not do it, Thuvia,” he said. “But let me be entirely honest with
you. As much as I love your father, as much as I respect Kulan Tith, to
whom you are betrothed, as well as I know the frightful consequences
that must have followed such an act of mine, hurling into war, as it
would, three of the greatest nations of Barsoom—yet, notwithstanding
all this, I should not have hesitated to take you thus, Thuvia of
Ptarth, had you even hinted that it would not have displeased _you_.
“But you did nothing of the kind, and so I am here, not in my own
service, but in yours, and in the service of the man to whom you are
promised, to save you for him, if it lies within the power of man to do
so,” he concluded, almost bitterly.
Thuvia of Ptarth looked into his face for several moments. Her breast
was rising and falling as though to some resistless emotion. She half
took a step toward him. Her lips parted as though to speak—swiftly and
impetuously.
And then she conquered whatever had moved her.
“The future acts of the Prince of Helium,” she said coldly, “must
constitute the proof of his past honesty of purpose.”
Carthoris was hurt by the girl’s tone, as much as by the doubt as to
his integrity which her words implied.
He had half hoped that she might hint that his love would be
acceptable—certainly there was due him at least a little gratitude for
his recent acts in her behalf; but the best he received was cold
skepticism.
The Prince of Helium shrugged his broad shoulders. The girl noted it,
and the little smile that touched his lips, so that it became her turn
to be hurt.
Of course she had not meant to hurt him. He might have known that after
what he had said she could not do anything to encourage him! But he
need not have made his indifference quite so palpable. The men of
Helium were noted for their gallantry—not for boorishness. Possibly it
was the Earth blood that flowed in his veins.
How could she know that the shrug was but Carthoris’ way of attempting,
by physical effort, to cast blighting sorrow from his heart, or that
the smile upon his lips was the fighting smile of his father with which
the son gave outward evidence of the determination he had reached to
submerge his own great love in his efforts to save Thuvia of Ptarth for
another, because he believed that she loved this other!
He reverted to his original question.
“Where are we?” he asked. “I do not know.”
“Nor I,” replied the girl. “Those who stole me from Ptarth spoke among
themselves of Aaanthor, so that I thought it possible that the ancient
city to which they took me was that famous ruin; but where we may be
now I have no idea.”
“When the bowmen return we shall doubtless learn all that there is to
know,” said Carthoris. “Let us hope that they prove friendly. What race
may they be? Only in the most ancient of our legends and in the mural
paintings of the deserted cities of the dead sea-bottoms are depicted
such a race of auburn-haired, fair-skinned people. Can it be that we
have stumbled upon a surviving city of the past which all Barsoom
believes buried beneath the ages?”
Thuvia was looking toward the forest into which the green men and the
pursuing bowmen had disappeared. From a great distance came the hideous
cries of banths, and an occasional shot.
“It is strange that they do not return,” said the girl.
“One would expect to see the wounded limping or being carried back to
the city,” replied Carthoris, with a puzzled frown. “But how about the
wounded nearer the city? Have they carried them within?”
Both turned their eyes toward the field between them and the walled
city, where the fighting had been most furious.
There were the banths, still growling about their hideous feast.
Carthoris looked at Thuvia in astonishment. Then he pointed toward the
field.
“Where are they?” he whispered. “_What has become of their dead and
wounded?_”
CHAPTER VI.
THE JEDDAK OF LOTHAR
The girl looked her incredulity.
“They lay in piles,” she murmured. “There were thousands of them but a
minute ago.”
“And now,” continued Carthoris, “there remain but the banths and the
carcasses of the green men.”
“They must have sent forth and carried the dead bowmen away while we
were talking,” said the girl.
“It is impossible!” replied Carthoris. “Thousands of dead lay there
upon the field but a moment since. It would have required many hours to
have removed them. The thing is uncanny.”
“I had hoped,” said Thuvia, “that we might find an asylum with these
fair-skinned people. Notwithstanding their valour upon the field of
battle, they did not strike me as a ferocious or warlike people. I had
been about to suggest that we seek entrance to the city, but now I
scarce know if I care to venture among people whose dead vanish into
thin air.”
“Let us chance it,” replied Carthoris. “We can be no worse off within
their walls than without. Here we may fall prey to the banths or the no
less fierce Torquasians. There, at least, we shall find beings moulded
after our own images.
“All that causes me to hesitate,” he added, “is the danger of taking
you past so many banths. A single sword would scarce prevail were even
a couple of them to charge simultaneously.”
“Do not fear on that score,” replied the girl, smiling. “The banths
will not harm us.”
As she spoke she descended from the platform, and with Carthoris at her
side stepped fearlessly out upon the bloody field in the direction of
the walled city of mystery.
They had advanced but a short distance when a banth, looking up from
its gory feast, descried them. With an angry roar the beast walked