The Project Gutenberg Etext of Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Burroughs
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Judy Boss, proofread by Charles Keller. >> The Project Gutenberg Etext of Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Burroughs
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11 CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Carthoris and Thuvia . . . . . . . . 7
II Slavery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
III Treachery . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
IV A Green Man's Captive . . . . . . . 34
V The Fair Race . . . . . . . . . . . 45
VI The Jeddak of Lothar . . . . . . . . 59
VII The Phantom Bowmen . . . . . . . . . 68
VIII The Hall of Doom . . . . . . . . . . 78
IX The Battle in the Plain . . . . . . 89
X Kar Komak, the Bowman . . . . . . . 99
XI Green Men and White Apes . . . . . . 109
XII To Save Dusar . . . . . . . . . . . 121
XIII Turjun, the Panthan . . . . . . . . 130
XIV Kulan Tith's Sacrifice . . . . . . . 141
Glossary of Names and Terms . . . . 153
THUVIA, MAID OF MARS
CHAPTER I
CARTHORIS AND THUVIA
Upon a massive bench of polished ersite beneath
the gorgeous blooms of a giant pimalia a woman sat.
Her shapely, sandalled foot tapped impatiently upon the
jewel-strewn walk that wound beneath the stately sorapus
trees across the scarlet sward of the royal gardens of
Thuvan Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth, as a dark-haired, red-
skinned warrior bent low toward her, whispering heated
words close to her ear.
"Ah, Thuvia of Ptarth," he cried, "you are cold
even before the fiery blasts of my consuming love!
No harder than your heart, nor colder is the hard,
cold ersite of this thrice happy bench which supports
your divine and fadeless form! Tell me, O Thuvia of
Ptarth, that I may still hope--that though you do not
love me now, yet some day, some day, my princess, I--"
The girl sprang to her feet with an exclamation of
surprise and displeasure. Her queenly head was poised
haughtily upon her smooth red shoulders. Her dark eyes
looked angrily into those of the man.
"You forget yourself, and the customs of Barsoom, Astok,"
she said. "I have given you no right thus to address
the daughter of Thuvan Dihn, nor have you won such a right."
The man reached suddenly forth and grasped her by the arm.
"You shall be my princess!" he cried. "By the breast of
Issus, thou shalt, nor shall any other come between Astok,
Prince of Dusar, and his heart's desire. Tell me that
there is another, and I shall cut out his foul heart and
fling it to the wild calots of the dead sea-bottoms!"
At touch of the man's hand upon her flesh the girl
went pallid beneath her coppery skin, for the persons
of the royal women of the courts of Mars are held but
little less than sacred. The act of Astok, Prince of Dusar,
was profanation. There was no terror in the eyes of
Thuvia of Ptarth--only horror for the thing the man
had done and for its possible consequences.
"Release me." Her voice was level--frigid.
The man muttered incoherently and drew her roughly toward him.
"Release me!" she repeated sharply, "or I call the guard,
and the Prince of Dusar knows what that will mean."
Quickly he threw his right arm about her shoulders and
strove to draw her face to his lips. With a little cry
she struck him full in the mouth with the massive bracelets
that circled her free arm.
"Calot!" she exclaimed, and then: "The guard! The guard!
Hasten in protection of the Princess of Ptarth!"
In answer to her call a dozen guardsmen came racing
across the scarlet sward, their gleaming long-swords
naked in the sun, the metal of their accoutrements clanking
against that of their leathern harness, and in their throats
hoarse shouts of rage at the sight which met their eyes.
But before they had passed half across the royal garden
to where Astok of Dusar still held the struggling girl
in his grasp, another figure sprang from a cluster of
dense foliage that half hid a golden fountain close at
hand. A tall, straight youth he was, with black hair and
keen grey eyes; broad of shoulder and narrow of hip;
a clean-limbed fighting man. His skin was but faintly tinged
with the copper colour that marks the red men of Mars from
the other races of the dying planet--he was like them,
and yet there was a subtle difference greater even than
that which lay in his lighter skin and his grey eyes.
There was a difference, too, in his movements. He came on
in great leaps that carried him so swiftly over the ground
that the speed of the guardsmen was as nothing by comparison.
Astok still clutched Thuvia's wrist as the young warrior
confronted him. The new-comer wasted no time and he spoke
but a single word.
"Calot!" he snapped, and then his clenched fist
landed beneath the other's chin, lifting him high into the
air and depositing him in a crumpled heap within the
centre of the pimalia bush beside the ersite bench.
Her champion turned toward the girl. "Kaor, Thuvia of Ptarth!"
he cried. "It seems that fate timed my visit well."
"Kaor, Carthoris of Helium!" the princess returned the
young man's greeting, "and what less could one expect
of the son of such a sire?"
He bowed his acknowledgment of the compliment to
his father, John Carter, Warlord of Mars. And then the
guardsmen, panting from their charge, came up just as
the Prince of Dusar, bleeding at the mouth, and with
drawn sword, crawled from the entanglement of the pimalia.
Astok would have leaped to mortal combat with the son
of Dejah Thoris, but the guardsmen pressed about him,
preventing, though it was clearly evident that naught
would have better pleased Carthoris of Helium.
"But say the word, Thuvia of Ptarth," he begged,
"and naught will give me greater pleasure than meting to
this fellow the punishment he has earned."
"It cannot be, Carthoris," she replied. "Even though
he has forfeited all claim upon my consideration, yet is
he the guest of the jeddak, my father, and to him alone
may he account for the unpardonable act he has committed."
"As you say, Thuvia," replied the Heliumite. "But
afterward he shall account to Carthoris, Prince of Helium,
for this affront to the daughter of my father's friend."
As he spoke, though, there burned in his eyes a fire
that proclaimed a nearer, dearer cause for his championship
of this glorious daughter of Barsoom.
The maid's cheek darkened beneath the satin of her
transparent skin, and the eyes of Astok, Prince of Dusar,
darkened, too, as he read that which passed unspoken
between the two in the royal gardens of the jeddak.
"And thou to me," he snapped at Carthoris, answering
the young man's challenge.
The guard still surrounded Astok. It was a difficult
position for the young officer who commanded it.
His prisoner was the son of a mighty jeddak; he was
the guest of Thuvan Dihn--until but now an honoured
guest upon whom every royal dignity had been showered.
To arrest him forcibly could mean naught else than war,
and yet he had done that which in the eyes of the Ptarth
warrior merited death.
The young man hesitated. He looked toward his princess.
She, too, guessed all that hung upon the action of
the coming moment. For many years Dusar and Ptarth
had been at peace with each other. Their great merchant
ships plied back and forth between the larger cities of
the two nations. Even now, far above the gold-shot
scarlet dome of the jeddak's palace, she could see the
huge bulk of a giant freighter taking its majestic way
through the thin Barsoomian air toward the west and Dusar.
By a word she might plunge these two mighty nations
into a bloody conflict that would drain them of their
bravest blood and their incalculable riches, leaving them
all helpless against the inroads of their envious and
less powerful neighbors, and at last a prey to the savage
green hordes of the dead sea-bottoms.
No sense of fear influenced her decision, for fear is
seldom known to the children of Mars. It was rather a
sense of the responsibility that she, the daughter of their
jeddak, felt for the welfare of her father's people.
"I called you, Padwar," she said to the lieutenant of
the guard, "to protect the person of your princess,
and to keep the peace that must not be violated within the
royal gardens of the jeddak. That is all. You will escort
me to the palace, and the Prince of Helium will accompany me."
Without another glance in the direction of Astok she
turned, and taking Carthoris' proffered hand, moved
slowly toward the massive marble pile that housed the
ruler of Ptarth and his glittering court. On either side
marched a file of guardsmen. Thus Thuvia of Ptarth found
a way out of a dilemma, escaping the necessity of placing
her father's royal guest under forcible restraint,
and at the same time separating the two princes,
who otherwise would have been at each other's throat
the moment she and the guard had departed.
Beside the pimalia stood Astok, his dark eyes narrowed
to mere slits of hate beneath his lowering brows as he
watched the retreating forms of the woman who had aroused
the fiercest passions of his nature and the man whom he
now believed to be the one who stood between his love
and its consummation.
As they disappeared within the structure Astok
shrugged his shoulders, and with a murmured oath
crossed the gardens toward another wing of the
building where he and his retinue were housed.
That night he took formal leave of Thuvan Dihn, and
though no mention was made of the happening within
the garden, it was plain to see through the cold mask
of the jeddak's courtesy that only the customs of royal
hospitality restrained him from voicing the contempt he
felt for the Prince of Dusar.
Carthoris was not present at the leave-taking, nor was Thuvia.
The ceremony was as stiff and formal as court etiquette
could make it, and when the last of the Dusarians
clambered over the rail of the battleship that had
brought them upon this fateful visit to the court of Ptarth,
and the mighty engine of destruction had risen slowly
from the ways of the landing-stage, a note of relief
was apparent in the voice of Thuvan Dihn as he turned
to one of his officers with a word of comment upon a
subject foreign to that which had been uppermost in the
minds of all for hours.
But, after all, was it so foreign?
"Inform Prince Sovan," he directed, "that it is our
wish that the fleet which departed for Kaol this morning
be recalled to cruise to the west of Ptarth."
As the warship, bearing Astok back to the court of his
father, turned toward the west, Thuvia of Ptarth, sitting
upon the same bench where the Prince of Dusar had
affronted her, watched the twinkling lights of the craft
growing smaller in the distance. Beside her, in the
brilliant light of the nearer moon, sat Carthoris.
His eyes were not upon the dim bulk of the battleship,
but on the profile of the girl's upturned face.
"Thuvia," he whispered.
The girl turned her eyes toward his. His hand stole out
to find hers, but she drew her own gently away.
"Thuvia of Ptarth, I love you!" cried the young warrior.
"Tell me that it does not offend."
She shook her head sadly. "The love of Carthoris of
Helium," she said simply, "could be naught but an honour
to any woman; but you must not speak, my friend,
of bestowing upon me that which I may not reciprocate."
The young man got slowly to his feet. His eyes were
wide in astonishment. It never had occurred to the Prince
of Helium that Thuvia of Ptarth might love another.
"But at Kadabra!" he exclaimed. "And later here at
your father's court, what did you do, Thuvia of Ptarth,
that might have warned me that you could not return my love?"
"And what did I do, Carthoris of Helium," she returned,
"that might lead you to believe that I DID return it?"
He paused in thought, and then shook his head.
"Nothing, Thuvia, that is true; yet I could have
sworn you loved me. Indeed, you well knew how
near to worship has been my love for you."
"And how might I know it, Carthoris?" she asked innocently.
"Did you ever tell me as much? Ever before have words
of love for me fallen from your lips?"
"But you MUST have known it!" he exclaimed. "I am
like my father--witless in matters of the heart, and of a
poor way with women; yet the jewels that strew these
royal garden paths--the trees, the flowers, the sward--
all must have read the love that has filled my heart since
first my eyes were made new by imaging your perfect face
and form; so how could you alone have been blind to it?"
"Do the maids of Helium pay court to their men?" asked Thuvia.
"You are playing with me!" exclaimed Carthoris. "Say that
you are but playing, and that after all you love me, Thuvia!"
"I cannot tell you that, Carthoris, for I am promised to another."
Her tone was level, but was there not within it the
hint of an infinite depth of sadness? Who may say?
"Promised to another?" Carthoris scarcely breathed
the words. His face went almost white, and then his head
came up as befitted him in whose veins flowed the blood
of the overlord of a world.
"Carthoris of Helium wishes you every happiness with
the man of your choice," he said. "With--" and then
he hesitated, waiting for her to fill in the name.
"Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol," she replied. "My father's
friend and Ptarth's most puissant ally."
The young man looked at her intently for a moment
before he spoke again.
"You love him, Thuvia of Ptarth?" he asked.
"I am promised to him," she replied simply.
He did not press her. "He is of Barsoom's noblest blood
and mightiest fighters," mused Carthoris. "My father's
friend and mine--would that it might have been another!"
he muttered almost savagely. What the girl thought was
hidden by the mask of her expression, which was tinged
only by a little shadow of sadness that might have been
for Carthoris, herself, or for them both.
Carthoris of Helium did not ask, though he noted it,
for his loyalty to Kulan Tith was the loyalty of the
blood of John Carter of Virginia for a friend,
greater than which could be no loyalty.
He raised a jewel-encrusted bit of the girl's magnificent
trappings to his lips.
"To the honour and happiness of Kulan Tith and the
priceless jewel that has been bestowed upon him,"
he said, and though his voice was husky there was the true
ring of sincerity in it. "I told you that I loved you,
Thuvia, before I knew that you were promised to another.
I may not tell you it again, but I am glad that you know it,
for there is no dishonour in it either to you or to Kulan
Tith or to myself. My love is such that it may embrace
as well Kulan Tith--if you love him." There was almost
a question in the statement.
"I am promised to him," she replied.
Carthoris backed slowly away. He laid one hand upon
his heart, the other upon the pommel of his long-sword.
"These are yours--always," he said. A moment later he had
entered the palace, and was gone from the girl's sight.
Had he returned at once he would have found her prone
upon the ersite bench, her face buried in her arms.
Was she weeping? There was none to see.
Carthoris of Helium had come all unannounced to the
court of his father's friend that day. He had come alone
in a small flier, sure of the same welcome that always
awaited him at Ptarth. As there had been no formality
in his coming there was no need of formality in his going.
To Thuvan Dihn he explained that he had been but
testing an invention of his own with which his flier was
equipped--a clever improvement of the ordinary Martian
air compass, which, when set for a certain destination,
will remain constantly fixed thereon, making it only
necessary to keep a vessel's prow always in the direction
of the compass needle to reach any given point upon Barsoom
by the shortest route.
Carthoris' improvement upon this consisted of an
auxiliary device which steered the craft mechanically in
the direction of the compass, and upon arrival directly
over the point for which the compass was set, brought
the craft to a standstill and lowered it, also automatically,
to the ground.
"You readily discern the advantages of this invention,"
he was saying to Thuvan Dihn, who had accompanied
him to the landing-stage upon the palace roof to inspect
the compass and bid his young friend farewell.
A dozen officers of the court with several body servants
were grouped behind the jeddak and his guest,
eager listeners to the conversation--so eager on the
part of one of the servants that he was twice rebuked
by a noble for his forwardness in pushing himself
ahead of his betters to view the intricate mechanism of
the wonderful "controlling destination compass," as the
thing was called.
"For example," continued Carthoris, "I have an all-
night trip before me, as to-night. I set the pointer here
upon the right-hand dial which represents the eastern
hemisphere of Barsoom, so that the point rests upon
the exact latitude and longitude of Helium. Then I
start the engine, roll up in my sleeping silks and furs,
and with lights burning, race through the air toward
Helium, confident that at the appointed hour I shall drop
gently toward the landing-stage upon my own palace,
whether I am still asleep or no."
"Provided," suggested Thuvan Dihn, "you do not chance
to collide with some other night wanderer in the meanwhile."
Carthoris smiled. "No danger of that," he replied.
"See here," and he indicated a device at the right of the
destination compass. "This is my `obstruction evader,'
as I call it. This visible device is the switch which throws
the mechanism on or off. The instrument itself is below deck,
geared both to the steering apparatus and the control levers.
"It is quite simple, being nothing more than a radium
generator diffusing radio-activity in all directions to a
distance of a hundred yards or so from the flier. Should
this enveloping force be interrupted in any direction a
delicate instrument immediately apprehends the irregularity,
at the same time imparting an impulse to a magnetic device
which in turn actuates the steering mechanism, diverting
the bow of the flier away from the obstacle until the
craft's radio-activity sphere is no longer in contact
with the obstruction, then she falls once more into her
normal course. Should the disturbance approach from
the rear, as in case of a faster-moving craft overhauling me,
the mechanism actuates the speed control as well as the
steering gear, and the flier shoots ahead and either
up or down, as the oncoming vessel is upon a lower or
higher plane than herself.
"In aggravated cases, that is when the obstructions are many,
or of such a nature as to deflect the bow more than
forty-five degrees in any direction, or when the craft
has reached its destination and dropped to within
a hundred yards of the ground, the mechanism brings her
to a full stop, at the same time sounding a loud alarm
which will instantly awaken the pilot. You see I have
anticipated almost every contingency."
Thuvan Dihn smiled his appreciation of the marvellous device.
The forward servant pushed almost to the flier's side.
His eyes were narrowed to slits.
"All but one," he said.
The nobles looked at him in astonishment, and one
of them grasped the fellow none too gently by the
shoulder to push him back to his proper place.
Carthoris raised his hand.
"Wait," he urged. "Let us hear what the man has to
say--no creation of mortal mind is perfect. Perchance he
has detected a weakness that it will be well to know at
once. Come, my good fellow, and what may be the one
contingency I have overlooked?"
As he spoke Carthoris observed the servant closely for
the first time. He saw a man of giant stature and handsome,
as are all those of the race of Martian red men; but the
fellow's lips were thin and cruel, and across one cheek
was the faint, white line of a sword-cut from the
right temple to the corner of the mouth.
"Come," urged the Prince of Helium. "Speak!"
The man hesitated. It was evident that he regretted
the temerity that had made him the centre of interested
observation. But at last, seeing no alternative, he spoke.
"It might be tampered with," he said, "by an enemy."
Carthoris drew a small key from his leathern pocket-pouch.
"Look at this," he said, handing it to the man. "If you
know aught of locks, you will know that the mechanism which
this unlooses is beyond the cunning of a picker of locks.
It guards the vitals of the instrument from crafty tampering.
Without it an enemy must half wreck the device to reach its heart,
leaving his handiwork apparent to the most casual observer."
The servant took the key, glanced at it shrewdly, and
then as he made to return it to Carthoris dropped it upon
the marble flagging. Turning to look for it he planted the
sole of his sandal full upon the glittering object. For an
instant he bore all his weight upon the foot that covered
the key, then he stepped back and with an exclamation
as of pleasure that he had found it, stooped, recovered
it, and returned it to the Heliumite. Then he dropped
back to his station behind the nobles and was forgotten.
A moment later Carthoris had made his adieux to
Thuvan Dihn and his nobles, and with lights twinkling
had risen into the star-shot void of the Martian night.
CHAPTER II
SLAVERY
As the ruler of Ptarth, followed by his courtiers,
descended from the landing-stage above the palace,
the servants dropped into their places in the rear
of their royal or noble masters, and behind the others
one lingered to the last. Then quickly stooping
he snatched the sandal from his right foot, slipping
it into his pocket-pouch.
When the party had come to the lower levels, and the
jeddak had dispersed them by a sign, none noticed that
the forward fellow who had drawn so much attention to
himself before the Prince of Helium departed, was no
longer among the other servants.
To whose retinue he had been attached none had thought
to inquire, for the followers of a Martian noble
are many, coming and going at the whim of their master,
so that a new face is scarcely ever questioned, as the
fact that a man has passed within the palace walls is
considered proof positive that his loyalty to the jeddak
is beyond question, so rigid is the examination of each
who seeks service with the nobles of the court.
A good rule that, and only relaxed by courtesy in favour of
the retinue of visiting royalty from a friendly foreign power.
It was late in the morning of the next day that a giant
serving man in the harness of the house of a great Ptarth
noble passed out into the city from the palace gates.
Along one broad avenue and then another he strode briskly
until he had passed beyond the district of the nobles and
had come to the place of shops. Here he sought a pretentious
building that rose spire-like toward the heavens, its outer walls
elaborately wrought with delicate carvings and intricate mosaics.
It was the Palace of Peace in which were housed the
representatives of the foreign powers, or rather in
which were located their embassies; for the ministers
themselves dwelt in gorgeous palaces within the district
occupied by the nobles.
Here the man sought the embassy of Dusar. A clerk
arose questioningly as he entered, and at his request
to have a word with the minister asked his credentials.
The visitor slipped a plain metal armlet from above his elbow,
and pointing to an inscription upon its inner surface,
whispered a word or two to the clerk.
The latter's eyes went wide, and his attitude turned at
once to one of deference. He bowed the stranger to a seat,
and hastened to an inner room with the armlet in his hand.
A moment later he reappeared and conducted the caller into
the presence of the minister.
For a long time the two were closeted together, and when at
last the giant serving man emerged from the inner office his
expression was cast in a smile of sinister satisfaction.
From the Palace of Peace he hurried directly to the palace
of the Dusarian minister.
That night two swift fliers left the same palace top.
One sped its rapid course toward Helium; the other--
Thuvia of Ptarth strolled in the gardens of her father's palace,
as was her nightly custom before retiring. Her silks and furs
were drawn about her, for the air of Mars is chill after the
sun has taken his quick plunge beneath the planet's western verge.
The girl's thoughts wandered from her impending nuptials, that would
make her empress of Kaol, to the person of the trim young Heliumite
who had laid his heart at her feet the preceding day.
Whether it was pity or regret that saddened her expression
as she gazed toward the southern heavens where she had
watched the lights of his flier disappear the previous night,
it would be difficult to say.
So, too, is it impossible to conjecture just what her
emotions may have been as she discerned the lights of
a flier speeding rapidly out of the distance from that
very direction, as though impelled toward her garden
by the very intensity of the princess' thoughts.
She saw it circle lower above the palace until she was
positive that it but hovered in preparation for a landing.
Presently the powerful rays of its searchlight shot downward
from the bow. They fell upon the landing-stage for a brief
instant, revealing the figures of the Ptarthian guard,
picking into brilliant points of fire the gems upon their
gorgeous harnesses.
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