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"Be that as it may, Xodar, he is a great fighter. I think
that we will make a trio difficult to overcome, and if my
friend Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, were but one of us we
could fight our way from one end of Barsoom to the other
even though the whole world were pitted against us."
"It will be," said Xodar, "when they find from whence
you have come. That is but one of the superstitions which
Issus has foisted upon a credulous humanity. She works
through the Holy Therns who are as ignorant of her real self
as are the Barsoomians of the outer world. Her decrees are
borne to the therns written in blood upon a strange parchment.
The poor deluded fools think that they are receiving
the revelations of a goddess through some supernatural
agency, since they find these messages upon their guarded
altars to which none could have access without detection.
I myself have borne these messages for Issus for many years.
There is a long tunnel from the temple of Issus to the
principal temple of Matai Shang. It was dug ages ago by
the slaves of the First Born in such utter secrecy that
no thern ever guessed its existence.
"The therns for their part have temples dotted about the
entire civilized world. Here priests whom the people never
see communicate the doctrine of the Mysterious River Iss,
the Valley Dor, and the Lost Sea of Korus to persuade the
poor deluded creatures to take the voluntary pilgrimage that
swells the wealth of the Holy Therns and adds to the numbers
of their slaves.
"Thus the therns are used as the principal means for collecting
the wealth and labour that the First Born wrest from them as
they need it. Occasionally the First Born themselves make
raids upon the outer world. It is then that they capture
many females of the royal houses of the red men, and take
the newest in battleships and the trained artisans who build
them, that they may copy what they cannot create.
"We are a non-productive race, priding ourselves upon
our non-productiveness. It is criminal for a First Born to
labour or invent. That is the work of the lower orders, who
live merely that the First Born may enjoy long lives of luxury
and idleness. With us fighting is all that counts; were it
not for that there would be more of the First Born than all
the creatures of Barsoom could support, for in so far as I
know none of us ever dies a natural death. Our females
would live for ever but for the fact that we tire of them
and remove them to make place for others. Issus alone of all
is protected against death. She has lived for countless ages."
"Would not the other Barsoomians live for ever but for the doctrine
of the voluntary pilgrimage which drags them to the bosom of Iss
at or before their thousandth year?" I asked him.
"I feel now that there is no doubt but that they are precisely
the same species of creature as the First Born, and I hope that
I shall live to fight for them in atonement of the sins I have
committed against them through the ignorance born of generations
of false teaching."
As he ceased speaking a weird call rang out across the waters of Omean.
I had heard it at the same time the previous evening and knew that
it marked the ending of the day, when the men of Omean spread their
silks upon the deck of battleship and cruiser and fall into the
dreamless sleep of Mars.
Our guard entered to inspect us for the last time before the
new day broke upon the world above. His duty was soon
performed and the heavy door of our prison closed behind him
--we were alone for the night.
I gave him time to return to his quarters, as Xodar said
he probably would do, then I sprang to the grated window
and surveyed the nearby waters. At a little distance from the
island, a quarter of a mile perhaps, lay a monster battleship,
while between her and the shore were a number of smaller
cruisers and one-man scouts. Upon the battleship alone
was there a watch. I could see him plainly in the upper
works of the ship, and as I watched I saw him spread
his sleeping silks upon the tiny platform in which he was
stationed. Soon he threw himself at full length upon his
couch. The discipline on Omean was lax indeed. But it is not
to be wondered at since no enemy guessed the existence upon
Barsoom of such a fleet, or even of the First Born, or the
Sea of Omean. Why indeed should they maintain a watch?
Presently I dropped to the floor again and talked with
Xodar, describing the various craft I had seen.
"There is one there," he said, "my personal property,
built to carry five men, that is the swiftest of the swift.
If we can board her we can at least make a memorable run
for liberty," and then he went on to describe to me the
equipment of the boat; her engines, and all that went
to make her the flier that she was.
In his explanation I recognized a trick of gearing that
Kantos Kan had taught me that time we sailed under false
names in the navy of Zodanga beneath Sab Than, the Prince.
And I knew then that the First Born had stolen it from the
ships of Helium, for only they are thus geared. And I knew
too that Xodar spoke the truth when he lauded the speed of
his little craft, for nothing that cleaves the thin air
of Mars can approximate the speed of the ships of Helium.
We decided to wait for an hour at least until all the stragglers
had sought their silks. In the meantime I was to fetch the red
youth to our cell so that we would be in readiness to make our
rash break for freedom together.
I sprang to the top of our partition wall and pulled myself
up on to it. There I found a flat surface about a foot in
width and along this I walked until I came to the cell in
which I saw the boy sitting upon his bench. He had been
leaning back against the wall looking up at the glowing dome
above Omean, and when he spied me balancing upon the
partition wall above him his eyes opened wide in astonishment.
Then a wide grin of appreciative understanding spread across
his countenance.
As I stooped to drop to the floor beside him he motioned
me to wait, and coming close below me whispered: "Catch
my hand; I can almost leap to the top of that wall myself.
I have tried it many times, and each day I come a little
closer. Some day I should have been able to make it."
I lay upon my belly across the wall and reached my hand
far down toward him. With a little run from the centre of
the cell he sprang up until I grasped his outstretched hand,
and thus I pulled him to the wall's top beside me.
"You are the first jumper I ever saw among the red men
of Barsoom," I said.
He smiled. "It is not strange. I will tell you why when
we have more time."
Together we returned to the cell in which Xodar sat;
descending to talk with him until the hour had passed.
There we made our plans for the immediate future, binding
ourselves by a solemn oath to fight to the death for one
another against whatsoever enemies should confront us, for
we knew that even should we succeed in escaping the First
Born we might still have a whole world against us--the
power of religious superstition is mighty.
It was agreed that I should navigate the craft after we
had reached her, and that if we made the outer world in
safety we should attempt to reach Helium without a stop.
"Why Helium?" asked the red youth.
"I am a prince of Helium," I replied.
He gave me a peculiar look, but said nothing further on
the subject. I wondered at the time what the significance of
his expression might be, but in the press of other matters it
soon left my mind, nor did I have occasion to think of it
again until later.
"Come," I said at length, "now is as good a time as any.
Let us go."
Another moment found me at the top of the partition wall
again with the boy beside me. Unbuckling my harness I
snapped it together with a single long strap which I lowered
to the waiting Xodar below. He grasped the end and was soon
sitting beside us.
"How simple," he laughed.
"The balance should be even simpler," I replied. Then I
raised myself to the top of the outer wall of the prison, just
so that I could peer over and locate the passing sentry. For a
matter of five minutes I waited and then he came in sight on
his slow and snail-like beat about the structure.
I watched him until he had made the turn at the end of
the building which carried him out of sight of the side of
the prison that was to witness our dash for freedom. The
moment his form disappeared I grasped Xodar and drew him
to the top of the wall. Placing one end of my harness strap
in his hands I lowered him quickly to the ground below.
Then the boy grasped the strap and slid down to Xodar's side.
In accordance with our arrangement they did not wait for me,
but walked slowly toward the water, a matter of a hundred yards,
directly past the guard-house filled with sleeping soldiers.
They had taken scarce a dozen steps when I too dropped
to the ground and followed them leisurely toward the shore.
As I passed the guard-house the thought of all the good
blades lying there gave me pause, for if ever men were to
have need of swords it was my companions and I on the
perilous trip upon which we were about to embark.
I glanced toward Xodar and the youth and saw that they
had slipped over the edge of the dock into the water. In
accordance with our plan they were to remain there clinging
to the metal rings which studded the concrete-like substance
of the dock at the water's level, with only their mouths and
noses above the surface of the sea, until I should join them.
The lure of the swords within the guard-house was strong
upon me, and I hesitated a moment, half inclined to risk the
attempt to take the few we needed. That he who hesitates
is lost proved itself a true aphorism in this instance,
for another moment saw me creeping stealthily toward the
door of the guard-house.
Gently I pressed it open a crack; enough to discover a
dozen blacks stretched upon their silks in profound slumber.
At the far side of the room a rack held the swords and
firearms of the men. Warily I pushed the door a trifle wider
to admit my body. A hinge gave out a resentful groan.
One of the men stirred, and my heart stood still. I cursed myself
for a fool to have thus jeopardized our chances for escape;
but there was nothing for it now but to see the adventure through.
With a spring as swift and as noiseless as a tiger's I lit
beside the guardsman who had moved. My hands hovered
about his throat awaiting the moment that his eyes should
open. For what seemed an eternity to my overwrought
nerves I remained poised thus. Then the fellow turned again
upon his side and resumed the even respiration of deep slumber.
Carefully I picked my way between and over the soldiers
until I had gained the rack at the far side of the room. Here
I turned to survey the sleeping men. All were quiet. Their
regular breathing rose and fell in a soothing rhythm that
seemed to me the sweetest music I ever had heard.
Gingerly I drew a long-sword from the rack. The scraping of the
scabbard against its holder as I withdrew it sounded like the
filing of cast iron with a great rasp, and I looked to see
the room immediately filled with alarmed and attacking guardsmen.
But none stirred.
The second sword I withdrew noiselessly, but the third
clanked in its scabbard with a frightful din. I knew that it
must awaken some of the men at least, and was on the point
of forestalling their attack by a rapid charge for the doorway,
when again, to my intense surprise, not a black moved.
Either they were wondrous heavy sleepers or else the noises
that I made were really much less than they seemed to me.
I was about to leave the rack when my attention was attracted
by the revolvers. I knew that I could not carry more than one
away with me, for I was already too heavily laden to move quietly
with any degree of safety or speed. As I took one of them from its
pin my eye fell for the first time on an open window beside the rack.
Ah, here was a splendid means of escape, for it let directly upon
the dock, not twenty feet from the water's edge.
And as I congratulated myself, I heard the door opposite
me open, and there looking me full in the face stood the
officer of the guard. He evidently took in the situation at a
glance and appreciated the gravity of it as quickly as I, for
our revolvers came up simultaneously and the sounds of the
two reports were as one as we touched the buttons on the
grips that exploded the cartridges.
I felt the wind of his bullet as it whizzed past my ear,
and at the same instant I saw him crumple to the ground.
Where I hit him I do not know, nor if I killed him, for scarce
had he started to collapse when I was through the window
at my rear. In another second the waters of Omean closed
above my head, and the three of us were making for the little
flier a hundred yards away.
Xodar was burdened with the boy, and I with the three long-swords.
The revolver I had dropped, so that while we were both strong
swimmers it seemed to me that we moved at a snail's pace
through the water. I was swimming entirely beneath the surface,
but Xodar was compelled to rise often to let the youth breathe,
so it was a wonder that we were not discovered long before we were.
In fact we reached the boat's side and were all aboard
before the watch upon the battleship, aroused by the shots,
detected us. Then an alarm gun bellowed from a ship's
bow, its deep boom reverberating in deafening tones beneath
the rocky dome of Omean.
Instantly the sleeping thousands were awake. The decks of
a thousand monster craft teemed with fighting-men, for an
alarm on Omean was a thing of rare occurrence.
We cast away before the sound of the first gun had died,
and another second saw us rising swiftly from the surface
of the sea. I lay at full length along the deck with the levers
and buttons of control before me. Xodar and the boy were
stretched directly behind me, prone also that we might offer
as little resistance to the air as possible.
"Rise high," whispered Xodar. "They dare not fire their
heavy guns toward the dome--the fragments of the shells
would drop back among their own craft. If we are high
enough our keel plates will protect us from rifle fire."
I did as he bade. Below us we could see the men leaping
into the water by hundreds, and striking out for the small
cruisers and one-man fliers that lay moored about the big
ships. The larger craft were getting under way, following us
rapidly, but not rising from the water.
"A little to your right," cried Xodar, for there are no points
of compass upon Omean where every direction is due north.
The pandemonium that had broken out below us was deafening.
Rifles cracked, officers shouted orders, men yelled directions
to one another from the water and from the decks of myriad boats,
while through all ran the purr of countless propellers cutting
water and air.
I had not dared pull my speed lever to the highest for fear of
overrunning the mouth of the shaft that passed from Omean's dome
to the world above, but even so we were hitting a clip that I doubt
has ever been equalled on the windless sea.
The smaller fliers were commencing to rise toward us
when Xodar shouted: "The shaft! The shaft! Dead ahead,"
and I saw the opening, black and yawning in the glowing
dome of this underworld.
A ten-man cruiser was rising directly in front to cut off
our escape. It was the only vessel that stood in our way, but at
the rate that it was traveling it would come between us and
the shaft in plenty of time to thwart our plans.
It was rising at an angle of about forty-five degrees dead
ahead of us, with the evident intention of combing us with
grappling hooks from above as it skimmed low over our deck.
There was but one forlorn hope for us, and I took it.
It was useless to try to pass over her, for that would
have allowed her to force us against the rocky dome above,
and we were already too near that as it was. To have attempted
to dive below her would have put us entirely at her mercy,
and precisely where she wanted us. On either side a hundred
other menacing craft were hastening toward us. The alternative
was filled with risk--in fact it was all risk, with but a
slender chance of success.
As we neared the cruiser I rose as though to pass above
her, so that she would do just what she did do, rise at a
steeper angle to force me still higher. Then as we were
almost upon her I yelled to my companions to hold tight, and
throwing the little vessel into her highest speed I deflected
her bows at the same instant until we were running horizontally
and at terrific velocity straight for the cruiser's keel.
Her commander may have seen my intentions then, but it
was too late. Almost at the instant of impact I turned my
bows upward, and then with a shattering jolt we were in
collision. What I had hoped for happened. The cruiser,
already tilted at a perilous angle, was carried completely over
backward by the impact of my smaller vessel. Her crew fell
twisting and screaming through the air to the water far below,
while the cruiser, her propellers still madly churning, dived
swiftly headforemost after them to the bottom of the Sea of Omean.
The collision crushed our steel bows, and notwithstanding
every effort on our part came near to hurling us from the
deck. As it was we landed in a wildly clutching heap at the
very extremity of the flier, where Xodar and I succeeded in
grasping the hand-rail, but the boy would have plunged
overboard had I not fortunately grasped his ankle as he
was already partially over.
Unguided, our vessel careened wildly in its mad flight,
rising ever nearer the rocks above. It took but an instant,
however, for me to regain the levers, and with the roof barely
fifty feet above I turned her nose once more into the horizontal
plane and headed her again for the black mouth of the shaft.
The collision had retarded our progress and now a hundred
swift scouts were close upon us. Xodar had told me
that ascending the shaft by virtue of our repulsive rays alone
would give our enemies their best chance to overtake us,
since our propellers would be idle and in rising we would be
outclassed by many of our pursuers. The swifter craft are
seldom equipped with large buoyancy tanks, since the added
bulk of them tends to reduce a vessel's speed.
As many boats were now quite close to us it was inevitable
that we would be quickly overhauled in the shaft, and captured
or killed in short order.
To me there always seems a way to gain the opposite
side of an obstacle. If one cannot pass over it, or below it,
or around it, why then there is but a single alternative left,
and that is to pass through it. I could not get around the
fact that many of these other boats could rise faster than
ours by the fact of their greater buoyancy, but I was none
the less determined to reach the outer world far in advance
of them or die a death of my own choosing in event of failure.
"Reverse?" screamed Xodar, behind me. "For the love of
your first ancestor, reverse. We are at the shaft."
"Hold tight!" I screamed in reply. "Grasp the boy and
hold tight--we are going straight up the shaft."
The words were scarce out of my mouth as we swept beneath
the pitch-black opening. I threw the bow hard up,
dragged the speed lever to its last notch, and clutching a
stanchion with one hand and the steering-wheel with the other
hung on like grim death and consigned my soul to its author.
I heard a little exclamation of surprise from Xodar, followed
by a grim laugh. The boy laughed too and said something which
I could not catch for the whistling of the wind of our awful speed.
I looked above my head, hoping to catch the gleam of stars by
which I could direct our course and hold the hurtling thing
that bore us true to the centre of the shaft. To have
touched the side at the speed we were making would doubtless
have resulted in instant death for us all. But not a star
showed above--only utter and impenetrable darkness.
Then I glanced below me, and there I saw a rapidly
diminishing circle of light--the mouth of the opening above
the phosphorescent radiance of Omean. By this I steered,
endeavouring to keep the circle of light below me ever perfect.
At best it was but a slender cord that held us from destruction,
and I think that I steered that night more by intuition and blind
faith than by skill or reason.
We were not long in the shaft, and possibly the very fact
of our enormous speed saved us, for evidently we started in
the right direction and so quickly were we out again that
we had no time to alter our course. Omean lies perhaps two
miles below the surface crust of Mars. Our speed must have
approximated two hundred miles an hour, for Martian fliers are
swift, so that at most we were in the shaft not over forty seconds.
We must have been out of it for some seconds before I
realised that we had accomplished the impossible. Black
darkness enshrouded all about us. There were neither moons
nor stars. Never before had I seen such a thing upon Mars,
and for the moment I was nonplussed. Then the explanation
came to me. It was summer at the south pole. The ice cap
was melting and those meteoric phenomena, clouds, unknown
upon the greater part of Barsoom, were shutting out the light
of heaven from this portion of the planet.
Fortunate indeed it was for us, nor did it take me long to
grasp the opportunity for escape which this happy condition
offered us. Keeping the boat's nose at a stiff angle I raced her
for the impenetrable curtain which Nature had hung above this dying
world to shut us out from the sight of our pursuing enemies.
We plunged through the cold camp fog without diminishing
our speed, and in a moment emerged into the glorious
light of the two moons and the million stars. I dropped into
a horizontal course and headed due north. Our enemies were
a good half-hour behind us with no conception of our direction.
We had performed the miraculous and come through a thousand
dangers unscathed--we had escaped from the land of the First Born.
No other prisoners in all the ages of Barsoom had done this thing,
and now as I looked back upon it it did not seem to have been so
difficult after all.
I said as much to Xodar, over my shoulder.
"It is very wonderful, nevertheless," he replied.
"No one else could have accomplished it but John Carter."
At the sound of that name the boy jumped to his feet.
"John Carter!" he cried. "John Carter! Why, man, John Carter,
Prince of Helium, has been dead for years. I am his son."
CHAPTER XIV
THE EYES IN THE DARK
My son! I could not believe my ears. Slowly I rose and faced
the handsome youth. Now that I looked at him closely I
commenced to see why his face and personality had attracted
me so strongly. There was much of his mother's incomparable
beauty in his clear-cut features, but it was strongly
masculine beauty, and his grey eyes and the expression of
them were mine.
The boy stood facing me, half hope and half uncertainty
in his look.
"Tell me of your mother," I said. "Tell me all you can of
the years that I have been robbed by a relentless fate of her
dear companionship."
With a cry of pleasure he sprang toward me and threw his
arms about my neck, and for a brief moment as I held my
boy close to me the tears welled to my eyes and I was
like to have choked after the manner of some maudlin
fool--but I do not regret it, nor am I ashamed. A long life
has taught me that a man may seem weak where women
and children are concerned and yet be anything but a
weakling in the sterner avenues of life.
"Your stature, your manner, the terrible ferocity of
your swordsmanship," said the boy, "are as my mother has
described them to me a thousand times--but even with such
evidence I could scarce credit the truth of what seemed
so improbable to me, however much I desired it to be true.
Do you know what thing it was that convinced me more than
all the others?"
"What, my boy?" I asked.
"Your first words to me--they were of my mother. None
else but the man who loved her as she has told me my father
did would have thought first of her."
"For long years, my son, I can scarce recall a moment
that the radiant vision of your mother's face has not been
ever before me. Tell me of her."
"Those who have known her longest say that she has not
changed, unless it be to grow more beautiful--were that
possible. Only, when she thinks I am not about to see her,
her face grows very sad, and, oh, so wistful. She thinks ever
of you, my father, and all Helium mourns with her and for
her. Her grandfather's people love her. They loved you also,
and fairly worship your memory as the saviour of Barsoom.
"Each year that brings its anniversary of the day that saw
you racing across a near dead world to unlock the secret of
that awful portal behind which lay the mighty power of life
for countless millions a great festival is held in your honour;
but there are tears mingled with the thanksgiving--tears of
real regret that the author of the happiness is not with them
to share the joy of living he died to give them. Upon all
Barsoom there is no greater name than John Carter."
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