myself in a position where I should very gladly pay a good deal more
not to see one, but from the noise he was making in the shaft beneath
me it appeared to me that he was determined that I should have a free
show and he a free meal. He was hurling himself as best he could
against the trap door, above which I stood with some misgivings which
were presently allayed when I realized that not even the vast strength
of a white ape could avail against the still staunch and sturdy skeel
of the ancient door.
Finally convinced that he could not come at me by this avenue, I set
about taking stock of my situation. Circling the tower I examined its
outward architecture by the simple expedient of leaning far outward
above each of the four sides. Three sides terminated at the roof of
the building a hundred and fifty feet below me, while the fourth
extended to the pavement of the courtyard two hundred feet below. Like
much of the architecture of ancient Barsoom, the surface of the tower
was elaborately carved from top to bottom and at each level there
were window embrasures, some of which were equipped with small stone
balconies. As a rule there was but a single window to a level, and as
the window for the level directly beneath never opened upon the same
side of the tower as the window for the level above, there was always
a distance of from thirty to forty feet between windows upon the same
side, and, as I was examining the outside of the tower with a view to
its offering me an avenue of escape, this point was of great importance
to me, since a series of window ledges, one below another, would have
proved a most welcome sight to a man in my position.
By the time I had completed my survey of the exterior of the tower the
ape had evidently come to the conclusion that he could not demolish
the barrier that kept him from me and I hoped that he would abandon
the idea entirely and depart. But when I lay down on the floor and
placed an ear close to the door I could plainly hear him just below
as he occasionally changed from one uncomfortable position to another
upon the small ladder beneath me. I did not know to what extent these
creatures might have developed pertinacity of purpose, but I hoped that
he might soon tire of his vigil and his thoughts be diverted into some
other channel. However, as the day wore to a close this possibility
seemed to grow more and more remote until at last I became almost
convinced that the creature had determined to lay siege until hunger or
desperation forced me from my retreat.
How longingly I gazed at the beckoning hills beyond the city where lay
my route toward the southwest--toward fabled Jahar.
The sun was low in the west. Soon would come the sudden transition from
daylight to darkness, and then what? Perhaps the creature would abandon
its vigil; hunger or thirst might attract it elsewhere, but how was I
to know? How easily it might descend to the bottom of the tower and
await me there, confident that sooner or later I must come down.
One unfamiliar with the traits of these savage creatures might wonder
why, armed as I was with sword and pistol, I did not raise the trap
door and give battle to my jailer. Had I known positively that he was
the only white ape in the vicinity I should not have hesitated to do
so, but experience assured me that there was doubtless an entire herd
of them quartered in the ruined city. So scarce is the flesh they crave
that it is their ordinary custom to hunt alone, so that in the event
that they make a kill they may be more certain of retaining the prize
for themselves, but if I should attack him he would most certainly
raise such a row as to attract his fellows, in which event my chance
for escape would have been reduced to the ultimate zero.
A single shot from my pistol might have dispatched him, but it was
equally possible that it would not, for these great white apes of
Barsoom are tremendous creatures, endowed with almost unbelievable
vitality. Many of them stand fully fifteen feet in height and are
endowed by nature with tremendous strength. Their very appearance
is demoralizing to an enemy; their white, hairless bodies are in
themselves repulsive to the eye of a red man; the great shock of white
hair bristling erect upon their pates accentuates the brutality of
their countenances, while their intermediary set of limbs, which they
use either as arms or legs as necessity or whim suggests, render them
most formidable antagonists. Quite generally they carry a club, in the
use of which they are terribly proficient. One of them, therefore,
seemed sufficiently a menace in itself, so that I had no desire to
attract others of its kind, though I was fully aware that eventually I
might be forced to carry the battle to him.
Just as the sun was setting my attention was attracted toward the
water-front where the long shadows of the city were stretching far out
across the dead sea bottom. Riding up the gentle acclivity toward the
city was a party of green warriors, mounted upon their great savage
thoats. There were perhaps twenty of them, moving silently over the
soft moss that carpeted the bottom of the ancient harbor, the padded
feet of their mounts giving forth no sound. Like specters, they moved
in the shadows of the dying day, giving me further proof that Fate had
led me to a most unfriendly shore, and then, as though to complete the
trilogy of fearsome Barsoomian menaces, the roar of a banth rolled down
out of the hills behind the city.
Safe from observation in the high tower above them, I watched the party
as it emerged from the hollow of the harbor and rode out upon the
avenue below me, and then for the first time I noted a small figure
seated in front of one of the warriors. Darkness was coming swiftly
now, but before the little cavalcade passed out of sight momentarily
behind the corner of the building, as it entered another avenue leading
toward the heart of the city, I thought that I recognized the little
figure as that of a woman of my own race. That she was a captive was a
foregone conclusion and I could not but shudder as I contemplated the
fate that lay in store for her. Perhaps my own Sanoma Tora was in equal
jeopardy. Perhaps--but no, that could not be possible--how could Sanoma
Tora have fallen into the clutches of warriors of the fierce horde of
Torquas?
It could not be she. No, that was impossible. But the fact remained
that the captive was a red woman, and whether she were Sanoma Tora or
another, whether she were from Helium or Jahar, my heart went out in
sympathy to her and I forgot my own predicament as something within me
urged me to pursue her captors and seek to snatch her from them; but,
alas, how futile seemed my fancy. How might I, who might not even save
himself, aspire to the rescue of another?
The thought galled me, it hurt my pride, and forthwith I determined
that if I would not chance dying to save myself, I might at least
chance it for a woman of my own race, and always in the back of my head
was the thought that perhaps the object of my solicitude might, indeed,
be the woman I loved.
Darkness had fallen as I pressed my ear again to the trap door. All was
silent below so that presently I became assured that the creature had
departed. Perhaps he was lying in wait for me further down, but what of
that? I must face him eventually if he elected to remain. I loosened my
pistol in its holster and was upon the point of slipping the bar that
secured the door when I distinctly heard the beast directly beneath me.
For an instant I paused. What was the use? It meant certain death to
raise that door, and in what way might I be profiting either myself or
the poor captive if I gave my life thus uselessly? But there was an
alternative--one that I had been planning to adopt in case of necessity
from the moment that I had first examined the exterior construction of
the tower. It offered a slender chance of escape from my predicament
and even a very slender chance was better than what would confront me
should I raise the trap door.
I stepped to one of the windows of the tower and looked down upon the
city. Neither moon was in the sky; I could see nothing. Toward the
interior of the city I heard the squealing of thoats. There would
the camp of the green men be located. Thus by the squealing of their
vicious mounts would I be guided to it. Again a hunting banth roared
in the hills. I sat upon the sill and swung both legs across and then
turning on my belly slipped silently over the edge until I hung only by
my hands. Groping with my sandaled toes, I felt for a foothold upon the
deep-cut carvings of the tower's face. Above me was a blue-black void
shot with stars; below me a blank and empty void. It might have been a
thousand sofads to the roof below me, or it might have been one; but
though I could see nothing I knew that it was one hundred and fifty and
that at the bottom lay death if a foot or a hand slipped.
In daylight the sculpturing had seemed large and deep and bold, but by
night how different! My toes seemed to find but hollow scratches in
a smooth surface of polished stone. My arms and fingers were tiring.
I must find a foothold or fall, and then, when hope seemed gone, the
toe of my right sandal slipped into a horizontal groove and an instant
later my left found a hold.
Flattened against the sheer wall of the tower I lay there resting
my tired fingers and arms for a moment and when I felt that they
would bear my weight again I sought for hand holds. Thus painfully,
perilously, monotonously, I descended inch by inch. I avoided the
windows, which naturally greatly increased the difficulty and danger of
my descent; yet I did not care to pass directly in front of them for
fear that by chance the ape might have descended from the summit of the
ladder and would see me.
I cannot recall that ever in my life I felt more alone than I did that
night as I was descending the ancient beacon-tower of that deserted
city for not even hope was with me. So precarious were my holds upon
the rough stone that my fingers were soon numb and exhausted. How they
clung at all to those shallow cuts, I do not know. The only redeeming
feature of the descent was the darkness, and a hundred times I blessed
my first ancestors that I could not see the dizzy depths below me; but
on the other hand it was so dark that I could not tell how far I had
descended; nor did I dare to look up where the summit of the tower must
have been silhouetted against the starlit sky for fear that in doing so
I should lose my balance and be precipitated to the courtyard or the
roof below. The air of Barsoom is thin; it does not greatly diffuse the
starlight, and so, while the heavens above were shot with brilliant
points of light, the ground beneath was obliterated in darkness.
Yet I must have been nearer the roof than I thought when that happened
which I had been assiduously endeavoring to prevent--the scabbard
of my long sword pattered noisily against the face of the tower. In
the darkness and the silence it seemed a veritable din, but, however
exaggerated it might appear to me, I knew that it was sufficient to
reach the ears of the great ape in the tower. Whether a suggestion of
its import would occur to him, I could not guess--I could only hope
that he would be too dull to connect it with me or my escape.
But I was not to be left long in doubt, for almost immediately
afterward a sound came from the interior of the tower that sounded to
my over-wrought nerves like a heavy body rapidly descending a ladder. I
realize now that imagination might easily have construed utter silence
into such a sound, since I had been listening so intently for that
very thing that I might easily have worked myself into such a state
of nervous apprehension that almost any sort of an hallucination was
possible.
With redoubled speed and with a measure of recklessness that was almost
suicidal, I hastened my descent and an instant later I felt the solid
roof beneath my feet.
I breathed a sign of relief, but it was destined to be but a short
sigh and but brief relief, for almost instantly I was made aware that
the sound from the interior of the tower had been no hallucination as
the huge bulk of a great white ape loomed suddenly from a doorway not a
dozen paces from me.
As he charged me he gave forth no sound. Evidently he had not held his
solitary vigil this long with any intention of sharing his feast with
another. He would dispatch me in silence, and, with similar intent I
drew my long sword, rather than my pistol, to meet his savage charge.
What a puny, futile thing I must have appeared confronting that
towering mountain of bestial ferocity.
Thanks be to a thousand fighting ancestors that I wielded a long sword
with swiftness and with strength; otherwise I must have been gathered
into that savage embrace in the brute's first charge. Four powerful
hands were reached out to seize me, but I swung my long sword in a
terrific cut that severed one of them cleanly at the wrist and at the
same instant I leaped quickly to one side, and as the beast rushed me,
carried onward by its momentum, I ran my blade deep into its body. With
a savage scream of rage and pain it sought to turn upon me, but its
foot slipped upon its own dismembered hand and it stumbled awkwardly on
trying to regain its equilibrium, but that it never accomplished, and
still stumbling grotesquely it lunged over the edge of the roof to the
courtyard below.
Fearing that the beast's scream might attract others of its kind to the
roof, I ran swiftly to the north edge of the building where I had noted
from the tower earlier in the afternoon a series of lower buildings
adjoining, over the roofs of which I might possibly accomplish my
descent to the street level.
Cold Cluros was rising above the distant horizon, shedding his pale
light upon the city so that I could plainly see the roofs below me as I
came to the north edge of the building. It was a long drop, but there
was no safe alternative, since it was quite probable that should I
attempt to descend through the building, I would meet other members of
the ape's herd who had been attracted by the scream of their fellow.
Slipping over the edge of the roof I hung an instant by my hands and
then dropped. The distance was about two ads, but I alighted safely and
without injury. Upon your own planet, with its larger bulk and greater
gravity, I presume that a fall of that distance might be serious, but
not so, necessarily, upon Barsoom. From this roof I had a short drop to
the next, and from that I leaped to a low wall and thence to the ground
below.
Had it not been for the fleeting glimpse of the girl captive that I had
caught just at sunset, I should have set out directly for the hills
west of the town, banth or no banth, but now I felt strongly upon me
a certain moral obligation to make the best efforts that I could for
succoring the poor unfortunate that had fallen into the clutches of
these cruelest of creatures.
Keeping well within the shadows of the buildings I moved stealthily
toward the central plaza of the city, from which direction I had heard
the squealing of the thoats.
The plaza was a full haad from the water-front and I was compelled to
cross several intersecting avenues as I cautiously made my way toward
it, guided by an occasional squeal from the thoats quartered in some
deserted palace courtyard.
I reached the plaza in safety, confident that I had not been observed.
Upon the opposite side I saw light within one of the great buildings
that faced it, but I dared not cross the open space in the moonlight
and so still clinging to the shadows I moved to the far end of the
quadrangle where Cluros cast his densest shadows, and thus at last I
won to the building in which the green men were quartered. Directly
before me was a low window that must have opened into a room adjoining
the one in which the warriors were congregated. Listening intently I
heard nothing within the chamber and slipping a leg over the sill I
entered the dark interior with the utmost stealth.
Tiptoeing across the room to find a door through which I might look
into the adjoining chamber, I was suddenly arrested as my foot touched
a soft body and I froze into rigidity, my hand upon my long sword, as
the body moved.
IV
TAVIA
There are occasions in the life of every man when he becomes impressed
by the evidence of the existence of an extraneous power which guides
his acts, which is sometimes described as the hand of providence, or is
again explained on the hypothesis of a sixth sense which transports to
the part of our brain that controls our actions, perceptions of which
we are not objectively aware; but, account for it as one may, the fact
remains that as I stood there that night in the dark chamber of the
ancient palace of the deserted city I hesitated to thrust my sword into
the soft body moving at my feet. This might after all have been the
most reasonable and logical course for me to pursue. Instead I pressed
my sword point firmly against yielding flesh and whispered a single
word: "Silence!"
A thousand times since then have I given thanks to my first ancestors
that I did not follow my natural impulse, for, in response to my
admonition a voice whispered: "Do not thrust, red man; I am of your own
race and a prisoner," and the voice was that of a girl.
Instantly I withdrew my blade and kneeled beside her. "If you have come
to help me, cut my bonds," she said, "and be quick for they will soon
return for me."
Feeling rapidly over her body I found that her wrists and ankles were
secured with leather thongs and drawing my dagger I quickly severed
these. "Are you alone?" I asked as I helped her to her feet.
"Yes," she replied. "In the next room they are playing for me to decide
to which one I shall belong." At that moment there came the clank of
side arms from the adjoining room. "They are coming," she said. "They
must not find us here."
Taking her by the hand I moved to the window through which I had
entered the apartment, but fortunately I reconnoitered before stepping
out into the avenue and it was well for us that I did so, for as I
looked to the right along the face of the building, I saw a green
Martian warrior emerging from the main entrance. Evidently it had been
the rattling of his side arms that we had heard as he moved across the
adjoining apartment to the doorway.
"Is there another exit from this room?" I asked in a low whisper.
"Yes," she replied. "Opposite this window there is a doorway leading
into a corridor. It was open when they brought me in, but they closed
it."
"We shall be better off inside the building than out for a while at
least," I said. "Come!" And together we crossed the apartment, groping
along the wall for the door which I soon located. With the utmost care
I drew it ajar, fearing that its ancient hinges might betray us by
their complaining. Beyond the doorway lay a corridor dark as the depths
of Omean and into this I drew the girl, closing the door silently
behind us. Groping our way to the right away from the apartment
occupied by the green warriors, we moved slowly through a black void
until presently we saw just ahead a faint light, which investigation
revealed as coming through the open doorway of an apartment that faced
upon the central courtyard of the edifice. I was about to pass this
doorway and seek a hiding place further within the remote interior of
the building when my attention was attracted by the squealing of a
thoat in the courtyard beyond the apartment we were passing.
From earliest boyhood I have had a great deal of experience with the
small breed of thoats used as saddle animals by the men of my race and
while I was visiting Tars Tarkas of Thark I became quite familiar with
the methods employed by the green men in controlling their own huge
vicious beasts.
For travel over the surface of the ground the thoat compares to other
methods of land transportation as the one-man scout flier does to all
other ships of the air in aerial navigation. He is as once the swiftest
and the most dangerous, so that, faced as I was with a problem of land
transportation, it was only natural that the squeal of the thoats
should suggest a plan to my mind.
"Why do you hesitate?" asked the girl. "We cannot escape in that
direction since we cannot cross the courtyard."
"On the contrary," I replied, "I believe that in this direction may lie
our surest avenue of escape."
"But their thoats are penned in the courtyard," she remonstrated, "and
green warriors are never far from their thoats."
"It is because the thoats are there that I wish to investigate the
courtyard," I replied.
"The moment they catch our scent," she said, "they will raise a
disturbance that will attract the attention of their masters and we
shall immediately be discovered and captured."
"Perhaps," I said; "but if my plan succeeds it will be well worth the
risk, but if you are very much afraid I will abandon it."
"No," she said, "it is not for me to choose or direct. You have been
generous enough to help me and I may only follow where you lead, but if
I knew your plan perhaps I might follow more intelligently."
"Certainly," I said; "it is very simple. There are thoats. We shall
take one of them and ride away. It will be much easier than walking and
our chances for escape will be considerably greater, at the same time
we shall leave the courtyard gates open, hoping that the other thoats
will follow us out, leaving their masters unable to pursue us."
"It is a mad plan," said the girl, "but it is a brave one. If we are
discovered, there will be fighting and I am unarmed. Give me your short
sword, warrior, that we may at least make the best account of ourselves
that is possible."
I unsnapped the scabbard of my short sword from my harness and attached
it to hers at her left hip, and, as I touched her body in doing so, I
could not but note that there was no sign of trembling such as there
would have been had she been affected by fright or excitement. She
seemed perfectly cool and collected and her tone of voice was most
reassuring to me. That she was not Sanoma Tora I had known when she had
first spoken in the darkness of the room in which I had stumbled upon
her, and while I had been keenly disappointed I was still determined
to do the best that I could to assist in the escape of the stranger,
although I was confident that her presence might greatly delay and
embarrass me while it subjected me to far greater danger than would
have fallen to the lot of a warrior traveling alone. It was, therefore,
reassuring to find that my unwelcome companion would not prove entirely
helpless.
"I trust you will not have to use it," I said as I finished hooking my
short sword to her harness.
"You will find," she said, "that if necessity arises I can use it."
"Good," I said. "Now follow me and keep close to me."
A careful survey of the courtyard from the window of the chamber
overlooking it revealed about twenty huge thoats, but no green
warriors, evidence that they felt perfectly secure against enemies.
The thoats were congregated in the far end of the courtyard; a few
of them had lain down for the night, but the balance were moving
restlessly about as is their habit. Across the courtyard from us and at
the same end stood a pair of massive gates. As far as I could determine
they barred the only opening into the courtyard large enough to admit a
thoat and I assumed that beyond them lay an alley leading to one of the
avenues nearby.
To reach the gates unobserved by the thoats was the first step in my
plan and the better to do this I decided to seek an apartment near
the gate, on either side of which I saw windows similar to that from
which we were looking. Therefore, motioning my companion to follow
me, I returned to the corridor and again groping through the darkness
we made our way along it. In the third apartment which I explored I
found a window letting into the courtyard close beside the gate. And
in the wall which ran at right angles to that in which the window was
set I found a doorway that opened into a large vaulted corridor upon
the opposite side of the gate. This discovery greatly encouraged me
since it harmonized perfectly with the plan I had in mind, at the same
time reducing the risk which my companion must run in the attempted
adventure of escape.
"Remain here," I said to her, placing her just behind the gate. "If
the plan is successful I shall ride into this corridor upon one of the
thoats and as I do so you must be ready to seize my hand and mount
behind me. If I am discovered and fail I shall cry out 'For Helium!'
and that must be your signal to escape as best you may."
She laid her hand upon my arm. "Let me go into the courtyard with you,"
she begged. "Two swords are better than one."
"No," I said. "Alone I have a better chance of handling the thoats than
if their attention is distracted by another."