way through the gossamer strands, when we were confronted by a new
and surprising obstacle to our advance--a large, venomous-looking
spider that scurried toward us in an inverted position, clinging with
a dozen legs to one of the gossamer strands, which served both as its
support and its pathway, and if its appearance was any index to its
venomousness it must, indeed, have been a deadly insect.
As it came toward me, apparently with the most sinister intentions, I
hastily returned my dagger to its scabbard and drew my short sword,
with which I struck at the fearsome looking creature. As the blow
descended, it drew back so that my point only slightly scratched it,
whereupon it opened its hideous mouth and emitted a terrific scream
so out of proportion to its size and to the nature of such insects
with which I was familiar that it had a most appalling effect upon my
nerves. Instantly the scream was answered by an unearthly chorus of
similar cries all about us and immediately a swarm of these horrid
insects came racing toward us upon their gossamer threads. Evidently
this was the only position which they assumed in moving about and their
webs the only means to that end, for their twelve legs grew upward from
their backs, giving them a most uncanny appearance.
Fearing that the creatures might be poisonous, Nur An and I retreated
hastily to the mouth of the cavern, and as the spiders could not go
beyond the ends of their threads, we were soon quite safe from them and
now the luscious fruit looked more tempting than ever, since it seemed
to be denied to us.
"The road down the river is well guarded," said Nur An with a rueful
smile, "which might indicate a most desirable goal."
"At present that fruit is the most desirable thing in the world to me,"
I replied, "and I am going to try to discover some means of obtaining
it."
Moving to the right, away from the river, I sought for an entrance
into the forest that would be free from the threads of the spiders and
presently I came to a point where there was a well-defined trail about
four or five feet wide, apparently cut by man from the vegetation.
Across the mouth of it, however, were strung thousands of gossamer
strands. To touch them, we knew, would be the signal for myriads of the
angry spiders to swarm upon us. While our greatest fear was, of course,
that the insects might be poisonous, their cruelly fanged mouths also
suggested that, poisonous or not, they might in their great numbers
constitute a real menace.
"Do you notice," I said to Nur An, "that these threads seem stretched
across the entrance to the pathway only. Beyond them I cannot detect
any, though of course they are so tenuous that they might defy one's
vision even at a short distance."
"I do not see any spiders here," said Nur An. "Perhaps we can cut our
way through with impunity at this point."
"We shall experiment," I said, drawing my long sword.
Advancing, I cut a few strands, when immediately there swarmed out of
the trees and bushes upon either side great companies of the insects,
each racing along its own individual strand. Where the strands were
intact the creatures crossed and re-crossed the trail, staring at us
with their venomous, beady eyes, their powerful, gleaming fangs bared
threateningly toward us.
The cut strands floated in the air until borne down by the weight
of the approaching spiders, who followed to the severed ends but no
further. Here they either hung glaring at us or else clambered up and
down excitedly, but not one of them ever ventured from his strand.
As I watched them, their antics suggested a plan. "They are helpless
when their web is severed," I said to Nur An. "Therefore if we cut
all their webs they cannot reach us." Whereupon, advancing, I swung
my long sword above my head and cut downward through the remaining
strands. Instantly the creatures set up their infernal screaming.
Several of them, torn from their webs by the blow of my sword, lay upon
the ground upon their bellies, their feet sticking straight up into
the air. They seemed utterly helpless, and though they screamed loudly
and frantically waved their legs, they were clearly unable to move;
nor could those hanging at either side of the trail reach us. With my
sword I destroyed those that lay in the path and then, followed by Nur
An, I entered the forest. I turned about to have a last look at the
discomfited insects to see what they might be about. They had stopped
screaming now and were slowly returning into the foliage, evidently to
their lairs, and as they seemed to offer no further menace we continued
upon our way. The trees and bushes along the pathway were innocent
of fruit or berries, though just beyond reach we saw them growing in
profusion, behind a barrier of those gossamer webs that we had so
quickly learned to avoid.
"This trail appears to have been made by man," said Nur An.
"Whoever made it, or when," I said, "there is no doubt but that some
creature still uses it. The absence of fruit along it would alone be
ample proof of that."
We moved cautiously along the winding trail, not knowing at what moment
we might be confronted by some new menace in the form of man or beast.
Presently we saw ahead of us what appeared to be an opening in the
forest and a moment later we emerged into a clearing. Looming in front
of us at a distance of perhaps less than a haad was a towering pile of
masonry. It was a gloomy pile, apparently built of black volcanic rock.
For some thirty feet above the ground there was a blank wall, pierced
by but a single opening--a small doorway almost directly in front of
us. This part of the structure appeared to be a wall, beyond it rose
buildings of weird and grotesque outlines and dominating all was a
lofty tower, from the summit of which a wisp of smoke curled upward
into the quiet air.
From this new vantage point we had a better view of the valley than had
at first been accorded us, and now, more marked than ever, were the
indications that it was the crater of some gigantic and long extinct
volcano. Between us and the buildings, which suggested a small walled
city, the clearing contained a few scattered trees, but most of the
ground was given over to cultivation, being traversed by irrigation
ditches of an archaic type which has been abandoned upon the surface
for many ages, having been superceded by a system of sub-irrigation
when the diminishing water supply necessitated the adoption of
conservation measures.
Satisfied that no further information could be gained by remaining
where we were, I started boldly into the clearing toward the city.
"Where are you going?" asked Nur An.
"I am going to find out who dwells in that gloomy place," I replied.
"Here are fields and gardens, so they must have food and that, after
all, is the only favor that I shall ask of them."
Nur An shook his head. "The very sight of the place depresses me," he
said. But he came with me as I knew he would, for Nur An is a splendid
companion upon whose loyalty one may always depend.
We had traversed about two-thirds of the distance across the clearing
toward the city before we saw any signs of life and then a few figures
appeared at the top of the wall above the entrance. They carried long,
thin scarfs, which they seemed to be waving in greeting to us and when
we had come yet closer I saw that they were young women. They leaned
over the parapet and smiled and beckoned to us.
As we came within speaking distance below the wall, I halted. "What
city is this," I asked, "and who is jed here?"
"Enter, warriors," cried one of the girls, "and we will lead you to
the jed." She was very pretty and she was smiling sweetly, as were her
companions.
"This is not such a depressing place as you thought," I said in a low
voice to Nur An.
"I was mistaken," said Nur An. "They seem to be a kindly, hospitable
people. Shall we enter?"
"Come," called another of the girls; "behind these gloomy walls lie
food and wine and love."
Food! I would have entered a far more forbidding place than this for
food.
As Nur An and I strode toward the small door, it slowly withdrew to
one side. Beyond, across a black paved avenue, rose buildings of black
volcanic rock. The avenue seemed deserted as we stepped within. We
heard the faint click of a lock as the door slid into place behind us
and I had a sudden foreboding of ill that made my right hand seek the
hilt of my long sword.
VIII
THE SPIDER OF GHASTA
For a moment we stood undecided in the middle of the empty avenue,
looking about us, and then our attention was attracted to a narrow
stairway running up the inside of the wall, upon the summit of which
the girls had appeared and welcomed us.
Down the stairway the girls were coming. There were six of them.
Their beautiful faces were radiant with happy smiles of welcome that
instantly dispelled the gloom of the dark surroundings as the rising
sun dissipates night's darkness and replaces her shadows with light and
warmth and happiness.
Beautifully wrought harness, enriched by many a sparkling jewel,
accentuated the loveliness of faultless figures. As they approached
a vision of Tavia sprang to my mind. Beautiful as these girls
unquestionably were, how much more beautiful was Tavia!
I recall distinctly, even now, that in that very instant with all
that was transpiring to distract my attention, I was suddenly struck
by wonder that it should have been Tavia's face and figure that I saw
rather than those of Sanoma Tora. You may believe that I brought myself
up with a round turn and thereafter it was a vision of Sanoma Tora
that I saw, and that, too, without any disloyalty to my friendship
for Tavia--that blessed friendship which I looked upon as one of my
proudest and most valuable possessions.
As the girls reached the pavement they came eagerly toward us.
"Welcome, warriors," cried one, "to happy Ghasta. After your long
journey you must be hungry. Come with us and you shall be fed, but
first the great jed will wish to greet you and welcome you to our
city, for visitors to Ghasta are few."
As they led us along the avenue I could not but note the deserted
appearance of the city. There was no sign of life about any of the
buildings that we passed nor did we see another human being until
we had come to an open plaza, in the center of which rose a mighty
building surmounted by the lofty tower that we had seen when we first
emerged from the forest. Here we saw a number of people, both men and
women--sad, dejected looking people, who moved with bent shoulders
and downcast eyes. There was no animation in their step and their
whole demeanor seemed that of utter hopelessness. What a contrast
they presented to the gay and happy girls who so joyously conducted
us toward the main entrance of what I assumed to be the palace of the
jed. Here, burly warriors were on guard--fat, oily looking fellows,
whose appearance was not at all to my liking. As we approached them an
officer emerged from the interior of the building. If possible, he was
even fatter and more greasy looking than his men, but he smiled and
bowed as he welcomed us.
"Greetings!" he exclaimed. "May the peace of Ghasta be upon the
strangers who enter her gates."
"Send word to Ghron, the great jed," said one of the girls to him,
"that we are bringing two strange warriors who wish to do honor to him
before partaking of the hospitality of Ghasta."
As the officer dispatched a warrior to notify the jed of our coming,
we were escorted into the interior of the palace. The furnishings
were striking, but extremely fantastic in design and execution. The
native wood of the forests had been used to fine advantage in the
construction of numerous pieces of beautifully carved furniture, the
grain of the woods showing lustrously in their various natural colors,
the beauties of which were sometimes accentuated by delicate stain
and by high polishes, but perhaps the most striking feature of the
interior decorations was the gorgeously painted fabric of unbelievable
lightness, which gave the impression of spun silver. So closely woven
was it that, as I was to learn later, it would hold water and of such
great strength that it was almost impossible to tear it.
Upon it were painted in brilliant colors the most fantastic scenes
that imagination might conceive. There were spiders with the heads
of beautiful women, and women with the heads of spiders. There were
flowers and trees that danced beneath a great red sun, and great
lizards, such as we had passed within the gloomy cavern on our journey
down from Tjanath. In all the figures that were depicted there was
nothing represented as nature had created it. It was as though some mad
mind had conceived the whole.
As we waited in the great entrance hall of the palace of the jed,
four of the girls danced for our entertainment--a strange dance such
as I had never before seen upon Barsoom. Its steps and movements were
as weird and fantastic as the mural decorations of the room in which
it was executed, and yet with all there was a certain rhythm and
suggestiveness in the undulations of those lithe bodies that imparted
to us a feeling of well being and content.
The fat and greasy padwar of the guard moistened his thick lips as he
watched them and though he had doubtless seen them dance upon many
occasions, he seemed to be much more affected than we, but perhaps he
had no Phao or Sanoma Tora to occupy his thoughts.
Sanoma Tora! The chiseled beauty of her noble face stood out clearly
upon the screen of memory for a brief instant and then slowly it began
to fade. I tried to recall it, to see again the short, haughty lip
and the cold, level gaze, but it receded into a blue from which there
presently emerged a pair of wondrous eyes, moist with tears, a perfect
face and a head of tousled hair.
It was then that the warrior returned to say that Ghron, the Jed, would
receive us at once. Only the girls accompanied us, the fat padwar
remaining behind, though I could have sworn that it was not through
choice.
The room in which the jed received us was upon the second level of the
palace. It was a large room, even more grotesquely decorated than
those through which we had passed. The furniture was of weird shapes
and sizes, nothing harmonized with anything else and yet the result was
a harmony of discord that was not at all unpleasing.
The jed sat upon a perfectly enormous throne of volcanic glass. It
was, perhaps, the most ornate and remarkable piece of furniture that
I have ever seen and was the outstanding specimen of craftsmanship
in the entire city of Ghasta, but if it caught my eye at the time
it was only for an instant as nothing could for long distract one's
attention from the jed himself. In the first glance he looked more
like a hairy ape than a man. He was massively built with great, heavy,
stooping shoulders and long arms covered with shaggy, black hair, the
more remarkable, perhaps, because there is no race of hairy men upon
Barsoom. His face was broad and flat and his eyes were so far apart
that they seemed literally to be set in the corners of his face. As we
were halted before him, he twisted his mouth into what I imagined at
the time was intended for a smile, but which only succeeded in making
him look more horrible than before.
As is customary, we laid our swords at his feet and announced our names
and our cities.
"Hadron of Hastor, Nur An of Jahar," he repeated. "Ghron, the Jed,
welcomes you to Ghasta. Few are the visitors who find their way to our
beautiful city. It is an event, therefore, when two such illustrious
warriors honor us with a visit. Seldom do we receive word from the
outer world. Tell us, then, of your journey and of what is transpiring
upon the surface of Barsoom above us."
His words and his manner were those of a most solicitous host bent
upon extending a proper and cordial welcome to strangers, but I could
not rid myself of the belying suggestion of his repulsive countenance,
though I could do no less than play the part of a grateful and
appreciative guest.
We told our stories and gave him much news of those portions of Barsoom
with which each of us was familiar and as Nur An spoke, I looked about
me at the assemblage in the great chamber. They were mostly women
and many of them were young and beautiful. The men, for the most
part, were gross looking, fat and oily, and there were certain lines
of cruelty about their eyes and their mouths that did not escape me,
though I tried to attribute it to the first depressing impression that
the black and somber buildings and the deserted avenues had conveyed to
my mind.
When we had finished our recitals, Ghron announced that a banquet had
been prepared in our honor and in person he led the procession from
the throne room down a long corridor to a mighty banquet hall, in the
center of which stood a great table, down the entire length of which
was a magnificent decoration consisting entirely of the fruits and
flowers of the forest through which we had passed. At one end of the
table was the jed's throne and at the other were smaller thrones, one
for Nur An and one for me. Seated on either side of us were the girls
who had welcomed us to the city and whose business, it seemed, now was
to entertain us.
The design of the dishes with which the table was set was quite in
keeping with all the other mad designs of the palace of Ghron. No two
plates or goblets or platters were of the same shape or size or design
and nothing seemed suited to the purpose for which it was intended. My
wine was served in a shallow, triangular-shaped saucer, while my meat
was crammed into a tall, slender-stemmed goblet. However, I was too
hungry to be particular, and, I hoped, too well conversant with the
amenities of polite society to reveal the astonishment that I felt.
Here, as in other parts of the palace, the wall coverings were of
the gossamer-like silver fabric that had attracted my attention and
admiration the moment that I had entered the building and so fascinated
was I by it that I could not refrain from mentioning it to the girl who
sat at my right.
"There is no such fabric anywhere else in Barsoom," she said. "It is
made here and only here."
"It is very beautiful," I said. "Other nations would pay well for it."
"If we could get it to them," she said, "but we have no intercourse
with the world above us."
"Of what is it woven?" I asked.
"When you entered the valley Hohr," she said, "you saw a beautiful
forest, running down to the banks of the river Syl. Doubtless you saw
fruit in the forest and, being hungry, you sought to gather it, but you
were set upon by huge spiders that sped along silver threads, finer
than a woman's hair."
"Yes," I said, "that is just what happened."
"It is from this web, spun by those hideous spiders, that we weave our
fabric. It is as strong as leather and as enduring as the rocks of
which Ghasta is built."
"Do women of Ghasta spin this wonderful fabric?" I asked.
"The slaves," she said, "both men and women."
"And from whence come your slaves?" I asked, "if you have no
intercourse with the upper world?"
"Many of them come down the river from Tjanath, where they have died
The Death, and there are others who come from further up the river, but
why they come or from whence we never know. They are silent people,
who will not tell us, and sometimes they come from down the river, but
these are few and usually are so crazed by the horrors of their journey
that we can glean no knowledge from them."
"And do any ever go on down the river from Ghasta?" I asked; for it was
in that direction that Nur An and I hoped to make our way in search of
liberty, as deep within me was the hope that we might reach the valley
Dor and the lost sea of Korus, from which I was convinced I could
escape, as did John Carter and Tars Tarkas.
"A few, perhaps," she said, "but we never know what becomes of these,
for none returns."
"You are happy here?" I asked.
She forced a smile to her beautiful lips, but I thought that a shudder
ran through her frame.
The banquet was elaborate and the food delicious. There was a great
deal of laughter at the far end of the table where the jed sat, for
those about him watched him closely, and when he laughed, which he
always did at his own jokes, the others all laughed uproariously.
Toward the end of the meal a troupe of dancers entered the apartment.
My first view of them almost took my breath away, for, with but a
single exception, they were all horribly deformed. That one exception
was the most beautiful girl I have ever seen--the most beautiful girl
I have ever seen, with the saddest face that I have ever seen. She
danced divinely and about her hopped and crawled the poor, unhappy
creatures whose sad afflictions should have made them the objects of
sympathy rather than ridicule and yet it was obvious that they had been
selected for their part for the sole purpose of giving the audience an
opportunity to vent its ridicule upon them. The sight of them seemed
to incite Ghron to a pitch of frenzied mirth, and, to add to his own
pleasure and to the discomforts of the poor, pathetic performers, he
hurled food and plates at them as they danced about the banquet table.
I tried not to look at them, but there was a fascination in their
deformities which attracted my gaze and presently it became apparent
to me that the majority of them were artificially deformed, that they
had been thus broken and bent at the behest of some malign mind and as
I looked down the long board at the horrid face of Ghron, distorted
by maniacal laughter, I could not but guess the author of their
disfigurement.
When at last they were gone, three large goblets of wine were borne
into the banquet hall by a slave; two of them were red goblets and
one was black. The black goblet was set before Ghron and the red ones
before Nur An and me. Then Ghron rose and the whole company followed
his example.
"Ghron, the jed, drinks to the happiness of his honored guests,"
announced the ruler, and, raising the goblet to his lips, he drained it
to the bottom.
It seemed obvious that this little ceremony would conclude the banquet
and that it was intended Nur An and I should drink the health of our
host. I, therefore, raised my goblet. It was the first time that
anything had been served to me in the proper receptacle and I was glad
that at last I might drink without incurring the danger of spilling
most of the contents of the receptacle into my lap.
"To the health and power of the great jed, Ghron," I said, and
following my host's example, drained the contents of the goblet.
As Nur An followed my example with some appropriate words, I felt a
sudden lethargy stealing over me and in the instant before I lost
consciousness I realized that I had been given drugged wine.
When I regained consciousness I found myself lying upon the bare floor
of a room of a peculiar shape that suggested it was the portion of
the arc of a circle lying between the peripheries of two concentric
circles. The narrow end of the room curved inward, the wider end
outward. In the latter was a single, grated window; no door or other
openings appeared in any of the walls, which were covered with the
same silver fabric that I had noticed upon the walls and ceilings of
the palace of the jed. Near me lay Nur An, evidently still under the
influence of the opiate that had been administered to us in the wine.
Again I looked about the room. I arose and went to the window. Far
below me I saw the roofs of the city. Evidently we were imprisoned in
the lofty tower that rose from the center of the palace of the jed,
but how had we been brought into the room? Certainly not through the
window, which must have been fully two hundred feet above the city.
While I was pondering this seemingly unanswerable problem, Nur An
regained consciousness. At first he did not speak; he just lay there
looking at me with a rueful smile upon his lips.
"Well?" I asked.
Nur An shook his head. "We still live," he said dismally, "but that is
about the best that one may say."
"We are in the palace of a maniac, Nur An," I said. "There is no doubt
in my mind as to that. Everyone here lives in constant terror of Ghron
and from what I have seen today they are warranted in feeling terror."
"Yet I believe we saw little or nothing at that," said Nur An.
"I saw enough," I replied.
"Those girls were so beautiful," he said after a moment's silence.
"I could not believe that such beauty and such duplicity could exist
together."