For only an instant my curiosity was piqued, and then I replaced the
torch in my pocket-pouch, but my fingers had not unclasped from it when
there rushed to my memory the recollection of the conversation between
Lakor and his companion when the lesser thern had quoted the words of
Thurid and scoffed at them: “And what think you of the ridiculous
matter of the light? Let the light shine with the intensity of three
radium units for fifty tals”—ah, there was the first line of characters
upon the torch’s metal case—3—50 T; “and for one xat let it shine with
the intensity of one radium unit”—there was the second line; “and then
for twenty-five tals with nine units.”
The formula was complete; but—what did it mean?
I thought I knew, and, seizing a powerful magnifying glass from the
litter of my pocket-pouch, I applied myself to a careful examination of
the marble immediately about the pinhole in the door. I could have
cried aloud in exultation when my scrutiny disclosed the almost
invisible incrustation of particles of carbonized electrons which are
thrown off by these Martian torches.
It was evident that for countless ages radium torches had been applied
to this pinhole, and for what purpose there could be but a single
answer—the mechanism of the lock was actuated by light rays; and I,
John Carter, Prince of Helium, held the combination in my
hand—scratched by the hand of my enemy upon his own torch case.
In a cylindrical bracelet of gold about my wrist was my Barsoomian
chronometer—a delicate instrument that records the tals and xats and
zodes of Martian time, presenting them to view beneath a strong crystal
much after the manner of an earthly odometer.
Timing my operations carefully, I held the torch to the small aperture
in the door, regulating the intensity of the light by means of the
thumb-lever upon the side of the case.
For fifty tals I let three units of light shine full in the pinhole,
then one unit for one xat, and for twenty-five tals nine units. Those
last twenty-five tals were the longest twenty-five seconds of my life.
Would the lock click at the end of those seemingly interminable
intervals of time?
Twenty-three! Twenty-four! Twenty-five!
I shut off the light with a snap. For seven tals I waited—there had
been no appreciable effect upon the lock’s mechanism. Could it be that
my theory was entirely wrong?
Hold! Had the nervous strain resulted in a hallucination, or did the
door really move? Slowly the solid stone sank noiselessly back into the
wall—there was no hallucination here.
Back and back it slid for ten feet until it had disclosed at its right
a narrow doorway leading into a dark and narrow corridor that
paralleled the outer wall. Scarcely was the entrance uncovered than
Woola and I had leaped through—then the door slipped quietly back into
place.
Down the corridor at some distance I saw the faint reflection of a
light, and toward this we made our way. At the point where the light
shone was a sharp turn, and a little distance beyond this a brilliantly
lighted chamber.
Here we discovered a spiral stairway leading up from the center of the
circular room.
Immediately I knew that we had reached the center of the base of the
Temple of the Sun—the spiral runway led upward past the inner walls of
the prison cells. Somewhere above me was Dejah Thoris, unless Thurid
and Matai Shang had already succeeded in stealing her.
We had scarcely started up the runway when Woola suddenly displayed the
wildest excitement. He leaped back and forth, snapping at my legs and
harness, until I thought that he was mad, and finally when I pushed him
from me and started once more to ascend he grasped my sword arm between
his jaws and dragged me back.
No amount of scolding or cuffing would suffice to make him release me,
and I was entirely at the mercy of his brute strength unless I cared to
use my dagger upon him with my left hand; but, mad or no, I had not the
heart to run the sharp blade into that faithful body.
Down into the chamber he dragged me, and across it to the side opposite
that at which we had entered. Here was another doorway leading into a
corridor which ran directly down a steep incline. Without a moment’s
hesitation Woola jerked me along this rocky passage.
Presently he stopped and released me, standing between me and the way
we had come, looking up into my face as though to ask if I would now
follow him voluntarily or if he must still resort to force.
Looking ruefully at the marks of his great teeth upon my bare arm I
decided to do as he seemed to wish me to do. After all, his strange
instinct might be more dependable than my faulty human judgment.
And well it was that I had been forced to follow him. But a short
distance from the circular chamber we came suddenly into a brilliantly
lighted labyrinth of crystal glass partitioned passages.
At first I thought it was one vast, unbroken chamber, so clear and
transparent were the walls of the winding corridors, but after I had
nearly brained myself a couple of times by attempting to pass through
solid vitreous walls I went more carefully.
We had proceeded but a few yards along the corridor that had given us
entrance to this strange maze when Woola gave mouth to a most frightful
roar, at the same time dashing against the clear partition at our left.
The resounding echoes of that fearsome cry were still reverberating
through the subterranean chambers when I saw the thing that had
startled it from the faithful beast.
Far in the distance, dimly through the many thicknesses of intervening
crystal, as in a haze that made them seem unreal and ghostly, I
discerned the figures of eight people—three females and five men.
At the same instant, evidently startled by Woola’s fierce cry, they
halted and looked about. Then, of a sudden, one of them, a woman, held
her arms out toward me, and even at that great distance I could see
that her lips moved—it was Dejah Thoris, my ever beautiful and ever
youthful Princess of Helium.
With her were Thuvia of Ptarth, Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang, and
Thurid, and the Father of Therns, and the three lesser therns that had
accompanied them.
Thurid shook his fist at me, and then two of the therns grasped Dejah
Thoris and Thuvia roughly by their arms and hurried them on. A moment
later they had disappeared into a stone corridor beyond the labyrinth
of glass.
They say that love is blind; but so great a love as that of Dejah
Thoris that knew me even beneath the thern disguise I wore and across
the misty vista of that crystal maze must indeed be far from blind.