I did not languish long within the prison of Salensus Oll. During the
short time that I lay there, fettered with chains of gold, I often
wondered as to the fate of Thuvan Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth.
My brave companion had followed me into the garden as I attacked
Thurid, and when Salensus Oll had left with Dejah Thoris and the
others, leaving Thuvia of Ptarth behind, he, too, had remained in the
garden with his daughter, apparently unnoticed, for he was appareled
similarly to the guards.
The last I had seen of him he stood waiting for the warriors who
escorted me to close the gate behind them, that he might be alone with
Thuvia. Could it be possible that they had escaped? I doubted it, and
yet with all my heart I hoped that it might be true.
The third day of my incarceration brought a dozen warriors to escort me
to the audience chamber, where Salensus Oll himself was to try me. A
great number of nobles crowded the room, and among them I saw Thurid,
but Matai Shang was not there.
Dejah Thoris, as radiantly beautiful as ever, sat upon a small throne
beside Salensus Oll. The expression of sad hopelessness upon her dear
face cut deep into my heart.
Her position beside the Jeddak of Jeddaks boded ill for her and me, and
on the instant that I saw her there, there sprang to my mind the firm
intention never to leave that chamber alive if I must leave her in the
clutches of this powerful tyrant.
I had killed better men than Salensus Oll, and killed them with my bare
hands, and now I swore to myself that I should kill him if I found that
the only way to save the Princess of Helium. That it would mean almost
instant death for me I cared not, except that it would remove me from
further efforts in behalf of Dejah Thoris, and for this reason alone I
would have chosen another way, for even though I should kill Salensus
Oll that act would not restore my beloved wife to her own people. I
determined to wait the final outcome of the trial, that I might learn
all that I could of the Okarian ruler’s intentions, and then act
accordingly.
Scarcely had I come before him than Salensus Oll summoned Thurid also.
“Dator Thurid,” he said, “you have made a strange request of me; but,
in accordance with your wishes and your promise that it will result
only to my interests, I have decided to accede.
“You tell me that a certain announcement will be the means of
convicting this prisoner and, at the same time, open the way to the
gratification of my dearest wish.”
Thurid nodded.
“Then shall I make the announcement here before all my nobles,”
continued Salensus Oll. “For a year no queen has sat upon the throne
beside me, and now it suits me to take to wife one who is reputed the
most beautiful woman upon Barsoom. A statement which none may
truthfully deny.
“Nobles of Okar, unsheathe your swords and do homage to Dejah Thoris,
Princess of Helium and future Queen of Okar, for at the end of the
allotted ten days she shall become the wife of Salensus Oll.”
As the nobles drew their blades and lifted them on high, in accordance
with the ancient custom of Okar when a jeddak announces his intention
to wed, Dejah Thoris sprang to her feet and, raising her hand aloft,
cried in a loud voice that they desist.
“I may not be the wife of Salensus Oll,” she pleaded, “for already I be
a wife and mother. John Carter, Prince of Helium, still lives. I know
it to be true, for I overheard Matai Shang tell his daughter Phaidor
that he had seen him in Kaor, at the court of Kulan Tith, Jeddak. A
jeddak does not wed a married woman, nor will Salensus Oll thus violate
the bonds of matrimony.”
Salensus Oll turned upon Thurid with an ugly look.
“Is this the surprise you held in store for me?” he cried. “You assured
me that no obstacle which might not be easily overcome stood between me
and this woman, and now I find that the one insuperable obstacle
intervenes. What mean you, man? What have you to say?”
“And should I deliver John Carter into your hands, Salensus Oll, would
you not feel that I had more than satisfied the promise that I made
you?” answered Thurid.
“Talk not like a fool,” cried the enraged jeddak. “I am no child to be
thus played with.”
“I am talking only as a man who knows,” replied Thurid. “Knows that he
can do all that he claims.”
“Then turn John Carter over to me within ten days or yourself suffer
the end that I should mete out to him were he in my power!” snapped the
Jeddak of Jeddaks, with an ugly scowl.
“You need not wait ten days, Salensus Oll,” replied Thurid; and then,
turning suddenly upon me as he extended a pointing finger, he cried:
“There stands John Carter, Prince of Helium!”
“Fool!” shrieked Salensus Oll. “Fool! John Carter is a white man. This
fellow be as yellow as myself. John Carter’s face is smooth—Matai Shang
has described him to me. This prisoner has a beard and mustache as
large and black as any in Okar. Quick, guardsmen, to the pits with the
black maniac who wishes to throw his life away for a poor joke upon
your ruler!”
“Hold!” cried Thurid, and springing forward before I could guess his
intention, he had grasped my beard and ripped the whole false fabric
from my face and head, revealing my smooth, tanned skin beneath and my
close-cropped black hair.
Instantly pandemonium reigned in the audience chamber of Salensus Oll.
Warriors pressed forward with drawn blades, thinking that I might be
contemplating the assassination of the Jeddak of Jeddaks; while others,
out of curiosity to see one whose name was familiar from pole to pole,
crowded behind their fellows.
As my identity was revealed I saw Dejah Thoris spring to her
feet—amazement writ large upon her face—and then through that jam of
armed men she forced her way before any could prevent. A moment only
and she was before me with outstretched arms and eyes filled with the
light of her great love.
“John Carter! John Carter!” she cried as I folded her to my breast, and
then of a sudden I knew why she had denied me in the garden beneath the
tower.
What a fool I had been! Expecting that she would penetrate the
marvelous disguise that had been wrought for me by the barber of
Marentina! She had not known me, that was all; and when she saw the
sign of love from a stranger she was offended and righteously
indignant. Indeed, but I had been a fool.
“And it was you,” she cried, “who spoke to me from the tower! How could
I dream that my beloved Virginian lay behind that fierce beard and that
yellow skin?”
She had been wont to call me her Virginian as a term of endearment, for
she knew that I loved the sound of that beautiful name, made a thousand
times more beautiful and hallowed by her dear lips, and as I heard it
again after all those long years my eyes became dimmed with tears and
my voice choked with emotion.
But an instant did I crush that dear form to me ere Salensus Oll,
trembling with rage and jealousy, shouldered his way to us.
“Seize the man,” he cried to his warriors, and a hundred ruthless hands
tore us apart.
Well it was for the nobles of the court of Okar that John Carter had
been disarmed. As it was, a dozen of them felt the weight of my
clenched fists, and I had fought my way half up the steps before the
throne to which Salensus Oll had carried Dejah Thoris ere ever they
could stop me.
Then I went down, fighting, beneath a half-hundred warriors; but before
they had battered me into unconsciousness I heard that from the lips of
Dejah Thoris that made all my suffering well worth while.
Standing there beside the great tyrant, who clutched her by the arm,
she pointed to where I fought alone against such awful odds.
“Think you, Salensus Oll, that the wife of such as he is,” she cried,
“would ever dishonor his memory, were he a thousand times dead, by
mating with a lesser mortal? Lives there upon any world such another as
John Carter, Prince of Helium? Lives there another man who could fight
his way back and forth across a warlike planet, facing savage beasts
and hordes of savage men, for the love of a woman?
“I, Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, am his. He fought for me and won
me. If you be a brave man you will honor the bravery that is his, and
you will not kill him. Make him a slave if you will, Salensus Oll; but
spare his life. I would rather be a slave with such as he than be Queen
of Okar.”
“Neither slave nor queen dictates to Salensus Oll,” replied the Jeddak
of Jeddaks. “John Carter shall die a natural death in the Pit of
Plenty, and the day he dies Dejah Thoris shall become my queen.”
I did not hear her reply, for it was then that a blow upon my head
brought unconsciousness, and when I recovered my senses only a handful
of guardsmen remained in the audience chamber with me. As I opened my
eyes they goaded me with the points of their swords and bade me rise.
Then they led me through long corridors to a court far toward the
center of the palace.
In the center of the court was a deep pit, near the edge of which stood
half a dozen other guardsmen, awaiting me. One of them carried a long
rope in his hands, which he commenced to make ready as we approached.
We had come to within fifty feet of these men when I felt a sudden
strange and rapid pricking sensation in one of my fingers.
For a moment I was nonplused by the odd feeling, and then there came to
me recollection of that which in the stress of my adventure I had
entirely forgotten—the gift ring of Prince Talu of Marentina.
Instantly I looked toward the group we were nearing, at the same time
raising my left hand to my forehead, that the ring might be visible to
one who sought it. Simultaneously one of the waiting warriors raised
his left hand, ostensibly to brush back his hair, and upon one of his
fingers I saw the duplicate of my own ring.
A quick look of intelligence passed between us, after which I kept my
eyes turned away from the warrior and did not look at him again, for
fear that I might arouse the suspicion of the Okarians. When we reached
the edge of the pit I saw that it was very deep, and presently I
realized I was soon to judge just how far it extended below the surface
of the court, for he who held the rope passed it about my body in such
a way that it could be released from above at any time; and then, as
all the warriors grasped it, he pushed me forward, and I fell into the
yawning abyss.
After the first jerk as I reached the end of the rope that had been
paid out to let me fall below the pit’s edge they lowered me quickly
but smoothly. The moment before the plunge, while two or three of the
men had been assisting in adjusting the rope about me, one of them had
brought his mouth close to my cheek, and in the brief interval before I
was cast into the forbidding hole he breathed a single word into my
ear:
“Courage!”
The pit, which my imagination had pictured as bottomless, proved to be
not more than a hundred feet in depth; but as its walls were smoothly
polished it might as well have been a thousand feet, for I could never
hope to escape without outside assistance.
For a day I was left in darkness; and then, quite suddenly, a brilliant
light illumined my strange cell. I was reasonably hungry and thirsty by
this time, not having tasted food or drink since the day prior to my
incarceration.
To my amazement I found the sides of the pit, that I had thought
smooth, lined with shelves, upon which were the most delicious viands
and liquid refreshments that Okar afforded.
With an exclamation of delight I sprang forward to partake of some of
the welcome food, but ere ever I reached it the light was extinguished,
and, though I groped my way about the chamber, my hands came in contact
with nothing beside the smooth, hard wall that I had felt on my first
examination of my prison.
Immediately the pangs of hunger and thirst began to assail me. Where
before I had had but a mild craving for food and drink, I now actually
suffered for want of it, and all because of the tantalizing sight that
I had had of food almost within my grasp.
Once more darkness and silence enveloped me, a silence that was broken
only by a single mocking laugh.
For another day nothing occurred to break the monotony of my
imprisonment or relieve the suffering superinduced by hunger and
thirst. Slowly the pangs became less keen, as suffering deadened the
activity of certain nerves; and then the light flashed on once again,
and before me stood an array of new and tempting dishes, with great
bottles of clear water and flagons of refreshing wine, upon the outside
of which the cold sweat of condensation stood.
Again, with the hunger madness of a wild beast, I sprang forward to
seize those tempting dishes; but, as before, the light went out and I
came to a sudden stop against a hard wall.
Then the mocking laugh rang out for a second time.
The Pit of Plenty!
Ah, what a cruel mind must have devised this exquisite, hellish
torture! Day after day was the thing repeated, until I was on the verge
of madness; and then, as I had done in the pits of the Warhoons, I took
a new, firm hold upon my reason and forced it back into the channels of
sanity.
By sheer will-power I regained control over my tottering mentality, and
so successful was I that the next time that the light came I sat quite
still and looked indifferently at the fresh and tempting food almost
within my reach. Glad I was that I had done so, for it gave me an
opportunity to solve the seeming mystery of those vanishing banquets.
As I made no move to reach the food, the torturers left the light
turned on in the hope that at last I could refrain no longer from
giving them the delicious thrill of enjoyment that my former futile
efforts to obtain it had caused.
And as I sat scrutinizing the laden shelves I presently saw how the
thing was accomplished, and so simple was it that I wondered I had not
guessed it before. The wall of my prison was of clearest glass—behind
the glass were the tantalizing viands.
After nearly an hour the light went out, but this time there was no
mocking laughter—at least not upon the part of my tormentors; but I, to
be at quits with them, gave a low laugh that none might mistake for the
cackle of a maniac.
Nine days passed, and I was weak from hunger and thirst, but no longer
suffering—I was past that. Then, down through the darkness above, a
little parcel fell to the floor at my side.
Indifferently I groped for it, thinking it but some new invention of my
jailers to add to my sufferings.
At last I found it—a tiny package wrapped in paper, at the end of a
strong and slender cord. As I opened it a few lozenges fell to the
floor. As I gathered them up, feeling of them and smelling of them, I
discovered that they were tablets of concentrated food such as are
quite common in all parts of Barsoom.
Poison! I thought.
Well, what of it? Why not end my misery now rather than drag out a few
more wretched days in this dark pit? Slowly I raised one of the little
pellets to my lips.
“Good-bye, my Dejah Thoris!” I breathed. “I have lived for you and
fought for you, and now my next dearest wish is to be realized, for I
shall die for you,” and, taking the morsel in my mouth, I devoured it.
One by one I ate them all, nor ever did anything taste better than
those tiny bits of nourishment, within which I knew must lie the seeds
of death—possibly of some hideous, torturing death.
As I sat quietly upon the floor of my prison, waiting for the end, my
fingers by accident came in contact with the bit of paper in which the
things had been wrapped; and as I idly played with it, my mind roaming
far back into the past, that I might live again for a few brief moments
before I died some of the many happy moments of a long and happy life,
I became aware of strange protuberances upon the smooth surface of the
parchment-like substance in my hands.
For a time they carried no special significance to my mind—I merely was
mildly wondrous that they were there; but at last they seemed to take
form, and then I realized that there was but a single line of them,
like writing.
Now, more interestedly, my fingers traced and retraced them. There were
four separate and distinct combinations of raised lines. Could it be
that these were four words, and that they were intended to carry a
message to me?
The more I thought of it the more excited I became, until my fingers
raced madly back and forth over those bewildering little hills and
valleys upon that bit of paper.
But I could make nothing of them, and at last I decided that my very
haste was preventing me from solving the mystery. Then I took it more
slowly. Again and again my forefinger traced the first of those four
combinations.
Martian writing is rather difficult to explain to an Earth man—it is
something of a cross between shorthand and picture-writing, and is an
entirely different language from the spoken language of Mars.
Upon Barsoom there is but a single oral language.
It is spoken today by every race and nation, just as it was at the
beginning of human life upon Barsoom. It has grown with the growth of
the planet’s learning and scientific achievements, but so ingenious a
thing it is that new words to express new thoughts or describe new
conditions or discoveries form themselves—no other word could explain
the thing that a new word is required for other than the word that
naturally falls to it, and so, no matter how far removed two nations or
races, their spoken languages are identical.
Not so their written languages, however. No two nations have the same
written language, and often cities of the same nation have a written
language that differs greatly from that of the nation to which they
belong.
Thus it was that the signs upon the paper, if in reality they were
words, baffled me for some time; but at last I made out the first one.
It was “courage,” and it was written in the letters of Marentina.
Courage!
That was the word the yellow guardsman had whispered in my ear as I
stood upon the verge of the Pit of Plenty.
The message must be from him, and he I knew was a friend.
With renewed hope I bent my every energy to the deciphering of the
balance of the message, and at last success rewarded my endeavor—I had
read the four words:
“Courage! Follow the rope.”
“FOLLOW THE ROPE”
What could it mean?
“Follow the rope.” What rope?
Presently I recalled the cord that had been attached to the parcel when
it fell at my side, and after a little groping my hand came in contact
with it again. It depended from above, and when I pulled upon it I
discovered that it was rigidly fastened, possibly at the pit’s mouth.
Upon examination I found that the cord, though small, was amply able to
sustain the weight of several men. Then I made another discovery—there
was a second message knotted in the rope at about the height of my
head. This I deciphered more easily, now that the key was mine.
“Bring the rope with you. Beyond the knots lies danger.”
That was all there was to this message. It was evidently hastily
formed—an afterthought.
I did not pause longer than to learn the contents of the second
message, and, though I was none too sure of the meaning of the final
admonition, “Beyond the knots lies danger,” yet I was sure that here
before me lay an avenue of escape, and that the sooner I took advantage
of it the more likely was I to win to liberty.
At least, I could be but little worse off than I had been in the Pit of
Plenty.
I was to find, however, ere I was well out of that damnable hole that I
might have been very much worse off had I been compelled to remain
there another two minutes.
It had taken me about that length of time to ascend some fifty feet
above the bottom when a noise above attracted my attention. To my
chagrin I saw that the covering of the pit was being removed far above
me, and in the light of the courtyard beyond I saw a number of yellow
warriors.
Could it be that I was laboriously working my way into some new trap?
Were the messages spurious, after all? And then, just as my hope and
courage had ebbed to their lowest, I saw two things.
One was the body of a huge, struggling, snarling apt being lowered over
the side of the pit toward me, and the other was an aperture in the
side of the shaft—an aperture larger than a man’s body, into which my
rope led.
Just as I scrambled into the dark hole before me the apt passed me,
reaching out with his mighty hands to clutch me, and snapping,
growling, and roaring in a most frightful manner.
Plainly now I saw the end for which Salensus Oll had destined me. After
first torturing me with starvation he had caused this fierce beast to
be lowered into my prison to finish the work that the jeddak’s hellish
imagination had conceived.
And then another truth flashed upon me—I had lived nine days of the
allotted ten which must intervene before Salensus Oll could make Dejah
Thoris his queen. The purpose of the apt was to insure my death before
the tenth day.
I almost laughed aloud as I thought how Salensus Oll’s measure of
safety was to aid in defeating the very end he sought, for when they
discovered that the apt was alone in the Pit of Plenty they could not
know but that he had completely devoured me, and so no suspicion of my
escape would cause a search to be made for me.
Coiling the rope that had carried me thus far upon my strange journey,
I sought for the other end, but found that as I followed it forward it
extended always before me. So this was the meaning of the words:
“Follow the rope.”
The tunnel through which I crawled was low and dark. I had followed it
for several hundred yards when I felt a knot beneath my fingers.
“Beyond the knots lies danger.”
Now I went with the utmost caution, and a moment later a sharp turn in
the tunnel brought me to an opening into a large, brilliantly lighted
chamber.
The trend of the tunnel I had been traversing had been slightly upward,
and from this I judged that the chamber into which I now found myself
looking must be either on the first floor of the palace or directly
beneath the first floor.
Upon the opposite wall were many strange instruments and devices, and
in the center of the room stood a long table, at which two men were
seated in earnest conversation.
He who faced me was a yellow man—a little, wizened-up, pasty-faced old
fellow with great eyes that showed the white round the entire
circumference of the iris.
His companion was a black man, and I did not need to see his face to
know that it was Thurid, for there was no other of the First Born north
of the ice-barrier.
Thurid was speaking as I came within hearing of the men’s voices.
“Solan,” he was saying, “there is no risk and the reward is great. You
know that you hate Salensus Oll and that nothing would please you more
than to thwart him in some cherished plan. There be nothing that he
more cherishes today than the idea of wedding the beautiful Princess of
Helium; but I, too, want her, and with your help I may win her.
“You need not more than step from this room for an instant when I give
you the signal. I will do the rest, and then, when I am gone, you may
come and throw the great switch back into its place, and all will be as
before. I need but an hour’s start to be safe beyond the devilish power
that you control in this hidden chamber beneath the palace of your
master. See how easy,” and with the words the black dator rose from his
seat and, crossing the room, laid his hand upon a large, burnished
lever that protruded from the opposite wall.
“No! No!” cried the little old man, springing after him, with a wild
shriek. “Not that one! Not that one! That controls the sunray tanks,
and should you pull it too far down, all Kadabra would be consumed by
heat before I could replace it. Come away! Come away! You know not with
what mighty powers you play. This is the lever that you seek. Note well
the symbol inlaid in white upon its ebon surface.”
Thurid approached and examined the handle of the lever.
“Ah, a magnet,” he said. “I will remember. It is settled then I take
it,” he continued.
The old man hesitated. A look of combined greed and apprehension
overspread his none too beautiful features.
“Double the figure,” he said. “Even that were all too small an amount
for the service you ask. Why, I risk my life by even entertaining you
here within the forbidden precincts of my station. Should Salensus Oll
learn of it he would have me thrown to the apts before the day was
done.”
“He dare not do that, and you know it full well, Solan,” contradicted
the black. “Too great a power of life and death you hold over the
people of Kadabra for Salensus Oll ever to risk threatening you with
death. Before ever his minions could lay their hands upon you, you
might seize this very lever from which you have just warned me and wipe
out the entire city.”
“And myself into the bargain,” said Solan, with a shudder.
“But if you were to die, anyway, you would find the nerve to do it,”
replied Thurid.
“Yes,” muttered Solan, “I have often thought upon that very thing.
Well, First Born, is your red princess worth the price I ask for my
services, or will you go without her and see her in the arms of
Salensus Oll tomorrow night?”
“Take your price, yellow man,” replied Thurid, with an oath. “Half now
and the balance when you have fulfilled your contract.”
With that the dator threw a well-filled money-pouch upon the table.
Solan opened the pouch and with trembling fingers counted its contents.
His weird eyes assumed a greedy expression, and his unkempt beard and
mustache twitched with the muscles of his mouth and chin. It was quite
evident from his very mannerism that Thurid had keenly guessed the
man’s weakness—even the clawlike, clutching movement of the fingers
betokened the avariciousness of the miser.
Having satisfied himself that the amount was correct, Solan replaced
the money in the pouch and rose from the table.
“Now,” he said, “are you quite sure that you know the way to your
destination? You must travel quickly to cover the ground to the cave
and from thence beyond the Great Power, all within a brief hour, for no
more dare I spare you.”
“Let me repeat it to you,” said Thurid, “that you may see if I be
letter-perfect.”
“Proceed,” replied Solan.
“Through yonder door,” he commenced, pointing to a door at the far end
of the apartment, “I follow a corridor, passing three diverging
corridors upon my right; then into the fourth right-hand corridor
straight to where three corridors meet; here again I follow to the
right, hugging the left wall closely to avoid the pit.
“At the end of this corridor I shall come to a spiral runway, which I
must follow down instead of up; after that the way is along but a
single branchless corridor. Am I right?”
“Quite right, Dator,” answered Solan; “and now begone. Already have you
tempted fate too long within this forbidden place.”
“Tonight, or tomorrow, then, you may expect the signal,” said Thurid,
rising to go.
“Tonight, or tomorrow,” repeated Solan, and as the door closed behind
his guest the old man continued to mutter as he turned back to the
table, where he again dumped the contents of the money-pouch, running
his fingers through the heap of shining metal; piling the coins into
little towers; counting, recounting, and fondling the wealth the while
he muttered on and on in a crooning undertone.
Presently his fingers ceased their play; his eyes popped wider than
ever as they fastened upon the door through which Thurid had
disappeared. The croon changed to a querulous muttering, and finally to
an ugly growl.
Then the old man rose from the table, shaking his fist at the closed
door. Now he raised his voice, and his words came distinctly.
“Fool!” he muttered. “Think you that for your happiness Solan will give
up his life? If you escaped, Salensus Oll would know that only through
my connivance could you have succeeded. Then would he send for me. What
would you have me do? Reduce the city and myself to ashes? No, fool,
there is a better way—a better way for Solan to keep thy money and be
revenged upon Salensus Oll.”
He laughed in a nasty, cackling note.
“Poor fool! You may throw the great switch that will give you the
freedom of the air of Okar, and then, in fatuous security, go on with
thy red princess to the freedom of—death. When you have passed beyond
this chamber in your flight, what can prevent Solan replacing the
switch as it was before your vile hand touched it? Nothing; and then
the Guardian of the North will claim you and your woman, and Salensus
Oll, when he sees your dead bodies, will never dream that the hand of
Solan had aught to do with the thing.”
Then his voice dropped once more into mutterings that I could not
translate, but I had heard enough to cause me to guess a great deal
more, and I thanked the kind Providence that had led me to this chamber
at a time so filled with importance to Dejah Thoris and myself as this.
But how to pass the old man now! The cord, almost invisible upon the
floor, stretched straight across the apartment to a door upon the far
side.
There was no other way of which I knew, nor could I afford to ignore
the advice to “follow the rope.” I must cross this room, but however I
should accomplish it undetected with that old man in the very center of
it baffled me.
Of course I might have sprung in upon him and with my bare hands
silenced him forever, but I had heard enough to convince me that with
him alive the knowledge that I had gained might serve me at some future
moment, while should I kill him and another be stationed in his place
Thurid would not come hither with Dejah Thoris, as was quite evidently
his intention.
As I stood in the dark shadow of the tunnel’s end racking my brain for
a feasible plan the while I watched, catlike, the old man’s every move,
he took up the money-pouch and crossed to one end of the apartment,
where, bending to his knees, he fumbled with a panel in the wall.
Instantly I guessed that here was the hiding place in which he hoarded
his wealth, and while he bent there, his back toward me, I entered the
chamber upon tiptoe, and with the utmost stealth essayed to reach the
opposite side before he should complete his task and turn again toward
the room’s center.
Scarcely thirty steps, all told, must I take, and yet it seemed to my
overwrought imagination that that farther wall was miles away; but at
last I reached it, nor once had I taken my eyes from the back of the
old miser’s head.
He did not turn until my hand was upon the button that controlled the
door through which my way led, and then he turned away from me as I
passed through and gently closed the door.
For an instant I paused, my ear close to the panel, to learn if he had
suspected aught, but as no sound of pursuit came from within I wheeled
and made my way along the new corridor, following the rope, which I
coiled and brought with me as I advanced.
But a short distance farther on I came to the rope’s end at a point
where five corridors met. What was I to do? Which way should I turn? I
was nonplused.
A careful examination of the end of the rope revealed the fact that it
had been cleanly cut with some sharp instrument. This fact and the
words that had cautioned me that danger lay beyond the KNOTS convinced
me that the rope had been severed since my friend had placed it as my
guide, for I had but passed a single knot, whereas there had evidently
been two or more in the entire length of the cord.
Now, indeed, was I in a pretty fix, for neither did I know which avenue
to follow nor when danger lay directly in my path; but there was
nothing else to be done than follow one of the corridors, for I could
gain nothing by remaining where I was.
So I chose the central opening, and passed on into its gloomy depths
with a prayer upon my lips.
The floor of the tunnel rose rapidly as I advanced, and a moment later
the way came to an abrupt end before a heavy door.
I could hear nothing beyond, and, with my accustomed rashness, pushed
the portal wide to step into a room filled with yellow warriors.
The first to see me opened his eyes wide in astonishment, and at the
same instant I felt the tingling sensation in my finger that denoted
the presence of a friend of the ring.
Then others saw me, and there was a concerted rush to lay hands upon
me, for these were all members of the palace guard—men familiar with my
face.
The first to reach me was the wearer of the mate to my strange ring,
and as he came close he whispered: “Surrender to me!” then in a loud
voice shouted: “You are my prisoner, white man,” and menaced me with
his two weapons.
And so John Carter, Prince of Helium, meekly surrendered to a single
antagonist. The others now swarmed about us, asking many questions, but
I would not talk to them, and finally my captor announced that he would
lead me back to my cell.
An officer ordered several other warriors to accompany him, and a
moment later we were retracing the way I had just come. My friend
walked close beside me, asking many silly questions about the country
from which I had come, until finally his fellows paid no further
attention to him or his gabbling.
Gradually, as he spoke, he lowered his voice, so that presently he was
able to converse with me in a low tone without attracting attention.
His ruse was a clever one, and showed that Talu had not misjudged the
man’s fitness for the dangerous duty upon which he was detailed.
When he had fully assured himself that the other guardsmen were not
listening, he asked me why I had not followed the rope, and when I told
him that it had ended at the five corridors he said that it must have
been cut by someone in need of a piece of rope, for he was sure that
“the stupid Kadabrans would never have guessed its purpose.”
Before we had reached the spot from which the five corridors diverge my
Marentinian friend had managed to drop to the rear of the little column
with me, and when we came in sight of the branching ways he whispered:
“Run up the first upon the right. It leads to the watchtower upon the
south wall. I will direct the pursuit up the next corridor,” and with
that he gave me a great shove into the dark mouth of the tunnel, at the
same time crying out in simulated pain and alarm as he threw himself
upon the floor as though I had felled him with a blow.
From behind the voices of the excited guardsmen came reverberating
along the corridor, suddenly growing fainter as Talu’s spy led them up
the wrong passageway in fancied pursuit.
As I ran for my life through the dark galleries beneath the palace of
Salensus Oll I must indeed have presented a remarkable appearance had
there been any to note it, for though death loomed large about me, my
face was split by a broad grin as I thought of the resourcefulness of
the nameless hero of Marentina to whom I owed my life.
Of such stuff are the men of my beloved Helium, and when I meet another
of their kind, of whatever race or color, my heart goes out to him as
it did now to my new friend who had risked his life for me simply
because I wore the mate to the ring his ruler had put upon his finger.
The corridor along which I ran led almost straight for a considerable
distance, terminating at the foot of a spiral runway, up which I
proceeded to emerge presently into a circular chamber upon the first
floor of a tower.
In this apartment a dozen red slaves were employed polishing or
repairing the weapons of the yellow men. The walls of the room were
lined with racks in which were hundreds of straight and hooked swords,
javelins, and daggers. It was evidently an armory. There were but three
warriors guarding the workers.
My eyes took in the entire scene at a glance. Here were weapons in
plenty! Here were sinewy red warriors to wield them!
And here now was John Carter, Prince of Helium, in need both of weapons
and warriors!
As I stepped into the apartment, guards and prisoners saw me
simultaneously.
Close to the entrance where I stood was a rack of straight swords, and
as my hand closed upon the hilt of one of them my eyes fell upon the
faces of two of the prisoners who worked side by side.
One of the guards started toward me. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What
do you here?”
“I come for Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium, and his son, Mors Kajak,” I
cried, pointing to the two red prisoners, who had now sprung to their
feet, wide-eyed in astonished recognition.
“Rise, red men! Before we die let us leave a memorial in the palace of
Okar’s tyrant that will stand forever in the annals of Kadabra to the
honor and glory of Helium,” for I had seen that all the prisoners there
were men of Tardos Mors’s navy.
Then the first guardsman was upon me and the fight was on, but scarce
did we engage ere, to my horror, I saw that the red slaves were
shackled to the floor.