But Solan’s last loud cry had not been without effect, for a moment
later a dozen guardsmen burst into the chamber, though not before I had
so bent and demolished the great switch that it could not be again used
to turn the powerful current into the mighty magnet of destruction it
controlled.
The result of the sudden coming of the guardsmen had been to compel me
to seek seclusion in the first passageway that I could find, and that
to my disappointment proved to be not the one with which I was
familiar, but another upon its left.
They must have either heard or guessed which way I went, for I had
proceeded but a short distance when I heard the sound of pursuit. I had
no mind to stop and fight these men here when there was fighting
aplenty elsewhere in the city of Kadabra—fighting that could be of much
more avail to me and mine than useless life-taking far below the
palace.
But the fellows were pressing me; and as I did not know the way at all,
I soon saw that they would overtake me unless I found a place to
conceal myself until they had passed, which would then give me an
opportunity to return the way I had come and regain the tower, or
possibly find a way to reach the city streets.
The passageway had risen rapidly since leaving the apartment of the
switch, and now ran level and well lighted straight into the distance
as far as I could see. The moment that my pursuers reached this
straight stretch I would be in plain sight of them, with no chance to
escape from the corridor undetected.
Presently I saw a series of doors opening from either side of the
corridor, and as they all looked alike to me I tried the first one that
I reached. It opened into a small chamber, luxuriously furnished, and
was evidently an ante-chamber off some office or audience chamber of
the palace.
On the far side was a heavily curtained doorway beyond which I heard
the hum of voices. Instantly I crossed the small chamber, and, parting
the curtains, looked within the larger apartment.
Before me were a party of perhaps fifty gorgeously clad nobles of the
court, standing before a throne upon which sat Salensus Oll. The Jeddak
of Jeddaks was addressing them.
“The allotted hour has come,” he was saying as I entered the apartment;
“and though the enemies of Okar be within her gates, naught may stay
the will of Salensus Oll. The great ceremony must be omitted that no
single man may be kept from his place in the defenses other than the
fifty that custom demands shall witness the creation of a new queen in
Okar.
“In a moment the thing shall have been done and we may return to the
battle, while she who is now the Princess of Helium looks down from the
queen’s tower upon the annihilation of her former countrymen and
witnesses the greatness which is her husband’s.”
Then, turning to a courtier, he issued some command in a low voice.
The addressed hastened to a small door at the far end of the chamber
and, swinging it wide, cried: “Way for Dejah Thoris, future Queen of
Okar!”
Immediately two guardsmen appeared dragging the unwilling bride toward
the altar. Her hands were still manacled behind her, evidently to
prevent suicide.
Her disheveled hair and panting bosom betokened that, chained though
she was, still had she fought against the thing that they would do to
her.
At sight of her Salensus Oll rose and drew his sword, and the sword of
each of the fifty nobles was raised on high to form an arch, beneath
which the poor, beautiful creature was dragged toward her doom.
A grim smile forced itself to my lips as I thought of the rude
awakening that lay in store for the ruler of Okar, and my itching
fingers fondled the hilt of my bloody sword.
As I watched the procession that moved slowly toward the throne—a
procession which consisted of but a handful of priests, who followed
Dejah Thoris and the two guardsmen—I caught a fleeting glimpse of a
black face peering from behind the draperies that covered the wall back
of the dais upon which stood Salensus Oll awaiting his bride.
Now the guardsmen were forcing the Princess of Helium up the few steps
to the side of the tyrant of Okar, and I had no eyes and no thoughts
for aught else. A priest opened a book and, raising his hand, commenced
to drone out a sing-song ritual. Salensus Oll reached for the hand of
his bride.
I had intended waiting until some circumstance should give me a
reasonable hope of success; for, even though the entire ceremony should
be completed, there could be no valid marriage while I lived. What I
was most concerned in, of course, was the rescuing of Dejah Thoris—I
wished to take her from the palace of Salensus Oll, if such a thing
were possible; but whether it were accomplished before or after the
mock marriage was a matter of secondary import.
When, however, I saw the vile hand of Salensus Oll reach out for the
hand of my beloved princess I could restrain myself no longer, and
before the nobles of Okar knew that aught had happened I had leaped
through their thin line and was upon the dais beside Dejah Thoris and
Salensus Oll.
With the flat of my sword I struck down his polluting hand; and
grasping Dejah Thoris round the waist, I swung her behind me as, with
my back against the draperies of the dais, I faced the tyrant of the
north and his roomful of noble warriors.
The Jeddak of Jeddaks was a great mountain of a man—a coarse, brutal
beast of a man—and as he towered above me there, his fierce black
whiskers and mustache bristling in rage, I can well imagine that a less
seasoned warrior might have trembled before him.
With a snarl he sprang toward me with naked sword, but whether Salensus
Oll was a good swordsman or a poor I never learned; for with Dejah
Thoris at my back I was no longer human—I was a superman, and no man
could have withstood me then.
With a single, low: “For the Princess of Helium!” I ran my blade
straight through the rotten heart of Okar’s rotten ruler, and before
the white, drawn faces of his nobles Salensus Oll rolled, grinning in
horrible death, to the foot of the steps below his marriage throne.
For a moment tense silence reigned in the nuptial-room. Then the fifty
nobles rushed upon me. Furiously we fought, but the advantage was mine,
for I stood upon a raised platform above them, and I fought for the
most glorious woman of a glorious race, and I fought for a great love
and for the mother of my boy.
And from behind my shoulder, in the silvery cadence of that dear voice,
rose the brave battle anthem of Helium which the nation’s women sing as
their men march out to victory.
That alone was enough to inspire me to victory over even greater odds,
and I verily believe that I should have bested the entire roomful of
yellow warriors that day in the nuptial chamber of the palace at
Kadabra had not interruption come to my aid.
Fast and furious was the fighting as the nobles of Salensus Oll sprang,
time and again, up the steps before the throne only to fall back before
a sword hand that seemed to have gained a new wizardry from its
experience with the cunning Solan.
Two were pressing me so closely that I could not turn when I heard a
movement behind me, and noted that the sound of the battle anthem had
ceased. Was Dejah Thoris preparing to take her place beside me?
Heroic daughter of a heroic world! It would not be unlike her to have
seized a sword and fought at my side, for, though the women of Mars are
not trained in the arts of war, the spirit is theirs, and they have
been known to do that very thing upon countless occasions.
But she did not come, and glad I was, for it would have doubled my
burden in protecting her before I should have been able to force her
back again out of harm’s way. She must be contemplating some cunning
strategy, I thought, and so I fought on secure in the belief that my
divine princess stood close behind me.
For half an hour at least I must have fought there against the nobles
of Okar ere ever a one placed a foot upon the dais where I stood, and
then of a sudden all that remained of them formed below me for a last,
mad, desperate charge; but even as they advanced the door at the far
end of the chamber swung wide and a wild-eyed messenger sprang into the
room.
“The Jeddak of Jeddaks!” he cried. “Where is the Jeddak of Jeddaks? The
city has fallen before the hordes from beyond the barrier, and but now
the great gate of the palace itself has been forced and the warriors of
the south are pouring into its sacred precincts.
“Where is Salensus Oll? He alone may revive the flagging courage of our
warriors. He alone may save the day for Okar. Where is Salensus Oll?”
The nobles stepped back from about the dead body of their ruler, and
one of them pointed to the grinning corpse.
The messenger staggered back in horror as though from a blow in the
face.
“Then fly, nobles of Okar!” he cried, “for naught can save you. Hark!
They come!”
As he spoke we heard the deep roar of angry men from the corridor
without, and the clank of metal and the clang of swords.
Without another glance toward me, who had stood a spectator of the
tragic scene, the nobles wheeled and fled from the apartment through
another exit.
Almost immediately a force of yellow warriors appeared in the doorway
through which the messenger had come. They were backing toward the
apartment, stubbornly resisting the advance of a handful of red men who
faced them and forced them slowly but inevitably back.
Above the heads of the contestants I could see from my elevated station
upon the dais the face of my old friend Kantos Kan. He was leading the
little party that had won its way into the very heart of the palace of
Salensus Oll.
In an instant I saw that by attacking the Okarians from the rear I
could so quickly disorganize them that their further resistance would
be short-lived, and with this idea in mind I sprang from the dais,
casting a word of explanation to Dejah Thoris over my shoulder, though
I did not turn to look at her.
With myself ever between her enemies and herself, and with Kantos Kan
and his warriors winning to the apartment, there could be no danger to
Dejah Thoris standing there alone beside the throne.
I wanted the men of Helium to see me and to know that their beloved
princess was here, too, for I knew that this knowledge would inspire
them to even greater deeds of valor than they had performed in the
past, though great indeed must have been those which won for them a way
into the almost impregnable palace of the tyrant of the north.
As I crossed the chamber to attack the Kadabrans from the rear a small
doorway at my left opened, and, to my surprise, revealed the figures of
Matai Shang, Father of Therns and Phaidor, his daughter, peering into
the room.
A quick glance about they took. Their eyes rested for a moment, wide in
horror, upon the dead body of Salensus Oll, upon the blood that
crimsoned the floor, upon the corpses of the nobles who had fallen
thick before the throne, upon me, and upon the battling warriors at the
other door.
They did not essay to enter the apartment, but scanned its every corner
from where they stood, and then, when their eyes had sought its entire
area, a look of fierce rage overspread the features of Matai Shang, and
a cold and cunning smile touched the lips of Phaidor.
Then they were gone, but not before a taunting laugh was thrown
directly in my face by the woman.
I did not understand then the meaning of Matai Shang’s rage or
Phaidor’s pleasure, but I knew that neither boded good for me.
A moment later I was upon the backs of the yellow men, and as the red
men of Helium saw me above the shoulders of their antagonists a great
shout rang through the corridor, and for a moment drowned the noise of
battle.
“For the Prince of Helium!” they cried. “For the Prince of Helium!”
and, like hungry lions upon their prey, they fell once more upon the
weakening warriors of the north.
The yellow men, cornered between two enemies, fought with the
desperation that utter hopelessness often induces. Fought as I should
have fought had I been in their stead, with the determination to take
as many of my enemies with me when I died as lay within the power of my
sword arm.
It was a glorious battle, but the end seemed inevitable, when presently
from down the corridor behind the red men came a great body of
reenforcing yellow warriors.
Now were the tables turned, and it was the men of Helium who seemed
doomed to be ground between two millstones. All were compelled to turn
to meet this new assault by a greatly superior force, so that to me was
left the remnants of the yellow men within the throneroom.
They kept me busy, too; so busy that I began to wonder if indeed I
should ever be done with them. Slowly they pressed me back into the
room, and when they had all passed in after me, one of them closed and
bolted the door, effectually barring the way against the men of Kantos
Kan.
It was a clever move, for it put me at the mercy of a dozen men within
a chamber from which assistance was locked out, and it gave the red men
in the corridor beyond no avenue of escape should their new antagonists
press them too closely.
But I have faced heavier odds myself than were pitted against me that
day, and I knew that Kantos Kan had battled his way from a hundred more
dangerous traps than that in which he now was. So it was with no
feelings of despair that I turned my attention to the business of the
moment.
Constantly my thoughts reverted to Dejah Thoris, and I longed for the
moment when, the fighting done, I could fold her in my arms, and hear
once more the words of love which had been denied me for so many years.
During the fighting in the chamber I had not even a single chance to so
much as steal a glance at her where she stood behind me beside the
throne of the dead ruler. I wondered why she no longer urged me on with
the strains of the martial hymn of Helium; but I did not need more than
the knowledge that I was battling for her to bring out the best that is
in me.
It would be wearisome to narrate the details of that bloody struggle;
of how we fought from the doorway, the full length of the room to the
very foot of the throne before the last of my antagonists fell with my
blade piercing his heart.
And then, with a glad cry, I turned with outstretched arms to seize my
princess, and as my lips smothered hers to reap the reward that would
be thrice ample payment for the bloody encounters through which I had
passed for her dear sake from the south pole to the north.
The glad cry died, frozen upon my lips; my arms dropped limp and
lifeless to my sides; as one who reels beneath the burden of a mortal
wound I staggered up the steps before the throne.
Dejah Thoris was gone.