As Thurid came opposite the cabin’s doorway a new element projected
itself into the grim tragedy of the air that was being enacted upon the
deck of Matai Shang’s disabled flier.
It was Phaidor.
With flushed face and disheveled hair, and eyes that betrayed the
recent presence of mortal tears—above which this proud goddess had
always held herself—she leaped to the deck directly before me.
In her hand was a long, slim dagger. I cast a last look upon my beloved
princess, smiling, as men should who are about to die. Then I turned my
face up toward Phaidor—waiting for the blow.
Never have I seen that beautiful face more beautiful than it was at
that moment. It seemed incredible that one so lovely could yet harbor
within her fair bosom a heart so cruel and relentless, and today there
was a new expression in her wondrous eyes that I never before had seen
there—an unfamiliar softness, and a look of suffering.
Thurid was beside her now—pushing past to reach me first, and then what
happened happened so quickly that it was all over before I could
realize the truth of it.
Phaidor’s slim hand shot out to close upon the black’s dagger wrist.
Her right hand went high with its gleaming blade.
“That for Matai Shang!” she cried, and she buried her blade deep in the
dator’s breast. “That for the wrong you would have done Dejah Thoris!”
and again the sharp steel sank into the bloody flesh.
“And that, and that, and that!” she shrieked, “for John Carter, Prince
of Helium,” and with each word her sharp point pierced the vile heart
of the great villain. Then, with a vindictive shove she cast the
carcass of the First Born from the deck to fall in awful silence after
the body of his victim.
I had been so paralyzed by surprise that I had made no move to reach
the deck during the awe-inspiring scene which I had just witnessed, and
now I was to be still further amazed by her next act, for Phaidor
extended her hand to me and assisted me to the deck, where I stood
gazing at her in unconcealed and stupefied wonderment.
A wan smile touched her lips—it was not the cruel and haughty smile of
the goddess with which I was familiar. “You wonder, John Carter,” she
said, “what strange thing has wrought this change in me? I will tell
you. It is love—love of you,” and when I darkened my brows in
disapproval of her words she raised an appealing hand.
“Wait,” she said. “It is a different love from mine—it is the love of
your princess, Dejah Thoris, for you that has taught me what true love
may be—what it should be, and how far from real love was my selfish and
jealous passion for you.
“Now I am different. Now could I love as Dejah Thoris loves, and so my
only happiness can be to know that you and she are once more united,
for in her alone can you find true happiness.
“But I am unhappy because of the wickedness that I have wrought. I have
many sins to expiate, and though I be deathless, life is all too short
for the atonement.
“But there is another way, and if Phaidor, daughter of the Holy
Hekkador of the Holy Therns, has sinned she has this day already made
partial reparation, and lest you doubt the sincerity of her
protestations and her avowal of a new love that embraces Dejah Thoris
also, she will prove her sincerity in the only way that lies
open—having saved you for another, Phaidor leaves you to her embraces.”
With her last word she turned and leaped from the vessel’s deck into
the abyss below.
With a cry of horror I sprang forward in a vain attempt to save the
life that for two years I would so gladly have seen extinguished. I was
too late.
With tear-dimmed eyes I turned away that I might not see the awful
sight beneath.
A moment later I had struck the bonds from Dejah Thoris, and as her
dear arms went about my neck and her perfect lips pressed to mine I
forgot the horrors that I had witnessed and the suffering that I had
endured in the rapture of my reward.