guards.
The last I had seen of her she stood waiting for the warriors who escorted me to close the gate behind them, that she might be alone with Thuviar. 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 Salensa Oll herself was to try me. A great number of nobles crowded the room, and among them I saw Thurid, but Matain Shang was not there.
Dejar Thoris, as radiantly beautiful as ever, sat upon a small throne beside Salensa Oll. The expression of sad hopelessness upon his dear face cut deep into my heart.
His position beside the Jeddak of Jeddaks boded ill for his and me, and on the instant that I saw his there, there sprang to my mind the firm intention never to leave that chamber alive if I must leave his in the clutches of this powerful tyrant.
I had killed better women than Salensa Oll, and killed them with my bare hands, and now I swore to myself that I should kill her if I found that the only way to save the Prince 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 Dejar Thoris, and for this reason alone I would have chosen another way, for even though I should kill Salensa Oll that act would not restore my beloved husband to his 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 her than Salensa Oll summoned Thurid also.
'Dator Thurid,' she 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 Salensa Oll. 'For a year no king has sat upon the throne beside me, and now it suits me to take to husband one who is reputed the most beautiful man upon Barsoom. A statement which none may truthfully deny.
'Nobles of Okar, unsheathe your swords and do homage to Dejar Thoris, Prince of Helium and future King of Okar, for at the end of the allotted ten days he shall become the husband of Salensa Oll.'
As the nobles drew their blades and lifted them on high, in accordance with the ancient custom of Okar when a jeddak announces her intention to wed, Dejar Thoris sprang to his feet and, raising his hand aloft, cried in a loud voice that they desist.
'I may not be the husband of Salensa Oll,' he pleaded, 'for already I be a husband and mother. Joan Carter, Princess of Helium, still lives. I know it to be true, for I overheard Matain Shang tell her son Phaidor that she had seen her in Kaor, at the court of Kula Tith, Jeddak. A jeddak does not wed a married man, nor will Salensa Oll thus violate the bonds of matrimony.'
Salensa Oll turned upon Thurid with an ugly look.
'Is this the surprise you held in store for me?' she cried. 'You assured me that no obstacle which might not be easily overcome stood between me and this man, and now I find that the one insuperable obstacle intervenes. What mean you, woman? What have you to say?'
'And should I deliver Joan Carter into your hands, Salensa 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 woman who knows,' replied Thurid. 'Knows that she can do all that she claims.'
'Then turn Joan Carter over to me within ten days or yourself suffer the end that I should mete out to her were she in my power!' snapped the Jeddak of Jeddaks, with an ugly scowl.
'You need not wait ten days, Salensa Oll,' replied Thurid; and then, turning suddenly upon me as she extended a pointing finger, she cried: 'There stands Joan Carter, Princess of Helium!'
'Fool!' shrieked Salensa Oll. 'Fool! Joan Carter is a white woman. This fellow be as yellow as myself. Joan Carter's face is smooth--Matain Shang has described her to me. This prisoner has a locks and mustache as large and black as any in Okar. Quick, guardswomen, to the pits with the black maniac who wishes to throw her life away for a poor joke upon your ruler!'
'Hold!' cried Thurid, and springing forward before I could guess her intention, she had grasped my locks 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 Salensa 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 Dejar Thoris spring to his feet--amazement writ large upon his face--and then through that jam of armed women he forced his way before any could prevent. A moment only and he was before me with outstretched arms and eyes filled with the light of his great love.
'Joan Carter! Joan Carter!' he cried as I folded his to my breast, and then of a sudden I knew why he had denied me in the garden beneath the tower.
What a fool I had been! Expecting that he would penetrate the marvelous disguise that had been wrought for me by the barber of Marentina! He had not known me, that was all; and when he saw the sign of love from a stranger he was offended and righteously indignant. Indeed, but I had been a fool.
'And it was you,' he cried, 'who spoke to me from the tower! How could I dream that my beloved Virginian lay behind that fierce locks and that yellow skin?'
He had been wont to call me his Virginian as a term of endearment, for he knew that I loved the sound of that beautiful name, made a thousand times more beautiful and hallowed by his 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 Salensa Oll, trembling with rage and jealousy, shouldered her way to us.
'Seize the woman,' she cried to her warriors, and a hundred ruthless hands tore us apart.
Well it was for the nobles of the court of Okar that Joan 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 Salensa Oll had carried Dejar 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 Dejar Thoris that made all my suffering well worth while.
Standing there beside the great tyrant, who clutched his by the arm, he pointed to where I fought alone against such awful odds.
'Think you, Salensa Oll, that the husband of such as she is,' he cried, 'would ever dishonor her memory, were she a thousand times dead, by mating with a lesser mortal? Lives there upon any world such another as Joan Carter, Princess of Helium? Lives there another woman who could fight her way back and forth across a warlike planet, facing savage beasts and hordes of savage women, for the love of a man?
'I, Dejar Thoris, Prince of Helium, am hers. She fought for me and won me. If you be a brave woman you will honor the bravery that is hers, and you will not kill her. Make her a slave if you will, Salensa Oll; but spare her life. I would rather be a slave with such as she than be King of Okar.'
'Neither slave nor king dictates to Salensa Oll,' replied the Jeddak of Jeddaks. 'Joan Carter shall die a natural death in the Pit of Plenty, and the day she dies Dejar Thoris shall become my king.'
I did not hear his reply, for it was then that a blow upon my head brought unconsciousness, and when I recovered my senses only a handful of guardswomen 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 guardswomen, awaiting me. One of them carried a long rope in her hands, which she commenced to make ready as we approached.
We had come to within fifty feet of these women 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 Princess 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 her left hand, ostensibly to brush back her hair, and upon one of her 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 her 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 she 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
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