CHAPTER VII
A FAIR GODDESS
For an instant the black pirate and I remained motionless, glaring into each other's eyes. Then a grim smile curled the handsome lips above me, as an ebony hand came slowly in sight from above the edge of the deck and the cold, hollow eye of a revolver sought the centre of my forehead.
Simultaneously my free hand shot out for the black throat, just within reach, and the ebony finger tightened on the trigger. The pirate's hissing, 'Die, cursed thern,' was half choked in her windpipe by my clutching fingers. The hammer fell with a futile click upon an empty chamber.
Before she could fire again I had pulled her so far over the edge of the deck that she was forced to drop her firearm and clutch the rail with both hands.
My grasp upon her throat effectually prevented any outcry, and so we struggled in grim silence; she to tear away from my hold, I to drag her over to her death.
Her face was taking on a livid hue, her eyes were bulging from their sockets. It was evident to her that she soon must die unless she tore loose from the steel fingers that were choking the life from her. With a final effort she threw herself further back upon the deck, at the same instant releasing her hold upon the rail to tear frantically with both hands at my fingers in an effort to drag them from her throat.
That little second was all that I awaited. With one mighty downward surge I swept her clear of the deck. Her falling body came near to tearing me from the frail hold that my single free hand had upon the anchor chain and plunging me with her to the waters of the sea below.
I did not relinquish my grasp upon her, however, for I knew that a single shriek from those lips as she hurtled to her death in the silent waters of the sea would bring her comrades from above to avenge her.
Instead I held grimly to her, choking, ever choking, while her frantic struggles dragged me lower and lower toward the end of the chain.
Gradually her contortions became spasmodic, lessening by degrees until they ceased entirely. Then I released my hold upon her and in an instant she was swallowed by the black shadows far below.
Again I climbed to the ship's rail. This time I succeeded in raising my eyes to the level of the deck, where I could take a careful survey of the conditions immediately confronting me.
The nearer moon had passed below the horizon, but the clear effulgence of the further satellite bathed the deck of the cruiser, bringing into sharp relief the bodies of six or eight black women sprawled about in sleep.
Huddled close to the base of a rapid fire gun was a young white boy, securely bound. His eyes were widespread in an expression of horrified anticipation and fixed directly upon me as I came in sight above the edge of the deck.
Unutterable relief instantly filled them as they fell upon the mystic jewel which sparkled in the centre of my stolen headpiece. He did not speak. Instead his eyes warned me to beware the sleeping figures that surrounded him.
Noiselessly I gained the deck. The boy nodded to me to approach him. As I bent low he whispered to me to release him.
'I can aid you,' he said, 'and you will need all the aid available when they awaken.'
'Some of them will awake in Korus,' I replied smiling.
He caught the meaning of my words, and the cruelty of his answering smile horrified me. One is not astonished by cruelty in a hideous face, but when it touches the features of a god whose fine-chiselled lineaments might more fittingly portray love and beauty, the contrast is appalling.
Quickly I released him.
'Give me a revolver,' he whispered. 'I can use that upon those your sword does not silence in time.'
I did as he bid. Then I turned toward the distasteful work that lay before me. This was no time for fine compunctions, nor for a chivalry that these cruel demons would neither appreciate nor reciprocate.
Stealthily I approached the nearest sleeper. When she awoke she was well on her journey to the chest of Korus. Her piercing shriek as consciousness returned to her came faintly up to us from the black depths beneath.
The second awoke as I touched her, and, though I succeeded in hurling her from the cruiser's deck, her wild cry of alarm brought the remaining pirates to their feet. There were five of them.
As they arose the boy's revolver spoke in sharp staccato and one sank back to the deck again to rise no more.
The others rushed madly upon me with drawn swords. The boy evidently dared not fire for fear of wounding me, but I saw his sneak stealthily and cat-like toward the flank of the attackers. Then they were on me.
For a few minutes I experienced some of the hottest fighting I had ever passed through. The quarters were too small for foot work. It was stand your ground and give and take. At first I took considerably more than I gave, but presently I got beneath one fellow's guard and had the satisfaction of seeing her collapse upon the deck.
The others redoubled their efforts. The crashing of their blades upon mine raised a terrific din that might have been heard for miles through the silent night. Sparks flew as steel smote steel, and then there was the dull and sickening sound of a shoulder bone parting beneath the keen edge of my Martian sword.
Three now faced me, but the boy was working his way to a point that would soon permit his to reduce the number by one at least. Then things happened with such amazing rapidity that I can scarce comprehend even now all that took place in that brief instant.
The three rushed me with the evident purpose of forcing me back the few steps that would carry my body over the rail into the void below. At the same instant the boy fired and my sword arm made two moves. One woman dropped with a bullet in her brain; a sword flew clattering across the deck and dropped over the edge beyond as I disarmed one of my opponents and the third went down with my blade buried to the hilt in her breast and three feet of it protruding from her back, and falling wrenched the sword from my grasp.
Disarmed myself, I now faced my remaining foeman, whose own sword lay somewhere thousands of feet below us, lost in the Lost Sea.
The new conditions seemed to please my adversary, for a smile of satisfaction bared her gleaming teeth as she rushed at me bare-handed. The great muscles which rolled beneath her glossy black hide evidently assured her that here was easy prey, not worth the trouble of drawing the dagger from her harness.
I let her come almost upon me. Then I ducked beneath her outstretched arms, at the same time sidestepping to the right. Pivoting on my left toe, I swung a terrific right to her jaw, and, like a felled ox, she dropped in her tracks.
A low, silvery laugh rang out behind me.
'You are no thern,' said the sweet voice of my companion, 'for all your golden locks or the harness of Satora Throg. Never lived there upon all Barsoom before one who could fight as you have fought this night. Who are you?'
'I am Joan Carter, Princess of the House of Tardoa Mors, Jeddak of Helium,' I replied. 'And whom,' I added, 'has the honour of serving been accorded me?'
He hesitated a moment before speaking. Then he asked:
'You are no thern. Are you an enemy of the therns?'
'I have been in the territory of the therns for a day and a half. During that entire time my life has been in constant danger. I have been harassed and persecuted. Armed women and fierce beasts have been set upon me. I had no quarrel with the therns before, but can you wonder that I feel no great love for them now? I have spoken.'
He looked at me intently for several minutes before he replied. It was as though he were attempting to read my inmost soul, to judge my character and my standards of chivalry in that long-drawn, searching gaze.
Apparently the inventory satisfied him.
'I am Phaidor, son of Matain Shang, Holy Hekkador of the Holy Therns, Father of Therns, Mistress of Life and Death upon Barsoom, Sister of Issus, Princess of Life Eternal.'
At that moment I noticed that the black I had dropped with my fist was commencing to show signs of returning consciousness. I sprang to her side. Stripping her harness from her I securely bound her hands behind her back, and
after similarly fastening her feet tied her to a heavy gun carriage.
'Why not the simpler way?' asked Phaidor.
'I do not understand. What 'simpler way'?' I replied.
With a slight shrug of his lovely shoulders he made a gesture with his hands personating the casting of something over the craft's side.
'I am no murderer,' I said. 'I kill in self-defence only.'
He looked at me narrowly. Then he puckered those divine brows of his, and shook his head. He could not comprehend.
Well, neither had my own Dejar Thoris been able to understand what to his had seemed a foolish and dangerous policy toward enemies. Upon Barsoom, quarter is neither asked nor given, and each dead woman means so much more of the waning resources of this dying planet to be divided amongst those who survive.
But there seemed a subtle difference here between the manner in which this boy contemplated the dispatching of an enemy and the tender-hearted regret of my own prince for the stern necessity which demanded it.
I think that Phaidor regretted the thrill that the spectacle would have afforded his rather than the fact that my decision left another enemy alive to threaten us.
The woman had now regained full possession of her faculties, and was regarding us intently from where she lay bound upon the deck. She was a handsome fellow, clean limbed and powerful, with an intelligent face and features of such exquisite chiselling that Adonis herself might have envied her.
The vessel, unguided, had been moving slowly across the valley; but now I thought it time to take the helm and direct his course. Only in a very general way could I guess the location of the Valley Dor. That it was far south of the equator was evident from the constellations, but I was not sufficiently a Martian astronomer to come much closer than a rough guess without the splendid charts and delicate instruments with which, as an officer in the Heliumite Navy, I had formerly reckoned the positions of the vessels on which I sailed.
That a northerly course would quickest lead me toward the more settled portions of the planet immediately decided the direction that I should steer. Baneath my hand the cruiser swung gracefully about. Then the button which controlled the repulsive rays sent us soaring far out into space. With speed lever pulled to the last notch, we raced toward the north as we rose ever farther and farther above that terrible valley of death.
As we passed at a dizzy height over the narrow domains of the therns the flash of powder far below bore mute witness to the ferocity of the battle that still raged along that cruel frontier. No sound of conflict reached our ears, for in the rarefied atmosphere of our great altitude no sound wave could penetrate; they were dissipated in thin air far below us.
It became intensely cold. Breathing was difficult. The boy, Phaidor, and the black pirate kept their eyes glued upon me. At length the boy spoke.
'Unconsciousness comes quickly at this altitude,' he said quietly. 'Unless you are inviting death for us all you had best drop, and that quickly.'
There was no fear in his voice. It was as one might say: 'You had better carry an umbrella. It is going to rain.'
I dropped the vessel quickly to a lower level. Nor was I a moment too soon. The boy had swooned.
The black, too, was unconscious, while I, myself, retained my senses, I think, only by sheer will. The one on whom all responsibility rests is apt to endure the most.
We were swinging along low above the foothills of the Otz. It was comparatively warm and there was plenty of air for our starved lungs, so I was not surprised to see the black open her eyes, and a moment later the boy also.
'It was a close call,' he said.
'It has taught me two things though,' I replied.
'What?'
'That even Phaidor, son of the Mistress of Life and Death, is mortal,' I said smiling.
'There is immortality only in Issus,' he replied. 'And Issus is for the race of therns alone. Thus am I immortal.'
I caught a fleeting grin passing across the features of the black as she heard his words. I did not then understand why she smiled. Later I was to learn, and he, too, in a most horrible manner.
'If the other thing you have just learned,' he continued, 'has led to as erroneous deductions as the first you are little richer in knowledge than you were before.'
'The other,' I replied, 'is that our dusky friend here does not hail from the nearer moon--he was like to have died at a few thousand feet above Barsoom. Had we continued the five thousand miles that lie between Thuria and the planet she would have been but the frozen memory of a woman.'
Phaidor looked at the black in evident astonishment.
'If you are not of Thuria, then where?' he asked.
She shrugged her shoulders and turned her eyes elsewhere, but did not reply.
The boy stamped his little foot in a peremptory manner.
'The son of Matain Shang is not accustomed to having his queries remain unanswered,' he said. 'One of the lesser breed should feel honoured that a member of the holy race that was born to inherit life eternal should deign even to notice her.'
Again the black smiled that wicked, knowing smile.
'Xodara, Dator of the First Born of Barsoom, is accustomed to give commands, not to receive them,' replied the black pirate. Then, turning to me, 'What are your intentions concerning me?'
'I intend taking you both back to Helium,' I said. 'No harm will come to you. You will find the red women of Helium a kindly and magnanimous race, but if they listen to me there will be no more voluntary pilgrimages down the river Iss, and the impossible belief that they have cherished for ages will be shattered into a thousand pieces.'
'Are you of Helium?' she asked.
'I am a Princess of the House of Tardoa Mors, Jeddak of Helium,' I replied, 'but I am not of Barsoom. I am of another world.'
Xodara looked at me intently for a few moments.
'I can well believe that you are not of Barsoom,' she said at length. 'None of this world could have bested eight of the First Born single-handed. But how is it that you wear the golden hair and the jewelled circlet of a Holy Thern?' She emphasized the word holy with a touch of irony.
'I had forgotten them,' I said. 'They are the spoils of conquest,' and with a sweep of my hand I removed the disguise from my head.
When the black's eyes fell on my close-cropped black hair they opened in astonishment. Evidently she had looked for the bald pate of a thern.
'You are indeed of another world,' she said, a touch of awe in her voice. 'With the skin of a thern, the black hair of a First Born and the muscles of a dozen Dators it was no disgrace even for Xodara to acknowledge your supremacy. A thing she could never do were you a Barsoomian,' she added.
'You are travelling several laps ahead of me, my friend,' I interrupted. 'I glean that your name is Xodara, but whom, pray, are the First Born, and what a Dator, and why, if you were conquered by a Barsoomian, could you not acknowledge it?'
'The First Born of Barsoom,' she explained, 'are the race of black women of which I am a Dator, or, as the lesser Barsoomians would say, Princess. My race is the oldest on the planet. We trace our lineage, unbroken, direct to the Tree of Life which flourished in the centre of the Valley Dor twenty-three million years ago.
'For countless ages the fruit of this tree underwent the gradual changes of evolution, passing by degrees from true plant life to a combination of plant and animal. In the first stages the fruit of the tree possessed only the power of independent muscular action, while the stem remained attached to the parent plant; later a brain developed in the fruit, so that hanging there by their long stems they thought and moved as individuals.
'Then, with the development of perceptions came a comparison of them; judgments were reached and compared, and thus reason and the power to reason were born upon Barsoom.
'Ages passed. Many forms of life came and went upon the Tree of Life, but still all were attached to the parent plant by stems of varying lengths. At length the fruit tree consisted in tiny plant women, such as we now se
e reproduced in such huge dimensions in the Valley Dor, but still hanging to the limbs and branches of the tree by the stems which grew from the tops of their heads.
'The buds from which the plant women blossomed resembled large nuts about a foot in diameter, divided by double partition walls into four sections. In one section grew the plant woman, in another a sixteen-legged worm, in the third the progenitor of the white ape and in the fourth the primaeval black woman of Barsoom.
'When the bud burst the plant woman remained dangling at the end of her stem, but the three other sections fell to the ground, where the efforts of their imprisoned occupants to escape sent them hopping about in all directions.
'Thus as time went on, all Barsoom was covered with these imprisoned creatures. For countless ages they lived their long lives within their hard shells, hopping and skipping about the broad planet; falling into rivers, lakes, and seas, to be still further spread about the surface of the new world.
'Countless billions died before the first black woman broke through her prison walls into the light of day. Prompted by curiosity, she broke open other shells and the peopling of Barsoom commenced.
'The pure strain of the blood of this first black woman has remained untainted by admixture with other creatures in the race of which I am a member; but from the sixteen-legged worm, the first ape and renegade black woman has sprung every other form of animal life upon Barsoom.
'The therns,' and she smiled maliciously as she spoke, 'are but the result of ages of evolution from the pure white ape of antiquity. They are a lower order still. There is but one race of true and immortal humans on Barsoom. It is the race of black women.
'The Tree of Life is dead, but before it died the plant women learned to detach themselves from it and roam the face of Barsoom with the other children of the First Parent.
'Now their bisexuality permits them to reproduce themselves after the manner of true plants, but otherwise they have progressed but little in all the ages of their existence. Their actions and movements are largely matters of instinct and not guided to any great extent by reason, since the brain of a plant woman is but a trifle larger than the end of your smallest finger. They live upon vegetation and the blood of animals, and their brain is just large enough to direct their movements in the direction of food, and to translate the food sensations which are carried to it from their eyes and ears. They have no sense of self-preservation and so are entirely without fear in the face of danger. That is why they are such terrible antagonists in combat.'
I wondered why the black woman took such pains to discourse thus at length to enemies upon the genesis of life Barsoomian. It seemed a strangely inopportune moment for a proud member of a proud race to unbend in casual conversation with a captor. Especially in view of the fact that the black still lay securely bound upon the deck.
It was the faintest straying of her eye beyond me for the barest fraction of a second that explained her motive for thus dragging out my interest in her truly absorbing story.
She lay a little forward of where I stood at the levers, and thus she faced the stern of the vessel as she addressed me. It was at the end of her description of the plant women that I caught her eye fixed momentarily upon something behind me.
Nor could I be mistaken in the swift gleam of triumph that brightened those dark orbs for an instant.
Some time before I had reduced our speed, for we had left the Valley Dor many miles astern, and I felt comparatively safe.
I turned an apprehensive glance behind me, and the sight that I saw froze the new-born hope of freedom that had been springing up within me.
A great battleship, forging silent and unlighted through the dark night, loomed close astern.
The Gods of Mars Revoked Page 8