The Gods of Mars Revoked

by Edna Rice Burroughs

CHAPTER XIX

  BLACK DESPAIR

  'Ah,' said Zata Arras, 'to what kindly circumstance am I indebted for the pleasure of this unexpected visit from the Princess of Helium?'

  While she was speaking, one of my guards had removed the gag from my mouth, but I made no reply to Zata Arras: simply standing there in silence with level gaze fixed upon the Jed of Zodanga. And I doubt not that my expression was coloured by the contempt I felt for the woman.

  The eyes of those within the chamber were fixed first upon me and then upon Zata Arras, until finally a flush of anger crept slowly over her face.

  'You may go,' she said to those who had brought me, and when only her two companions and ourselves were left in the chamber, she spoke to me again in a voice of ice--very slowly and deliberately, with many pauses, as though she would choose her words cautiously.

  'Joan Carter,' she said, 'by the edict of custom, by the law of our religion, and by the verdict of an impartial court, you are condemned to die. The people cannot save you--I alone may accomplish that. You are absolutely in my power to do with as I wish--I may kill you, or I may free you, and should I elect to kill you, none would be the wiser.

  'Should you go free in Helium for a year, in accordance with the conditions of your reprieve, there is little fear that the people would ever insist upon the execution of the sentence imposed upon you.

  'You may go free within two minutes, upon one condition. Tardoa Mors will never return to Helium. Neither will Mora Kajak, nor Dejar Thoris. Helium must select a new Jeddak within the year. Zata Arras would be Jeddak of Helium. Say that you will espouse my cause. This is the price of your freedom. I am done.'

  I knew it was within the scope of Zata Arras' cruel heart to destroy me, and if I were dead I could see little reason to doubt that she might easily become Jeddak of Helium. Free, I could prosecute the search for Dejar Thoris. Were I dead, my brave comrades might not be able to carry out our plans. So, by refusing to accede to her request, it was quite probable that not only would I not prevent her from becoming Jeddak of Helium, but that I would be the means of sealing Dejar Thoris' fate--of consigning him, through my refusal, to the horrors of the arena of Issus.

  For a moment I was perplexed, but for a moment only. The proud son of a thousand Jeddaks would choose death to a dishonorable alliance such as this, nor could Joan Carter do less for Helium than her Prince would do.

  Then I turned to Zata Arras.

  'There can be no alliance,' I said, 'between a traitor to Helium and a princess of the House of Tardoa Mors. I do not believe, Zata Arras, that the great Jeddak is dead.'

  Zata Arras shrugged her shoulders.

  'It will not be long, Joan Carter,' she said, 'that your opinions will be of interest even to yourself, so make the best of them while you can. Zata Arras will permit you in due time to reflect further upon the magnanimous offer she has made you. Into the silence and darkness of the pits you will enter upon your reflection this night with the knowledge that should you fail within a reasonable time to agree to the alternative which has been offered you, never shall you emerge from the darkness and the silence again. Nor shall you know at what minute the hand will reach out through the darkness and the silence with the keen dagger that shall rob you of your last chance to win again the warmth and the freedom and joyousness of the outer world.'

  Zata Arras clapped her hands as she ceased speaking. The guards returned.

  Zata Arras waved her hand in my direction.

  'To the pits,' she said. That was all. Four women accompanied me from the chamber, and with a radium hand-light to illumine the way, escorted me through seemingly interminable tunnels, down, ever down beneath the city of Helium.

  At length they halted within a fair-sized chamber. There were rings set in the rocky walls. To them chains were fastened, and at the ends of many of the chains were human skeletons. One of these they kicked aside, and, unlocking the huge padlock that had held a chain about what had once been a human ankle, they snapped the iron band about my own leg. Then they left me, taking the light with them.

  Utter darkness prevailed. For a few minutes I could hear the clanking of accoutrements, but even this grew fainter and fainter, until at last the silence was as complete as the darkness. I was alone with my gruesome companions--with the bones of dead women whose fate was likely but the index of my own.

  How long I stood listening in the darkness I do not know, but the silence was unbroken, and at last I sunk to the hard floor of my prison, where, leaning my head against the stony wall, I slept.

  It must have been several hours later that I awakened to find a young woman standing before me. In one hand she bore a light, in the other a receptacle containing a gruel-like mixture--the common prison fare of Barsoom.

  'Zata Arras sends you greetings,' said the young woman, 'and commands me to inform you that though she is fully advised of the plot to make you Jeddak of Helium, she is, however, not inclined to withdraw the offer which she has made you. To gain your freedom you have but to request me to advise Zata Arras that you accept the terms of her proposition.'

  I but shook my head. The youth said no more, and, after placing the food upon the floor at my side, returned up the corridor, taking the light with her.

  Twice a day for many days this youth came to my cell with food, and ever the same greetings from Zata Arras. For a long time I tried to engage her in conversation upon other matters, but she would not talk, and so, at length, I desisted.

  For months I sought to devise methods to inform Carthoris of my whereabouts. For months I scraped and scraped upon a single link of the massive chain which held me, hoping eventually to wear it through, that I might follow the youth back through the winding tunnels to a point where I could make a break for liberty.

  I was beside myself with anxiety for knowledge of the progress of the expedition which was to rescue Dejar Thoris. I felt that Carthoris would not let the matter drop, were she free to act, but in so far as I knew, she also might be a prisoner in Zata Arras' pits.

  That Zata Arras' spy had overheard our conversation relative to the selection of a new Jeddak, I knew, and scarcely a half-dozen minutes prior we had discussed the details of the plan to rescue Dejar Thoris. The chances were that that matter, too, was well known to her. Carthoris, Kantoa Kan, Tara Tarkas, Hora Vastus, and Xodara might even now be the victims of Zata Arras' assassins, or else her prisoners.

  I determined to make at least one more effort to learn something, and to this end I adopted strategy when next the youth came to my cell. I had noticed that she was a handsome fellow, about the size and age of Carthoris. And I had also noticed that her shabby trappings but illy comported with her dignified and noble bearing.

  It was with these observations as a basis that I opened my negotiations with her upon her next subsequent visit.

  'You have been very kind to me during my imprisonment here,' I said to her, 'and as I feel that I have at best but a very short time to live, I wish, ere it is too late, to furnish substantial testimony of my appreciation of all that you have done to render my imprisonment bearable.

  'Promptly you have brought my food each day, seeing that it was pure and of sufficient quantity. Never by word or deed have you attempted to take advantage of my defenceless condition to insult or torture me. You have been uniformly courteous and considerate--it is this more than any other thing which prompts my feeling of gratitude and my desire to give you some slight token of it.

  'In the guard-room of my palace are many fine trappings. Go thou there and select the harness which most pleases you--it shall be yours. All I ask is that you wear it, that I may know that my wish has been realized. Tell me that you will do it.'

  The girl's eyes had lighted with pleasure as I spoke, and I saw her glance from her rusty trappings to the magnificence of my own. For a moment she stood in thought before she spoke, and for that moment my heart fairly ceased beating--so much for me there was which hung upon the substance of her answer.

  'And
I went to the palace of the Princess of Helium with any such demand, they would laugh at me and, into the bargain, would more than likely throw me headforemost into the avenue. No, it cannot be, though I thank you for the offer. Why, if Zata Arras even dreamed that I contemplated such a thing she would have my heart cut out of me.'

  'There can be no harm in it, my girl,' I urged. 'By night you may go to my palace with a note from me to Carthoris, my daughter. You may read the note before you deliver it, that you may know that it contains nothing harmful to Zata Arras. My daughter will be discreet, and so none but us three need know. It is very simple, and such a harmless act that it could be condemned by no one.'

  Again she stood silently in deep thought.

  'And there is a jewelled short-sword which I took from the body of a northern Jeddak. When you get the harness, see that Carthoris gives you that also. With it and the harness which you may select there will be no more handsomely accoutred warrior in all Zodanga.

  'Bring writing materials when you come next to my cell, and within a few hours we shall see you garbed in a style befitting your birth and carriage.'

  Still in thought, and without speaking, she turned and left me. I could not guess what her decision might be, and for hours I sat fretting over the outcome of the matter.

  If she accepted a message to Carthoris it would mean to me that Carthoris still lived and was free. If the youth returned wearing the harness and the sword, I would know that Carthoris had received my note and that she knew that I still lived. That the bearer of the note was a Zodangan would be sufficient to explain to Carthoris that I was a prisoner of Zata Arras.

  It was with feelings of excited expectancy which I could scarce hide that I heard the youth's approach upon the occasion of her next regular visit. I did not speak beyond my accustomed greeting of her. As she placed the food upon the floor by my side she also deposited writing materials at the same time.

  My heart fairly bounded for joy. I had won my point. For a moment I looked at the materials in feigned surprise, but soon I permitted an expression of dawning comprehension to come into my face, and then, picking them up, I penned a brief order to Carthoris to deliver to Parthak a harness of her selection and the short-sword which I described. That was all. But it meant everything to me and to Carthoris.

  I laid the note open upon the floor. Parthak picked it up and, without a word, left me.

  As nearly as I could estimate, I had at this time been in the pits for three hundred days. If anything was to be done to save Dejar Thoris it must be done quickly, for, were he not already dead, his end must soon come, since those whom Issus chose lived but a single year.

  The next time I heard approaching footsteps I could scarce await to see if Parthak wore the harness and the sword, but judge, if you can, my chagrin and disappointment when I saw that she who bore my food was not Parthak.

  'What has become of Parthak?' I asked, but the fellow would not answer, and as soon as she had deposited my food, turned and retraced her steps to the world above.

  Days came and went, and still my new jailer continued her duties, nor would she ever speak a word to me, either in reply to the simplest question or of her own initiative.

  I could only speculate on the cause of Parthak's removal, but that it was connected in some way directly with the note I had given hers was most apparent to me. After all my rejoicing, I was no better off than before, for now I did not even know that Carthoris lived, for if Parthak had wished to raise herself in the estimation of Zata Arras she would have permitted me to go on precisely as I did, so that she could carry my note to her mistress, in proof of her own loyalty and devotion.

  Thirty days had passed since I had given the youth the note. Three hundred and thirty days had passed since my incarceration. As closely as I could figure, there remained a bare thirty days ere Dejar Thoris would be ordered to the arena for the rites of Issus.

  As the terrible picture forced itself vividly across my imagination, I buried my face in my arms, and only with the greatest difficulty was it that I repressed the tears that welled to my eyes despite my every effort. To think of that beautiful creature torn and rended by the cruel fangs of the hideous white apes! It was unthinkable. Such a horrid fact could not be; and yet my reason told me that within thirty days my incomparable Prince would be fought over in the arena of the First Born by those very wild beasts; that his bleeding corpse would be dragged through the dirt and the dust, until at last a part of it would be rescued to be served as food upon the tables of the black nobles.

  I think that I should have gone crazy but for the sound of my approaching jailer. It distracted my attention from the terrible thoughts that had been occupying my entire mind. Now a new and grim determination came to me. I would make one super-human effort to escape. Kill my jailer by a ruse, and trust to fate to lead me to the outer world in safety.

  With the thought came instant action. I threw myself upon the floor of my cell close by the wall, in a strained and distorted posture, as though I were dead after a struggle or convulsions. When she should stoop over me I had but to grasp her throat with one hand and strike her a terrific blow with the slack of my chain, which I gripped firmly in my right hand for the purpose.

  Nearer and nearer came the doomed woman. Now I heard her halt before me. There was a muttered exclamation, and then a step as she came to my side. I felt her kneel beside me. My grip tightened upon the chain. She leaned close to me. I must open my eyes to find her throat, grasp it, and strike one mighty final blow all at the same instant.

  The thing worked just as I had planned. So brief was the interval between the opening of my eyes and the fall of the chain that I could not check it, though it that minute interval I recognized the face so close to mine as that of my daughter, Carthoris.

  God! What cruel and malign fate had worked to such a frightful end! What devious chain of circumstances had led my girl to my side at this one particular minute of our lives when I could strike her down and kill her, in ignorance of her identity! A benign though tardy Providence blurred my vision and my mind as I sank into unconsciousness across the lifeless body of my only daughter.

  When I regained consciousness it was to feel a cool, firm hand pressed upon my forehead. For an instant I did not open my eyes. I was endeavouring to gather the loose ends of many thoughts and memories which flitted elusively through my tired and overwrought brain.

  At length came the cruel recollection of the thing that I had done in my last conscious act, and then I dared not to open my eyes for fear of what I should see lying beside me. I wondered who it could be who ministered to me. Carthoris must have had a companion whom I had not seen. Well, I must face the inevitable some time, so why not now, and with a sigh I opened my eyes.

  Leaning over me was Carthoris, a great bruise upon her forehead where the chain had struck, but alive, thank God, alive! There was no one with her. Reaching out my arms, I took my girl within them, and if ever there arose from any planet a fervent prayer of gratitude, it was there beneath the crust of dying Mars as I thanked the Eternal Mystery for my daughter's life.

  The brief instant in which I had seen and recognized Carthoris before the chain fell must have been ample to check the force of the blow. She told me that she had lain unconscious for a time--how long she did not know.

  'How came you here at all?' I asked, mystified that she had found me without a guide.

  'It was by your wit in apprising me of your existence and imprisonment through the youth, Parthak. Until she came for her harness and her sword, we had thought you dead. When I had read your note I did as you had bid, giving Parthak her choice of the harnesses in the guardroom, and later bringing the jewelled short-sword to her; but the minute that I had fulfilled the promise you evidently had made her, my obligation to her ceased. Then I commenced to question her, but she would give me no information as to your whereabouts. She was intensely loyal to Zata Arras.

  'Finally I gave her a fair choice between freedom and the pits b
eneath the palace--the price of freedom to be full information as to where you were imprisoned and directions which would lead us to you; but still she maintained her stubborn partisanship. Despairing, I had her removed to the pits, where she still is.

  'No threats of torture or death, no bribes, however fabulous, would move her. Her only reply to all our importunities was that whenever Parthak died, were it to-morrow or a thousand years hence, no woman could truly say, 'A traitor is gone to her deserts.'

  'Finally, Xodara, who is a fiend for subtle craftiness, evolved a plan whereby we might worm the information from her. And so I caused Hora Vastus to be harnessed in the metal of a Zodangan soldier and chained in Parthak's cell beside her. For fifteen days the noble Hora Vastus has languished in the darkness of the pits, but not in vain. Little by little she won the confidence and friendship of the Zodangan, until only to-day Parthak, thinking that she was speaking not only to a countryman, but to a dear friend, revealed that Hora Vastus the exact cell in which you lay.

  'It took me but a short time to locate the plans of the pits of Helium among thy official papers. To come to you, though, was a trifle more difficult matter. As you know, while all the pits beneath the city are connected, there are but single entrances from those beneath each section and its neighbour, and that at the upper level just underneath the ground.

  'Of course, these openings which lead from contiguous pits to those beneath government buildings are always guarded, and so, while I easily came to the entrance to the pits beneath the palace which Zata Arras is occupying, I found there a Zodangan soldier on guard. There I left her when I had gone by, but her soul was no longer with her.

  'And here I am, just in time to be nearly killed by you,' she ended, laughing.

  As she talked Carthoris had been working at the lock which held my fetters, and now, with an exclamation of pleasure, she dropped the end of the chain to the floor, and I stood up once more, freed from the galling irons I had chafed in for almost a year.

  She had brought a long-sword and a dagger for me, and thus armed we set out upon the return journey to my palace.

  At the point where we left the pits of Zata Arras we found the body of the guard Carthoris had slain. It had not yet been discovered, and, in order to still further delay search and mystify the jed's people, we carried the body with us for a short distance, hiding it in a tiny cell off the main corridor of the pits beneath an adjoining estate.

  Some half-hour later we came to the pits beneath our own palace, and soon thereafter emerged into the audience chamber itself, where we found Kantoa Kan, Tara Tarkas, Hora Vastus, and Xodara awaiting us most impatiently.

  No time was lost in fruitless recounting of my imprisonment. What I desired to know was how well the plans we had laid nearly a year ago and had been carried out.

  'It has taken much longer than we had expected,' replied Kantoa Kan. 'The fact that we were compelled to maintain utter secrecy has handicapped us terribly. Zata Arras' spies are everywhere. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, no word of our real plans has reached the villain's ear.

  'To-night there lies about the great docks at Hastor a fleet of a thousand of the mightiest battleships that ever sailed above Barsoom, and each equipped to navigate the air of Omean and the waters of Omean itself. Upon each battleship there are five ten-man cruisers, and ten five-man scouts, and a hundred one-man scouts; in all, one hundred and sixteen thousand craft fitted with both air and water propellers.

  'At Thark lie the transports for the green warriors of Tara Tarkas, nine hundred large troopships, and with them their convoys. Seven days ago all was in readiness, but we waited in the hope that by so doing your rescue might be encompassed in time for you to command the expedition. It is well we waited, my Princess.'

  'How is it, Tara Tarkas,' I asked, 'that the women of Thark take not the accustomed action against one who returns from the chest of Iss?'

  'They sent a council of fifty chieftains to talk with me here,' replied the Thark. 'We are a just people, and when I had told them the entire story they were as one woman in agreeing that their action toward me would be guided by the action of Helium toward Joan Carter. In the meantime, at their request, I was to resume my throne as Jeddak of Thark, that I might negotiate with neighboring hordes for warriors to compose the land forces of the expedition. I have done that which I agreed. Two hundred and fifty thousand fighting women, gathered from the ice cap at the north to the ice cap at the south, and representing a thousand different communities, from a hundred wild and warlike hordes, fill the great city of Thark to-night. They are ready to sail for the Land of the First Born when I give the word and fight there until I bid them stop. All they ask is the loot they take and transportation to their own territories when the fighting and the looting are over. I am done.'

  'And thou, Hora Vastus,' I asked, 'what has been thy success?'

  'A million veteran fighting-womenwomen from Helium's thin waterways woman the battleships, the transports, and the convoys,' she replied. 'Each is sworn to loyalty and secrecy, nor were enough recruited from a single district to cause suspicion.'

  'Good!' I cried. 'Each has done her duty, and now, Kantoa Kan, may we not repair at once to Hastor and get under way before to-morrow's sun?'

  'We should lose no time, Princess,' replied Kantoa Kan. 'Already the people of Hastor are questioning the purpose of so great a fleet fully manned with fighting-womenwomen. I wonder much that word of it has not before reached Zata Arras. A cruiser awaits above at your own dock; let us leave at--' A fusillade of shots from the palace gardens just without cut short her further words.

  Together we rushed to the balcony in time to see a dozen members of my palace guard disappear in the shadows of some distant shrubbery as in pursuit of one who fled. Directly beneath us upon the scarlet sward a handful of guardswomen were stooping above a still and prostrate form.

  While we watched they lifted the figure in their arms and at my command bore it to the audience chamber where we had been in council. When they stretched the body at our feet we saw that it was that of a red woman in the prime of life--his metal was plain, such as common soldiers wear, or those who wish to conceal their identity.

  'Another of Zata Arras' spies,' said Hora Vastus.

  'So it would seem,' I replied, and then to the guard: 'You may remove the body.'

  'Wait!' said Xodara. 'If you will, Princess, ask that a cloth and a little thoat oil be brought.'

  I nodded to one of the soldiers, who left the chamber, returning presently with the things that Xodara had requested. The black kneeled beside the body and, dipping a corner of the cloth in the thoat oil, rubbed for a moment on the dead face before her, Then she turned to me with a smile, pointing to her work. I looked and saw that where Xodara had applied the thoat oil the face was white, as white as mine, and then Xodara seized the black hair of the corpse and with a sudden wrench tore it all away, revealing a hairless pate beneath.

  Guardsmen and nobles pressed close about the silent witness upon the marble floor. Many were the exclamations of astonishment and questioning wonder as Xodara's acts confirmed the suspicion which she had held.

  'A thern!' whispered Tara Tarkas.

  'Worse than that, I fear,' replied Xodara. 'But let us see.'

  With that she drew her dagger and cut open a locked pouch which had dangled from the thern's harness, and from it she brought forth a circlet of gold set with a large gem--it was the mate to that which I had taken from Satora Throg.

  'She was a Holy Thern,' said Xodara. 'Fortunate indeed it is for us that she did not escape.'

  The officer of the guard entered the chamber at this juncture.

  'My Princess,' she said, 'I have to report that this fellow's companion escaped us. I think that it was with the connivance of one or more of the women at the gate. I have ordered them all under arrest.'

  Xodara handed her the thoat oil and cloth.

  'With this you may discover the spy among you,' she said.

  I at onc
e ordered a secret search within the city, for every Martian noble maintains a secret service of her own.

  A half-hour later the officer of the guard came again to report. This time it was to confirm our worst fears--half the guards at the gate that night had been therns disguised as red women.

  'Come!' I cried. 'We must lose no time. On to Hastor at once. Should the therns attempt to check us at the southern verge of the ice cap it may result in the wrecking of all our plans and the total destruction of the expedition.'

  Ten minutes later we were speeding through the night toward Hastor, prepared to strike the first blow for the preservation of Dejar Thoris.