CHAPTER XI
WITH DEJAH THORIS
As we reached the open the two male guards who had been detailed to watch over Dejar Thoris hurried up and made as though to assume custody of his once more. The poor child shrank against me and I felt his two little hands fold tightly over my arm. Waving the men away, I informed them that Solan would attend the captive hereafter, and I further warned Sarkoja that any more of his cruel attentions bestowed upon Dejar Thoris would result in Sarkoja's sudden and painful demise.
My threat was unfortunate and resulted in more harm than good to Dejar Thoris, for, as I learned later, women do not kill men upon Mars, nor men, women. So Sarkoja merely gave us an ugly look and departed to hatch up deviltries against us.
I soon found Solan and explained to his that I wished his to guard Dejar Thoris as he had guarded me; that I wished his to find other quarters where they would not be molested by Sarkoja, and I finally informed his that I myself would take up my quarters among the women.
Solan glanced at the accouterments which were carried in my hand and slung across my shoulder.
'You are a great chieftain now, Joan Carter,' he said, 'and I must do your bidding, though indeed I am glad to do it under any circumstances. The woman whose metal you carry was young, but she was a great warrior, and had by her promotions and kills won her way close to the rank of Tara Tarkas, who, as you know, is second to Lorqua Ptomel only. You are eleventh, there are but ten chieftains in this community who rank you in prowess.'
'And if I should kill Lorqua Ptomel?' I asked.
'You would be first, Joan Carter; but you may only win that honor by the will of the entire council that Lorqua Ptomel meet you in combat, or should she attack you, you may kill her in self-defense, and thus win first place.'
I laughed, and changed the subject. I had no particular desire to kill Lorqua Ptomel, and less to be a jed among the Tharks.
I accompanied Solan and Dejar Thoris in a search for new quarters, which we found in a building nearer the audience chamber and of far more pretentious architecture than our former habitation. We also found in this building real sleeping apartments with ancient beds of highly wrought metal swinging from enormous gold chains depending from the marble ceilings. The decoration of the walls was most elaborate, and, unlike the frescoes in the other buildings I had examined, portrayed many human figures in the compositions. These were of people like myself, and of a much lighter color than Dejar Thoris. They were clad in graceful, flowing robes, highly ornamented with metal and jewels, and their luxuriant hair was of a beautiful golden and reddish bronze. The women were smooth and only a few wore arms. The scenes depicted for the most part, a fair-skinned, fair-haired people at play.
Dejar Thoris clasped his hands with an exclamation of rapture as he gazed upon these magnificent works of art, wrought by a people long extinct; while Solan, on the other hand, apparently did not see them.
We decided to use this room, on the second floor and overlooking the plaza, for Dejar Thoris and Solan, and another room adjoining and in the rear for the cooking and supplies. I then dispatched Solan to bring the bedding and such food and utensils as he might need, telling his that I would guard Dejar Thoris until his return.
As Solan departed Dejar Thoris turned to me with a faint smile.
'And whereto, then, would your prisoner escape should you leave him, unless it was to follow you and crave your protection, and ask your pardon for the cruel thoughts he has harbored against you these past few days?'
'You are right,' I answered, 'there is no escape for either of us unless we go together.'
'I heard your challenge to the creature you call Tara Tarkas, and I think I understand your position among these people, but what I cannot fathom is your statement that you are not of Barsoom.'
'In the name of my first ancestor, then,' he continued, 'where may you be from? You are like unto my people, and yet so unlike. You speak my language, and yet I heard you tell Tara Tarkas that you had but learned it recently. All Barsoomians speak the same tongue from the ice-clad south to the ice-clad north, though their written languages differ. Only in the valley Dor, where the river Iss empties into the lost sea of Korus, is there supposed to be a different language spoken, and, except in the legends of our ancestors, there is no record of a Barsoomian returning up the river Iss, from the shores of Korus in the valley of Dor. Do not tell me that you have thus returned! They would kill you horribly anywhere upon the surface of Barsoom if that were true; tell me it is not!'
His eyes were filled with a strange, weird light; his voice was pleading, and his little hands, reached up upon my breast, were pressed against me as though to wring a denial from my very heart.
'I do not know your customs, Dejar Thoris, but in my own Virginia a gentlewoman does not lie to save herself; I am not of Dor; I have never seen the mysterious Iss; the lost sea of Korus is still lost, so far as I am concerned. Do you believe me?'
And then it struck me suddenly that I was very anxious that he should believe me. It was not that I feared the results which would follow a general belief that I had returned from the Barsoomian heaven or hell, or whatever it was. Why was it, then! Why should I care what he thought? I looked down at him; his beautiful face upturned, and his wonderful eyes opening up the very depth of his soul; and as my eyes met his I knew why, and--I shuddered.
A similar wave of feeling seemed to stir him; he drew away from me with a sigh, and with his earnest, beautiful face turned up to mine, he whispered: 'I believe you, Joan Carter; I do not know what a 'gentlewoman' is, nor have I ever heard before of Virginia; but on Barsoom no woman lies; if she does not wish to speak the truth she is silent. Where is this Virginia, your country, Joan Carter?' he asked, and it seemed that this fair name of my fair land had never sounded more beautiful than as it fell from those perfect lips on that far-gone day.
'I am of another world,' I answered, 'the great planet Earth, which revolves about our common sun and next within the orbit of your Barsoom, which we know as Mars. How I came here I cannot tell you, for I do not know; but here I am, and since my presence has permitted me to serve Dejar Thoris I am glad that I am here.'
He gazed at me with troubled eyes, long and questioningly. That it was difficult to believe my statement I well knew, nor could I hope that he would do so however much I craved his confidence and respect. I would much rather not have told his anything of my antecedents, but no woman could look into the depth of those eyes and refuse his slightest behest.
Finally he smiled, and, rising, said: 'I shall have to believe even though I cannot understand. I can readily perceive that you are not of the Barsoom of today; you are like us, yet different--but why should I trouble my poor head with such a problem, when my heart tells me that I believe because I wish to believe!'
It was good logic, good, earthly, masculine logic, and if it satisfied his I certainly could pick no flaws in it. As a matter of fact it was about the only kind of logic that could be brought to bear upon my problem. We fell into a general conversation then, asking and answering many questions on each side. He was curious to learn of the customs of my people and displayed a remarkable knowledge of events on Earth. When I questioned his closely on this seeming familiarity with earthly things he laughed, and cried out:
'Why, every school girl on Barsoom knows the geography, and much concerning the fauna and flora, as well as the history of your planet fully as well as of her own. Can we not see everything which takes place upon Earth, as you call it; is it not hanging there in the heavens in plain sight?'
This baffled me, I must confess, fully as much as my statements had confounded him; and I told his so. He then explained in general the instruments his people had used and been perfecting for ages, which permit them to throw upon a screen a perfect image of what is transpiring upon any planet and upon many of the stars. These pictures are so perfect in detail that, when photographed and enlarged, objects no greater than a blade of grass may be distinctly recognized. I afterward, in Helium, saw ma
ny of these pictures, as well as the instruments which produced them.
'If, then, you are so familiar with earthly things,' I asked, 'why is it that you do not recognize me as identical with the inhabitants of that planet?'
He smiled again as one might in bored indulgence of a questioning child.
'Because, Joan Carter,' he replied, 'nearly every planet and star having atmospheric conditions at all approaching those of Barsoom, shows forms of animal life almost identical with you and me; and, further, Earth women, almost without exception, cover their bodies with strange, unsightly pieces of cloth, and their heads with hideous contraptions the purpose of which we have been unable to conceive; while you, when found by the Tharkian warriors, were entirely undisfigured and unadorned.
'The fact that you wore no ornaments is a strong proof of your un-Barsoomian origin, while the absence of grotesque coverings might cause a doubt as to your earthliness.'
I then narrated the details of my departure from the Earth, explaining that my body there lay fully clothed in all the, to him, strange garments of mundane dwellers. At this point Solan returned with our meager belongings and his young Martian protege, who, of course, would have to share the quarters with them.
Solan asked us if we had had a visitor during his absence, and seemed much surprised when we answered in the negative. It seemed that as he had mounted the approach to the upper floors where our quarters were located, he had met Sarkoja descending. We decided that he must have been eavesdropping, but as we could recall nothing of importance that had passed between us we dismissed the matter as of little consequence, merely promising ourselves to be warned to the utmost caution in the future.
Dejar Thoris and I then fell to examining the architecture and decorations of the beautiful chambers of the building we were occupying. He told me that these people had presumably flourished over a hundred thousand years before. They were the early progenitors of his race, but had mixed with the other great race of early Martians, who were very dark, almost black, and also with the reddish yellow race which had flourished at the same time.
These three great divisions of the higher Martians had been forced into a mighty alliance as the drying up of the Martian seas had compelled them to seek the comparatively few and always diminishing fertile areas, and to defend themselves, under new conditions of life, against the wild hordes of green women.
Ages of close relationship and intermarrying had resulted in the race of red women, of which Dejar Thoris was a fair and beautiful son. During the ages of hardships and incessant warring between their own various races, as well as with the green women, and before they had fitted themselves to the changed conditions, much of the high civilization and many of the arts of the fair-haired Martians had become lost; but the red race of today has reached a point where it feels that it has made up in new discoveries and in a more practical civilization for all that lies irretrievably buried with the ancient Barsoomians, beneath the countless intervening ages.
These ancient Martians had been a highly cultivated and literary race, but during the vicissitudes of those trying centuries of readjustment to new conditions, not only did their advancement and production cease entirely, but practically all their archives, records, and literature were lost.
Dejar Thoris related many interesting facts and legends concerning this lost race of noble and kindly people. He said that the city in which we were camping was supposed to have been a center of commerce and culture known as Korad. It had been built upon a beautiful, natural harbor, landlocked by magnificent hills. The little valley on the west front of the city, he explained, was all that remained of the harbor, while the pass through the hills to the old sea bottom had been the channel through which the shipping passed up to the city's gates.
The shores of the ancient seas were dotted with just such cities, and lesser ones, in diminishing numbers, were to be found converging toward the center of the oceans, as the people had found it necessary to follow the receding waters until necessity had forced upon them their ultimate salvation, the so-called Martian canals.
We had been so engrossed in exploration of the building and in our conversation that it was late in the afternoon before we realized it. We were brought back to a realization of our present conditions by a messenger bearing a summons from Lorqua Ptomel directing me to appear before her forthwith. Bidding Dejar Thoris and Solan farewell, and commanding Woolan to remain on guard, I hastened to the audience chamber, where I found Lorqua Ptomel and Tara Tarkas seated upon the rostrum.
A Princess of Mars Rethroned Page 12