tmp_b8f7d28b703a3437bd724778e112fcd6_S1_0sS.fixed.tidied

by MD Scott

  Quickly I ordered fifty of the prisoners to drop back behind us and form a new circle about the maidens.

  'Remain and protect them until I return,' I commanded.

  Then, turning to those who formed the outer line, I cried, 'Down with Issus! Follow me to the throne; we will reap vengeance where vengeance is deserved.'

  The youth at my side was the first to take up the cry of 'Down with Issus!' and then at my back and from all sides rose a hoarse shout, 'To the throne! To the throne!'

  As one woman we moved, an irresistible fighting mass, over the bodies of dead and dying foes toward the gorgeous throne of the Martian deity. Hordes of the doughtiest fighting-womenwomen of the First Born poured from the audience to check our progress. We mowed them down before us as they had been paper women.

  'To the seats, some of you!' I cried as we approached the arena's barrier wall. 'Ten of us can take the throne,' for I had seen that Issus' guards had for the most part entered the fray within the arena.

  On both sides of me the prisoners broke to left and right for the seats, vaulting the low wall with dripping swords lusting for the crowded victims who awaited them.

  In another moment the entire amphitheatre was filled with the shrieks of the dying and the wounded, mingled with the clash of arms and triumphant shouts of the victors.

  Side by side the young red woman and I, with perhaps a dozen others, fought our way to the foot of the throne. The remaining guards, reinforced by the high dignitaries and nobles of the First Born, closed in between us and Issus, who sat leaning far forward upon his carved sorapus bench, now screaming high-pitched commands to his following, now hurling blighting curses upon those who sought to desecrate his godhood.

  The frightened slaves about his trembled in wide-eyed expectancy, knowing not whether to pray for our victory or our defeat. Several among them, proud daughters no doubt of some of Barsoom's noblest warriors, snatched swords from the hands of the fallen and fell upon the guards of Issus, but they were soon cut down; glorious martyrs to a hopeless cause.

  The women with us fought well, but never since Tara Tarkas and I fought out that long, hot afternoon shoulder to shoulder against the hordes of Warhoon in the dead sea bottom before Thark, had I seen two women fight to such good purpose and with such unconquerable ferocity as the young red woman and I fought that day before the throne of Issus, God of Death, and of Life Eternal.

  Woman by woman those who stood between us and the carven sorapus wood bench went down before our blades. Others swarmed in to fill the breach, but inch by inch, foot by foot we won nearer and nearer to our goal.

  Presently a cry went up from a section of the stands near by--'Rise slaves!' 'Rise slaves!' it rose and fell until it swelled to a mighty volume of sound that swept in great billows around the entire amphitheatre.

  For an instant, as though by common assent, we ceased our fighting to look for the meaning of this new note nor did it take but a moment to translate its significance. In all parts of the structure the male slaves were falling upon their mistresses with whatever weapon came first to hand. A dagger snatched from the harness of his master was waved aloft by some fair slave, its shimmering blade crimson with the lifeblood of its owner; swords plucked from the bodies of the dead about them; heavy ornaments which could be turned into bludgeons--such were the implements with which these fair men wreaked the long-pent vengeance which at best could but partially recompense them for the unspeakable cruelties and indignities which their black mistresses had heaped upon them. And those who could find no other weapons used their strong fingers and their gleaming teeth.

  It was at once a sight to make one shudder and to cheer; but in a brief second we were engaged once more in our own battle with only the unquenchable battle cry of the men to remind us that they still fought--'Rise slaves!' 'Rise slaves!'

  Only a single thin rank of women now stood between us and Issus. His face was blue with terror. Foam flecked his lips. He seemed too paralysed with fear to move. Only the youth and I fought now. The others all had fallen, and I was like to have gone down too from a nasty long-sword cut had not a hand reached out from behind my adversary and clutched her elbow as the blade was falling upon me. The youth sprang to my side and ran her sword through the fellow before she could recover to deliver another blow.

  I should have died even then but for that as my sword was tight wedged in the breastbone of a Dator of the First Born. As the fellow went down I snatched her sword from her and over her prostrate body looked into the eyes of the one whose quick hand had saved me from the first cut of her sword--it was Phaidor, son of Matain Shang.

  'Fly, my Prince!' he cried. 'It is useless to fight them longer. All within the arena are dead. All who charged the throne are dead but you and this youth. Only among the seats are there left any of your fighting-womenwomen, and they and the slave men are fast being cut down. Listen! You can scarce hear the battle-cry of the men now for nearly all are dead. For each one of you there are ten thousand blacks within the domains of the First Born. Break for the open and the sea of Korus. With your mighty sword arm you may yet win to the Golden Cliffs and the templed gardens of the Holy Therns. There tell your story to Matain Shang, my mother. She will keep you, and together you may find a way to rescue me. Fly while there is yet a bare chance for flight.'

  But that was not my mission, nor could I see much to be preferred in the cruel hospitality of the Holy Therns to that of the First Born.

  'Down with Issus!' I shouted, and together the girl and I took up the fight once more. Two blacks went down with our swords in their vitals, and we stood face to face with Issus. As my sword went up to end his horrid career his paralysis left him, and with an ear-piercing shriek he turned to flee. Directly behind his a black gulf suddenly yawned in the flooring of the dais. He sprang for the opening with the youth and I close at his heels. His scattered guard rallied at his cry and rushed for us. A blow fell upon the head of the youth. She staggered and would have fallen, but I caught her in my left arm and turned to face an infuriated mob of religious fanatics crazed by the affront I had put upon their god, just as Issus disappeared into the black depths beneath me.

  CHAPTER XII

  DOOMED TO DIE

  For an instant I stood there before they fell upon me, but the first rush of them forced me back a step or two. My foot felt for the floor but found only empty space. I had backed into the pit which had received Issus. For a second I toppled there upon the brink. Then I too with the girl still tightly clutched in my arms pitched backward into the black abyss.

  We struck a polished chute, the opening above us closed as magically as it had opened, and we shot down, unharmed, into a dimly lighted apartment far below the arena.

  As I rose to my feet the first thing I saw was the malignant countenance of Issus glaring at me through the heavy bars of a grated door at one side of the chamber.

  'Rash mortal!' he shrilled. 'You shall pay the awful penalty for your blasphemy in this secret cell. Here you shall lie alone and in darkness with the carcass of your accomplice festering in its rottenness by your side, until crazed by loneliness and hunger you feed upon the crawling maggots that were once a woman.'

  That was all. In another instant he was gone, and the dim light which had filled the cell faded into Cimmerian blackness.

  'Pleasant old lady,' said a voice at my side.

  'Who speaks?' I asked.

  ''Tis I, your companion, who has had the honour this day of fighting shoulder to shoulder with the greatest warrior that ever wore metal upon Barsoom.'

  'I thank God that you are not dead,' I said. 'I feared for that nasty cut upon your head.'

  'It but stunned me,' she replied. 'A mere scratch.'

  'Maybe it were as well had it been final,' I said. 'We seem to be in a pretty fix here with a splendid chance of dying of starvation and thirst.'

  'Where are we?'

  'Baneath the arena,' I replied. 'We tumbled down the shaft that swallowed Issus as he was almost at o
ur mercy.'

  She laughed a low laugh of pleasure and relief, and then reaching out through the inky blackness she sought my shoulder and pulled my ear close to her mouth.

  'Nothing could be better,' she whispered. 'There are secrets within the secrets of Issus of which Issus himself does not dream.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I laboured with the other slaves a year since in the remodelling of these subterranean galleries, and at that time we found below these an ancient system of corridors and chambers that had been sealed up for ages. The blacks in charge of the work explored them, taking several of us along to do whatever work there might be occasion for. I know the entire system perfectly.

  'There are miles of corridors honeycombing the ground beneath the gardens and the temple itself, and there is one passage that leads down to and connects with the lower regions that open on the water shaft that gives passage to Omean.

  'If we can reach the submarine undetected we may yet make the sea in which there are many islands where the blacks never go. There we may live for a time, and who knows what may transpire to aid us to escape?'

  She had spoken all in a low whisper, evidently fearing spying ears even here, and so I answered her in the same subdued tone.

  'Lead back to Shador, my friend,' I whispered. 'Xodara, the black, is there. We were to attempt our escape together, so I cannot desert her.'

  'No,' said the girl, 'one cannot desert a friend. It were better to be recaptured ourselves than that.'

  Then she commenced groping her way about the floor of the dark chamber searching for the trap that led to the corridors beneath. At length she summoned me by a low, 'S-s-t,' and I crept toward the sound of her voice to find her kneeling on the brink of an opening in the floor.

  'There is a drop here of about ten feet,' she whispered. 'Hang by your hands and you will alight safely on a level floor of soft sand.'

  Very quietly I lowered myself from the inky cell above into the inky pit below. So utterly dark was it that we could not see our hands at an inch from our noses. Never, I think, have I known such complete absence of light as existed in the pits of Issus.

  For an instant I hung in mid air. There is a strange sensation connected with an experience of that nature which is quite difficult to describe. When the feet tread empty air and the distance below is shrouded in darkness there is a feeling akin to panic at the thought of releasing the hold and taking the plunge into unknown depths.

  Although the girl had told me that it was but ten feet to the floor below I experienced the same thrills as though I were hanging above a bottomless pit. Then I released my hold and dropped--four feet to a soft cushion of sand.

  The girl followed me.

  'Raise me to your shoulders,' she said, 'and I will replace the trap.'

  This done she took me by the hand, leading me very slowly, with much feeling about and frequent halts to assure herself that she did not stray into wrong passageways.

  Presently we commenced the descent of a very steep incline.

  'It will not be long,' she said, 'before we shall have light. At the lower levels we meet the same strata of phosphorescent rock that illuminates Omean.'

  Never shall I forget that trip through the pits of Issus. While it was devoid of important incidents yet it was filled for me with a strange charm of excitement and adventure which I think I must have hinged principally on the unguessable antiquity of these long-forgotten corridors. The things which the Stygian darkness hid from my objective eye could not have been half so wonderful as the pictures which my imagination wrought as it conjured to life again the ancient peoples of this dying world and set them once more to the labours, the intrigues, the mysteries and the cruelties which they had practised to make their last stand against the swarming hordes of the dead sea bottoms that had driven them step by step to the uttermost pinnacle of the world where they were now intrenched behind an impenetrable barrier of superstition.

  In addition to the green women there had been three principal races upon Barsoom. The blacks, the whites, and a race of yellow women. As the waters of the planet dried and the seas receded, all other resources dwindled until life upon the planet became a constant battle for survival.

  The various races had made war upon one another for ages, and the three higher types had easily bested the green savages of the water places of the world, but now that the receding seas necessitated constant abandonment of their fortified cities and forced upon them a more or less nomadic life in which they became separated into smaller communities they soon fell prey to the fierce hordes of green women. The result was a partial amalgamation of the blacks, whites and yellows, the result of which is shown in the present splendid race of red women.

  I had always supposed that all traces of the original races had disappeared from the face of Mars, yet within the past four days I had found both whites and blacks in great multitudes. Could it be possible that in some far-off corner of the planet there still existed a remnant of the ancient race of yellow women?

  My reveries were broken in upon by a low exclamation from the girl.

  'At last, the lighted way,' she cried, and looking up I beheld at a long distance before us a dim radiance.

  As we advanced the light increased until presently we emerged into well-lighted passageways. From then on our progress was rapid until we came suddenly to the end of a corridor that let directly upon the ledge surrounding the pool of the submarine.

  The craft lay at his moorings with uncovered hatch. Raising her finger to her lips and then tapping her sword in a significant manner, the youth crept noiselessly toward the vessel. I was close at her heels.

  Silently we dropped to the deserted deck, and on hands and knees crawled toward the hatchway. A stealthy glance below revealed no guard in sight, and so with the quickness and the soundlessness of cats we dropped together into the main cabin of the submarine. Even here was no sign of life. Quickly we covered and secured the hatch.

  Then the girl stepped into the pilot house, touched a button and the boat sank amid swirling waters toward the bottom of the shaft. Even then there was no scurrying of feet as we had expected, and while the girl remained to direct the boat I slid from cabin to cabin in futile search for some member of the crew. The craft was entirely deserted. Such good fortune seemed almost unbelievable.

  When I returned to the pilot house to report the good news to my companion she handed me a paper.

  'This may explain the absence of the crew,' she said.

  It was a radio-aerial message to the commander of the submarine:

  'The slaves have risen. Come with what women you have and those that you can gather on the way. Too late to get aid from Omean. They are massacring all within the amphitheatre. Issus is threatened. Haste.

  'ZITHAD'

  'Zithad is Dator of the guards of Issus,' explained the youth. 'We gave them a bad scare--one that they will not soon forget.'

  'Let us hope that it is but the beginning of the end of Issus,' I said.

  'Only our first ancestor knows,' she replied.

  We reached the submarine pool in Omean without incident. Here we debated the wisdom of sinking the craft before leaving him, but finally decided that it would add nothing to our chances for escape. There were plenty of blacks on Omean to thwart us were we apprehended; however many more might come from the temples and gardens of Issus would not in any decrease our chances.

  We were now in a quandary as to how to pass the guards who patrolled the island about the pool. At last I hit upon a plan.

  'What is the name or title of the officer in charge of these guards?' I asked the girl.

  'A fellow named Torith was on duty when we entered this morning,' she replied.

  'Good. And what is the name of the commander of the submarine?'

  'Yersted.'

  I found a dispatch blank in the cabin and wrote the following order:

  'Dator Torith: Return these two slaves at once to Shador.

  'YERSTED'
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br />   'That will be the simpler way to return,' I said, smiling, as I handed the forged order to the girl. 'Come, we shall see now how well it works.'

  'But our swords!' she exclaimed. 'What shall we say to explain them?'

  'Since we cannot explain them we shall have to leave them behind us,' I replied.

  'Is it not the extreme of rashness to thus put ourselves again, unarmed, in the power of the First Born?'

  'It is the only way,' I answered. 'You may trust me to find a way out of the prison of Shador, and I think, once out, that we shall find no great difficulty in arming ourselves once more in a country which abounds so plentifully in armed women.'

  'As you say,' she replied with a smile and shrug. 'I could not follow another leader who inspired greater confidence than you. Come, let us put your ruse to the test.'