CHAPTER III
THE CHAMBER OF MYSTERY
For moments after that awful laugh had ceased reverberating through therocky room, Tars Tarkas and I stood in tense and expectant silence.But no further sound broke the stillness, nor within the range of ourvision did aught move.
At length Tars Tarkas laughed softly, after the manner of his strangekind when in the presence of the horrible or terrifying. It is not anhysterical laugh, but rather the genuine expression of the pleasurethey derive from the things that move Earth men to loathing or to tears.
Often and again have I seen them roll upon the ground in mad fits ofuncontrollable mirth when witnessing the death agonies of women andlittle children beneath the torture of that hellish green Martianfete--the Great Games.
I looked up at the Thark, a smile upon my own lips, for here in truthwas greater need for a smiling face than a trembling chin.
"What do you make of it all?" I asked. "Where in the deuce are we?"
He looked at me in surprise.
"Where are we?" he repeated. "Do you tell me, John Carter, that youknow not where you be?"
"That I am upon Barsoom is all that I can guess, and but for you andthe great white apes I should not even guess that, for the sights Ihave seen this day are as unlike the things of my beloved Barsoom as Iknew it ten long years ago as they are unlike the world of my birth.
"No, Tars Tarkas, I know not where we be."
"Where have you been since you opened the mighty portals of theatmosphere plant years ago, after the keeper had died and the enginesstopped and all Barsoom was dying, that had not already died, ofasphyxiation? Your body even was never found, though the men of awhole world sought after it for years, though the Jeddak of Helium andhis granddaughter, your princess, offered such fabulous rewards thateven princes of royal blood joined in the search.
"There was but one conclusion to reach when all efforts to locate youhad failed, and that, that you had taken the long, last pilgrimage downthe mysterious River Iss, to await in the Valley Dor upon the shores ofthe Lost Sea of Korus the beautiful Dejah Thoris, your princess.
"Why you had gone none could guess, for your princess still lived--"
"Thank God," I interrupted him. "I did not dare to ask you, for Ifeared I might have been too late to save her--she was very low when Ileft her in the royal gardens of Tardos Mors that long-gone night; sovery low that I scarcely hoped even then to reach the atmosphere plantere her dear spirit had fled from me for ever. And she lives yet?"
"She lives, John Carter."
"You have not told me where we are," I reminded him.
"We are where I expected to find you, John Carter--and another. Manyyears ago you heard the story of the woman who taught me the thing thatgreen Martians are reared to hate, the woman who taught me to love.You know the cruel tortures and the awful death her love won for her atthe hands of the beast, Tal Hajus.
"She, I thought, awaited me by the Lost Sea of Korus.
"You know that it was left for a man from another world, for yourself,John Carter, to teach this cruel Thark what friendship is; and you, Ithought, also roamed the care-free Valley Dor.
"Thus were the two I most longed for at the end of the long pilgrimageI must take some day, and so as the time had elapsed which Dejah Thorishad hoped might bring you once more to her side, for she has alwaystried to believe that you had but temporarily returned to your ownplanet, I at last gave way to my great yearning and a month since Istarted upon the journey, the end of which you have this day witnessed.Do you understand now where you be, John Carter?"
"And that was the River Iss, emptying into the Lost Sea of Korus in theValley Dor?" I asked.
"This is the valley of love and peace and rest to which everyBarsoomian since time immemorial has longed to pilgrimage at the end ofa life of hate and strife and bloodshed," he replied. "This, JohnCarter, is Heaven."
His tone was cold and ironical; its bitterness but reflecting theterrible disappointment he had suffered. Such a fearfuldisillusionment, such a blasting of life-long hopes and aspirations,such an uprooting of age-old tradition might have excused a vastlygreater demonstration on the part of the Thark.
I laid my hand upon his shoulder.
"I am sorry," I said, nor did there seem aught else to say.
"Think, John Carter, of the countless billions of Barsoomians who havetaken the voluntary pilgrimage down this cruel river since thebeginning of time, only to fall into the ferocious clutches of theterrible creatures that to-day assailed us.
"There is an ancient legend that once a red man returned from the banksof the Lost Sea of Korus, returned from the Valley Dor, back throughthe mysterious River Iss, and the legend has it that he narrated afearful blasphemy of horrid brutes that inhabited a valley of wondrousloveliness, brutes that pounced upon each Barsoomian as he terminatedhis pilgrimage and devoured him upon the banks of the Lost Sea where hehad looked to find love and peace and happiness; but the ancientskilled the blasphemer, as tradition has ordained that any shall bekilled who return from the bosom of the River of Mystery.
"But now we know that it was no blasphemy, that the legend is a trueone, and that the man told only of what he saw; but what does it profitus, John Carter, since even should we escape, we also would be treatedas blasphemers? We are between the wild thoat of certainty and the madzitidar of fact--we can escape neither."
"As Earth men say, we are between the devil and the deep sea, TarsTarkas," I replied, nor could I help but smile at our dilemma.
"There is naught that we can do but take things as they come, and atleast have the satisfaction of knowing that whoever slays us eventuallywill have far greater numbers of their own dead to count than they willget in return. White ape or plant man, green Barsoomian or red man,whosoever it shall be that takes the last toll from us will know thatit is costly in lives to wipe out John Carter, Prince of the House ofTardos Mors, and Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, at the same time."
I could not help but laugh at his grim humour, and he joined in with mein one of those rare laughs of real enjoyment which was one of theattributes of this fierce Tharkian chief which marked him from theothers of his kind.
"But about yourself, John Carter," he cried at last. "If you have notbeen here all these years where indeed have you been, and how is itthat I find you here to-day?"
"I have been back to Earth," I replied. "For ten long Earth years Ihave been praying and hoping for the day that would carry me once moreto this grim old planet of yours, for which, with all its cruel andterrible customs, I feel a bond of sympathy and love even greater thanfor the world that gave me birth.
"For ten years have I been enduring a living death of uncertainty anddoubt as to whether Dejah Thoris lived, and now that for the first timein all these years my prayers have been answered and my doubt relievedI find myself, through a cruel whim of fate, hurled into the one tinyspot of all Barsoom from which there is apparently no escape, and ifthere were, at a price which would put out for ever the last flickeringhope which I may cling to of seeing my princess again in this life--andyou have seen to-day with what pitiful futility man yearns toward amaterial hereafter.
"Only a bare half-hour before I saw you battling with the plant men Iwas standing in the moonlight upon the banks of a broad river that tapsthe eastern shore of Earth's most blessed land. I have answered you,my friend. Do you believe?"
"I believe," replied Tars Tarkas, "though I cannot understand."
As we talked I had been searching the interior of the chamber with myeyes. It was, perhaps, two hundred feet in length and half as broad,with what appeared to be a doorway in the centre of the wall directlyopposite that through which we had entered.
The apartment was hewn from the material of the cliff, showing mostlydull gold in the dim light which a single minute radium illuminator inthe centre of the roof diffused throughout its great dimensions. Hereand there polished surfaces of ruby, emerald, and diamond patched thegolden walls and ceiling. The f
loor was of another material, veryhard, and worn by much use to the smoothness of glass. Aside from thetwo doors I could discern no sign of other aperture, and as one we knewto be locked against us I approached the other.
As I extended my hand to search for the controlling button, that crueland mocking laugh rang out once more, so close to me this time that Iinvoluntarily shrank back, tightening my grip upon the hilt of my greatsword.
And then from the far corner of the great chamber a hollow voicechanted: "There is no hope, there is no hope; the dead return not, thedead return not; nor is there any resurrection. Hope not, for there isno hope."
Though our eyes instantly turned toward the spot from which the voiceseemed to emanate, there was no one in sight, and I must admit thatcold shivers played along my spine and the short hairs at the base ofmy head stiffened and rose up, as do those upon a hound's neck when inthe night his eyes see those uncanny things which are hidden from thesight of man.
Quickly I walked toward the mournful voice, but it had ceased ere Ireached the further wall, and then from the other end of the chambercame another voice, shrill and piercing:
"Fools! Fools!" it shrieked. "Thinkest thou to defeat the eternallaws of life and death? Wouldst cheat the mysterious Issus, Goddess ofDeath, of her just dues? Did not her mighty messenger, the ancientIss, bear you upon her leaden bosom at your own behest to the ValleyDor?
"Thinkest thou, O fools, that Issus wilt give up her own? Thinkestthou to escape from whence in all the countless ages but a single soulhas fled?
"Go back the way thou camest, to the merciful maws of the children ofthe Tree of Life or the gleaming fangs of the great white apes, forthere lies speedy surcease from suffering; but insist in your rashpurpose to thread the mazes of the Golden Cliffs of the Mountains ofOtz, past the ramparts of the impregnable fortresses of the HolyTherns, and upon your way Death in its most frightful form willovertake you--a death so horrible that even the Holy Therns themselves,who conceived both Life and Death, avert their eyes from itsfiendishness and close their ears against the hideous shrieks of itsvictims.
"Go back, O fools, the way thou camest."
And then the awful laugh broke out from another part of the chamber.
"Most uncanny," I remarked, turning to Tars Tarkas.
"What shall we do?" he asked. "We cannot fight empty air; I wouldalmost sooner return and face foes into whose flesh I may feel my bladebite and know that I am selling my carcass dearly before I go down tothat eternal oblivion which is evidently the fairest and most desirableeternity that mortal man has the right to hope for."
"If, as you say, we cannot fight empty air, Tars Tarkas," I replied,"neither, on the other hand, can empty air fight us. I, who have facedand conquered in my time thousands of sinewy warriors and temperedblades, shall not be turned back by wind; nor no more shall you, Thark."
"But unseen voices may emanate from unseen and unseeable creatures whowield invisible blades," answered the green warrior.
"Rot, Tars Tarkas," I cried, "those voices come from beings as real asyou or as I. In their veins flows lifeblood that may be let as easilyas ours, and the fact that they remain invisible to us is the bestproof to my mind that they are mortal; nor overly courageous mortals atthat. Think you, Tars Tarkas, that John Carter will fly at the firstshriek of a cowardly foe who dare not come out into the open and face agood blade?"
I had spoken in a loud voice that there might be no question that ourwould-be terrorizers should hear me, for I was tiring of thisnerve-racking fiasco. It had occurred to me, too, that the wholebusiness was but a plan to frighten us back into the valley of deathfrom which we had escaped, that we might be quickly disposed of by thesavage creatures there.
For a long period there was silence, then of a sudden a soft, stealthysound behind me caused me to turn suddenly to behold a greatmany-legged banth creeping sinuously upon me.
The banth is a fierce beast of prey that roams the low hillssurrounding the dead seas of ancient Mars. Like nearly all Martiananimals it is almost hairless, having only a great bristly mane aboutits thick neck.
Its long, lithe body is supported by ten powerful legs, its enormousjaws are equipped, like those of the calot, or Martian hound, withseveral rows of long needle-like fangs; its mouth reaches to a pointfar back of its tiny ears, while its enormous, protruding eyes of greenadd the last touch of terror to its awful aspect.
As it crept toward me it lashed its powerful tail against its yellowsides, and when it saw that it was discovered it emitted the terrifyingroar which often freezes its prey into momentary paralysis in theinstant that it makes its spring.
And so it launched its great bulk toward me, but its mighty voice hadheld no paralysing terrors for me, and it met cold steel instead of thetender flesh its cruel jaws gaped so widely to engulf.
An instant later I drew my blade from the still heart of this greatBarsoomian lion, and turning toward Tars Tarkas was surprised to seehim facing a similar monster.
No sooner had he dispatched his than I, turning, as though drawn by theinstinct of my guardian subconscious mind, beheld another of the savagedenizens of the Martian wilds leaping across the chamber toward me.
From then on for the better part of an hour one hideous creature afteranother was launched upon us, springing apparently from the empty airabout us.
Tars Tarkas was satisfied; here was something tangible that he couldcut and slash with his great blade, while I, for my part, may say thatthe diversion was a marked improvement over the uncanny voices fromunseen lips.
That there was nothing supernatural about our new foes was wellevidenced by their howls of rage and pain as they felt the sharp steelat their vitals, and the very real blood which flowed from theirsevered arteries as they died the real death.
I noticed during the period of this new persecution that the beastsappeared only when our backs were turned; we never saw one reallymaterialize from thin air, nor did I for an instant sufficiently losemy excellent reasoning faculties to be once deluded into the beliefthat the beasts came into the room other than through some concealedand well-contrived doorway.
Among the ornaments of Tars Tarkas' leather harness, which is the onlymanner of clothing worn by Martians other than silk capes and robes ofsilk and fur for protection from the cold after dark, was a smallmirror, about the bigness of a lady's hand glass, which hung midwaybetween his shoulders and his waist against his broad back.
Once as he stood looking down at a newly fallen antagonist my eyeshappened to fall upon this mirror and in its shiny surface I sawpictured a sight that caused me to whisper:
"Move not, Tars Tarkas! Move not a muscle!"
He did not ask why, but stood like a graven image while my eyes watchedthe strange thing that meant so much to us.
What I saw was the quick movement of a section of the wall behind me.It was turning upon pivots, and with it a section of the floor directlyin front of it was turning. It was as though you placed avisiting-card upon end on a silver dollar that you had laid flat upon atable, so that the edge of the card perfectly bisected the surface ofthe coin.
The card might represent the section of the wall that turned and thesilver dollar the section of the floor. Both were so nicely fittedinto the adjacent portions of the floor and wall that no crack had beennoticeable in the dim light of the chamber.
As the turn was half completed a great beast was revealed sitting uponits haunches upon that part of the revolving floor that had been on theopposite side before the wall commenced to move; when the sectionstopped, the beast was facing toward me on our side of thepartition--it was very simple.
But what had interested me most was the sight that the half-turnedsection had presented through the opening that it had made. A greatchamber, well lighted, in which were several men and women chained tothe wall, and in front of them, evidently directing and operating themovement of the secret doorway, a wicked-faced man, neither red as arethe red men of Mars, nor green as are the green men, but whit
e, likemyself, with a great mass of flowing yellow hair.
The prisoners behind him were red Martians. Chained with them were anumber of fierce beasts, such as had been turned upon us, and othersequally as ferocious.
As I turned to meet my new foe it was with a heart considerablylightened.
"Watch the wall at your end of the chamber, Tars Tarkas," I cautioned,"it is through secret doorways in the wall that the brutes are loosedupon us." I was very close to him and spoke in a low whisper that myknowledge of their secret might not be disclosed to our tormentors.
As long as we remained each facing an opposite end of the apartment nofurther attacks were made upon us, so it was quite clear to me that thepartitions were in some way pierced that our actions might be observedfrom without.
At length a plan of action occurred to me, and backing quite close toTars Tarkas I unfolded my scheme in a low whisper, keeping my eyesstill glued upon my end of the room.
The great Thark grunted his assent to my proposition when I had done,and in accordance with my plan commenced backing toward the wall whichI faced while I advanced slowly ahead of him.
When we had reached a point some ten feet from the secret doorway Ihalted my companion, and cautioning him to remain absolutely motionlessuntil I gave the prearranged signal I quickly turned my back to thedoor through which I could almost feel the burning and baleful eyes ofour would be executioner.
Instantly my own eyes sought the mirror upon Tars Tarkas' back and inanother second I was closely watching the section of the wall which hadbeen disgorging its savage terrors upon us.
I had not long to wait, for presently the golden surface commenced tomove rapidly. Scarcely had it started than I gave the signal to TarsTarkas, simultaneously springing for the receding half of the pivotingdoor. In like manner the Thark wheeled and leaped for the openingbeing made by the inswinging section.
A single bound carried me completely through into the adjoining roomand brought me face to face with the fellow whose cruel face I had seenbefore. He was about my own height and well muscled and in everyoutward detail moulded precisely as are Earth men.
At his side hung a long-sword, a short-sword, a dagger, and one of thedestructive radium revolvers that are common upon Mars.
The fact that I was armed only with a long-sword, and so according tothe laws and ethics of battle everywhere upon Barsoom should only havebeen met with a similar or lesser weapon, seemed to have no effect uponthe moral sense of my enemy, for he whipped out his revolver ere Iscarce had touched the floor by his side, but an uppercut from mylong-sword sent it flying from his grasp before he could discharge it.
Instantly he drew his long-sword, and thus evenly armed we set to inearnest for one of the closest battles I ever have fought.
The fellow was a marvellous swordsman and evidently in practice, whileI had not gripped the hilt of a sword for ten long years before thatmorning.
But it did not take me long to fall easily into my fighting stride, sothat in a few minutes the man began to realize that he had at last methis match.
His face became livid with rage as he found my guard impregnable, whileblood flowed from a dozen minor wounds upon his face and body.
"Who are you, white man?" he hissed. "That you are no Barsoomian fromthe outer world is evident from your colour. And you are not of us."
His last statement was almost a question.
"What if I were from the Temple of Issus?" I hazarded on a wild guess.
"Fate forfend!" he exclaimed, his face going white under the blood thatnow nearly covered it.
I did not know how to follow up my lead, but I carefully laid the ideaaway for future use should circumstances require it. His answerindicated that for all he KNEW I might be from the Temple of Issus andin it were men like unto myself, and either this man feared the inmatesof the temple or else he held their persons or their power in suchreverence that he trembled to think of the harm and indignities he hadheaped upon one of them.
But my present business with him was of a different nature than thatwhich requires any considerable abstract reasoning; it was to get mysword between his ribs, and this I succeeded in doing within the nextfew seconds, nor was I an instant too soon.
The chained prisoners had been watching the combat in tense silence;not a sound had fallen in the room other than the clashing of ourcontending blades, the soft shuffling of our naked feet and the fewwhispered words we had hissed at each other through clenched teeth thewhile we continued our mortal duel.
But as the body of my antagonist sank an inert mass to the floor a cryof warning broke from one of the female prisoners.
"Turn! Turn! Behind you!" she shrieked, and as I wheeled at the firstnote of her shrill cry I found myself facing a second man of the samerace as he who lay at my feet.
The fellow had crept stealthily from a dark corridor and was almostupon me with raised sword ere I saw him. Tars Tarkas was nowhere insight and the secret panel in the wall, through which I had come, wasclosed.
How I wished that he were by my side now! I had fought almostcontinuously for many hours; I had passed through such experiences andadventures as must sap the vitality of man, and with all this I had noteaten for nearly twenty-four hours, nor slept.
I was fagged out, and for the first time in years felt a question as tomy ability to cope with an antagonist; but there was naught else for itthan to engage my man, and that as quickly and ferociously as lay inme, for my only salvation was to rush him off his feet by theimpetuosity of my attack--I could not hope to win a long-drawn-outbattle.
But the fellow was evidently of another mind, for he backed and parriedand parried and sidestepped until I was almost completely fagged fromthe exertion of attempting to finish him.
He was a more adroit swordsman, if possible, than my previous foe, andI must admit that he led me a pretty chase and in the end came near tomaking a sorry fool of me--and a dead one into the bargain.
I could feel myself growing weaker and weaker, until at length objectscommenced to blur before my eyes and I staggered and blundered aboutmore asleep than awake, and then it was that he worked his prettylittle coup that came near to losing me my life.
He had backed me around so that I stood in front of the corpse of hisfellow, and then he rushed me suddenly so that I was forced back uponit, and as my heel struck it the impetus of my body flung me backwardacross the dead man.
My head struck the hard pavement with a resounding whack, and to thatalone I owe my life, for it cleared my brain and the pain roused mytemper, so that I was equal for the moment to tearing my enemy topieces with my bare hands, and I verily believe that I should haveattempted it had not my right hand, in the act of raising my body fromthe ground, come in contact with a bit of cold metal.
As the eyes of the layman so is the hand of the fighting man when itcomes in contact with an implement of his vocation, and thus I did notneed to look or reason to know that the dead man's revolver, lyingwhere it had fallen when I struck it from his grasp, was at my disposal.
The fellow whose ruse had put me down was springing toward me, thepoint of his gleaming blade directed straight at my heart, and as hecame there rang from his lips the cruel and mocking peal of laughterthat I had heard within the Chamber of Mystery.
And so he died, his thin lips curled in the snarl of his hateful laugh,and a bullet from the revolver of his dead companion bursting in hisheart.
His body, borne by the impetus of his headlong rush, plunged upon me.The hilt of his sword must have struck my head, for with the impact ofthe corpse I lost consciousness.