CHAPTER VI
THE BLACK PIRATES OF BARSOOM
"What is it?" I asked of the girl.
For answer she pointed to the sky.
I looked, and there, above us, I saw shadowy bodies flitting hither andthither high over temple, court, and garden.
Almost immediately flashes of light broke from these strange objects.There was a roar of musketry, and then answering flashes and roars fromtemple and rampart.
"The black pirates of Barsoom, O Prince," said Thuvia.
In great circles the air craft of the marauders swept lower and lowertoward the defending forces of the therns.
Volley after volley they vomited upon the temple guards; volley onvolley crashed through the thin air toward the fleeting and illusivefliers.
As the pirates swooped closer toward the ground, thern soldiery pouredfrom the temples into the gardens and courts. The sight of them in theopen brought a score of fliers darting toward us from all directions.
The therns fired upon them through shields affixed to their rifles, buton, steadily on, came the grim, black craft. They were small fliersfor the most part, built for two to three men. A few larger ones therewere, but these kept high aloft dropping bombs upon the temples fromtheir keel batteries.
At length, with a concerted rush, evidently in response to a signal ofcommand, the pirates in our immediate vicinity dashed recklessly to theground in the very midst of the thern soldiery.
Scarcely waiting for their craft to touch, the creatures manning themleaped among the therns with the fury of demons. Such fighting! Neverhad I witnessed its like before. I had thought the green Martians themost ferocious warriors in the universe, but the awful abandon withwhich the black pirates threw themselves upon their foes transcendedeverything I ever before had seen.
Beneath the brilliant light of Mars' two glorious moons the whole scenepresented itself in vivid distinctness. The golden-haired,white-skinned therns battling with desperate courage in hand-to-handconflict with their ebony-skinned foemen.
Here a little knot of struggling warriors trampled a bed of gorgeouspimalia; there the curved sword of a black man found the heart of athern and left its dead foeman at the foot of a wondrous statue carvedfrom a living ruby; yonder a dozen therns pressed a single pirate backupon a bench of emerald, upon whose iridescent surface a strangelybeautiful Barsoomian design was traced out in inlaid diamonds.
A little to one side stood Thuvia, the Thark, and I. The tide ofbattle had not reached us, but the fighters from time to time swungclose enough that we might distinctly note them.
The black pirates interested me immensely. I had heard vague rumours,little more than legends they were, during my former life on Mars; butnever had I seen them, nor talked with one who had.
They were popularly supposed to inhabit the lesser moon, from whichthey descended upon Barsoom at long intervals. Where they visited theywrought the most horrible atrocities, and when they left carried awaywith them firearms and ammunition, and young girls as prisoners. Theselatter, the rumour had it, they sacrificed to some terrible god in anorgy which ended in the eating of their victims.
I had an excellent opportunity to examine them, as the strifeoccasionally brought now one and now another close to where I stood.They were large men, possibly six feet and over in height. Theirfeatures were clear cut and handsome in the extreme; their eyes werewell set and large, though a slight narrowness lent them a craftyappearance; the iris, as well as I could determine by moonlight, was ofextreme blackness, while the eyeball itself was quite white and clear.The physical structure of their bodies seemed identical with those ofthe therns, the red men, and my own. Only in the colour of their skindid they differ materially from us; that is of the appearance ofpolished ebony, and odd as it may seem for a Southerner to say it, addsto rather than detracts from their marvellous beauty.
But if their bodies are divine, their hearts, apparently, are quite thereverse. Never did I witness such a malign lust for blood as thesedemons of the outer air evinced in their mad battle with the therns.
All about us in the garden lay their sinister craft, which the thernsfor some reason, then unaccountable to me, made no effort to injure.Now and again a black warrior would rush from a nearby temple bearinga young woman in his arms. Straight for his flier he would leap whilethose of his comrades who fought near by would rush to cover his escape.
The therns on their side would hasten to rescue the girl, and in aninstant the two would be swallowed in the vortex of a maelstrom ofyelling devils, hacking and hewing at one another, like fiendsincarnate.
But always, it seemed, were the black pirates of Barsoom victorious,and the girl, brought miraculously unharmed through the conflict, borneaway into the outer darkness upon the deck of a swift flier.
Fighting similar to that which surrounded us could be heard in bothdirections as far as sound carried, and Thuvia told me that the attacksof the black pirates were usually made simultaneously along the entireribbon-like domain of the therns, which circles the Valley Dor on theouter slopes of the Mountains of Otz.
As the fighting receded from our position for a moment, Thuvia turnedtoward me with a question.
"Do you understand now, O Prince," she said, "why a million warriorsguard the domains of the Holy Therns by day and by night?"
"The scene you are witnessing now is but a repetition of what I haveseen enacted a score of times during the fifteen years I have been aprisoner here. From time immemorial the black pirates of Barsoom havepreyed upon the Holy Therns.
"Yet they never carry their expeditions to a point, as one mightreadily believe it was in their power to do, where the extermination ofthe race of therns is threatened. It is as though they but utilizedthe race as playthings, with which they satisfy their ferocious lustfor fighting; and from whom they collect toll in arms and ammunitionand in prisoners."
"Why don't they jump in and destroy these fliers?" I asked. "Thatwould soon put a stop to the attacks, or at least the blacks wouldscarce be so bold. Why, see how perfectly unguarded they leave theircraft, as though they were lying safe in their own hangars at home."
"The therns do not dare. They tried it once, ages ago, but the nextnight and for a whole moon thereafter a thousand great blackbattleships circled the Mountains of Otz, pouring tons of projectilesupon the temples, the gardens, and the courts, until every thern whowas not killed was driven for safety into the subterranean galleries.
"The therns know that they live at all only by the sufferance of theblack men. They were near to extermination that once and they will notventure risking it again."
As she ceased talking a new element was instilled into the conflict.It came from a source equally unlooked for by either thern or pirate.The great banths which we had liberated in the garden had evidentlybeen awed at first by the sound of the battle, the yelling of thewarriors and the loud report of rifle and bomb.
But now they must have become angered by the continuous noise andexcited by the smell of new blood, for all of a sudden a great formshot from a clump of low shrubbery into the midst of a struggling massof humanity. A horrid scream of bestial rage broke from the banth ashe felt warm flesh beneath his powerful talons.
As though his cry was but a signal to the others, the entire great packhurled themselves among the fighters. Panic reigned in an instant.Thern and black man turned alike against the common enemy, for thebanths showed no partiality toward either.
The awful beasts bore down a hundred men by the mere weight of theirgreat bodies as they hurled themselves into the thick of the fight.Leaping and clawing, they mowed down the warriors with their powerfulpaws, turning for an instant to rend their victims with frightful fangs.
The scene was fascinating in its terribleness, but suddenly it came tome that we were wasting valuable time watching this conflict, which initself might prove a means of our escape.
The therns were so engaged with their terrible assailants that now, ifever, escape should be comparatively
easy. I turned to search for anopening through the contending hordes. If we could but reach theramparts we might find that the pirates somewhere had thinned theguarding forces and left a way open to us to the world without.
As my eyes wandered about the garden, the sight of the hundreds of aircraft lying unguarded around us suggested the simplest avenue tofreedom. Why it had not occurred to me before! I was thoroughlyfamiliar with the mechanism of every known make of flier on Barsoom.For nine years I had sailed and fought with the navy of Helium. I hadraced through space on the tiny one-man air scout and I had commandedthe greatest battleship that ever had floated in the thin air of dyingMars.
To think, with me, is to act. Grasping Thuvia by the arm, I whisperedto Tars Tarkas to follow me. Quickly we glided toward a small flierwhich lay furthest from the battling warriors. Another instant foundus huddled on the tiny deck. My hand was on the starting lever. Ipressed my thumb upon the button which controls the ray of repulsion,that splendid discovery of the Martians which permits them to navigatethe thin atmosphere of their planet in huge ships that dwarf thedreadnoughts of our earthly navies into pitiful insignificance.
The craft swayed slightly but she did not move. Then a new cry ofwarning broke upon our ears. Turning, I saw a dozen black piratesdashing toward us from the melee. We had been discovered. Withshrieks of rage the demons sprang for us. With frenzied insistence Icontinued to press the little button which should have sent us racingout into space, but still the vessel refused to budge. Then it came tome--the reason that she would not rise.
We had stumbled upon a two-man flier. Its ray tanks were charged onlywith sufficient repulsive energy to lift two ordinary men. The Thark'sgreat weight was anchoring us to our doom.
The blacks were nearly upon us. There was not an instant to be lost inhesitation or doubt.
I pressed the button far in and locked it. Then I set the lever athigh speed and as the blacks came yelling upon us I slipped from thecraft's deck and with drawn long-sword met the attack.
At the same moment a girl's shriek rang out behind me and an instantlater, as the blacks fell upon me. I heard far above my head, andfaintly, in Thuvia's voice: "My Prince, O my Prince; I would ratherremain and die with--" But the rest was lost in the noise of myassailants.
I knew though that my ruse had worked and that temporarily at leastThuvia and Tars Tarkas were safe, and the means of escape was theirs.
For a moment it seemed that I could not withstand the weight of numbersthat confronted me, but again, as on so many other occasions when I hadbeen called upon to face fearful odds upon this planet of warriors andfierce beasts, I found that my earthly strength so far transcended thatof my opponents that the odds were not so greatly against me as theyappeared.
My seething blade wove a net of death about me. For an instant theblacks pressed close to reach me with their shorter swords, butpresently they gave back, and the esteem in which they suddenly hadlearned to hold my sword arm was writ large upon each countenance.
I knew though that it was but a question of minutes before theirgreater numbers would wear me down, or get around my guard. I must godown eventually to certain death before them. I shuddered at thethought of it, dying thus in this terrible place where no word of myend ever could reach my Dejah Thoris. Dying at the hands of namelessblack men in the gardens of the cruel therns.
Then my old-time spirit reasserted itself. The fighting blood of myVirginian sires coursed hot through my veins. The fierce blood lustand the joy of battle surged over me. The fighting smile that hasbrought consternation to a thousand foemen touched my lips. I put thethought of death out of my mind, and fell upon my antagonists with furythat those who escaped will remember to their dying day.
That others would press to the support of those who faced me I knew, soeven as I fought I kept my wits at work, searching for an avenue ofescape.
It came from an unexpected quarter out of the black night behind me. Ihad just disarmed a huge fellow who had given me a desperate struggle,and for a moment the blacks stood back for a breathing spell.
They eyed me with malignant fury, yet withal there was a touch ofrespect in their demeanour.
"Thern," said one, "you fight like a Dator. But for your detestableyellow hair and your white skin you would be an honour to the FirstBorn of Barsoom."
"I am no thern," I said, and was about to explain that I was fromanother world, thinking that by patching a truce with these fellows andfighting with them against the therns I might enlist their aid inregaining my liberty. But just at that moment a heavy object smote mea resounding whack between my shoulders that nearly felled me to theground.
As I turned to meet this new enemy an object passed over my shoulder,striking one of my assailants squarely in the face and knocking himsenseless to the sward. At the same instant I saw that the thing thathad struck us was the trailing anchor of a rather fair-sized airvessel; possibly a ten man cruiser.
The ship was floating slowly above us, not more than fifty feet overour heads. Instantly the one chance for escape that it offeredpresented itself to me. The vessel was slowly rising and now theanchor was beyond the blacks who faced me and several feet above theirheads.
With a bound that left them gaping in wide-eyed astonishment I sprangcompletely over them. A second leap carried me just high enough tograsp the now rapidly receding anchor.
But I was successful, and there I hung by one hand, dragging throughthe branches of the higher vegetation of the gardens, while my latefoemen shrieked and howled beneath me.
Presently the vessel veered toward the west and then swung gracefullyto the south. In another instant I was carried beyond the crest of theGolden Cliffs, out over the Valley Dor, where, six thousand feet belowme, the Lost Sea of Korus lay shimmering in the moonlight.
Carefully I climbed to a sitting posture across the anchor's arms. Iwondered if by chance the vessel might be deserted. I hoped so. Orpossibly it might belong to a friendly people, and have wandered byaccident almost within the clutches of the pirates and the therns. Thefact that it was retreating from the scene of battle lent colour tothis hypothesis.
But I decided to know positively, and at once, so, with the greatestcaution, I commenced to climb slowly up the anchor chain toward thedeck above me.
One hand had just reached for the vessel's rail and found it when afierce black face was thrust over the side and eyes filled withtriumphant hate looked into mine.