CHAPTER XI
GREEN MEN AND WHITE APES
A Torquasian sword smote a glancing blow across the forehead ofCarthoris. He had a fleeting vision of soft arms about his neck,and warm lips close to his before he lost consciousness.
How long he lay there senseless he could not guess; but when heopened his eyes again he was alone, except for the bodies of thedead green men and Dusarians, and the carcass of a great banth thatlay half across his own.
Thuvia was gone, nor was the body of Kar Komak among the dead.
Weak from loss of blood, Carthoris made his way slowly towardAaanthor, reaching its outskirts at dark.
He wanted water more than any other thing, and so he kept on upa broad avenue toward the great central plaza, where he knew theprecious fluid was to be found in a half-ruined building oppositethe great palace of the ancient jeddak, who once had ruled thismighty city.
Disheartened and discouraged by the strange sequence of eventsthat seemed fore-ordained to thwart his every attempt to servethe Princess of Ptarth, he paid little or no attention to hissurroundings, moving through the deserted city as though no greatwhite apes lurked in the black shadows of the mystery-haunted pilesthat flanked the broad avenues and the great plaza.
But if Carthoris was careless of his surroundings, not so othereyes that watched his entrance into the plaza, and followed his slowfootsteps toward the marble pile that housed the tiny, half-chokedspring whose water one might gain only by scratching a deep holein the red sand that covered it.
And as the Heliumite entered the small building a dozen mighty,grotesque figures emerged from the doorway of the palace to speednoiselessly across the plaza toward him.
For half an hour Carthoris remained in the building, digging forwater and gaining the few much-needed drops which were the fruitsof his labour. Then he rose and slowly left the structure. Scarcehad he stepped beyond the threshold than twelve Torquasian warriorsleaped upon him.
No time then to draw long-sword; but swift from his harness flewhis long, slim dagger, and as he went down beneath them more thana single green heart ceased beating at the bite of that keen point.
Then they overpowered him and took his weapons away; but only nineof the twelve warriors who had crossed the plaza returned withtheir prize.
They dragged their prisoner roughly to the palace pits, wherein utter darkness they chained him with rusty links to the solidmasonry of the wall.
"To-morrow Thar Ban will speak with you," they said. "Nowhe sleeps. But great will be his pleasure when he learns who haswandered amongst us--and great will be the pleasure of Hortan Gurwhen Thar Ban drags before him the mad fool who dared prick thegreat jeddak with his sword."
Then they left him to the silence and the darkness.
For what seemed hours Carthoris squatted upon the stone floor ofhis prison, his back against the wall in which was sunk the heavyeye-bolt that secured the chain which held him.
Then, from out of the mysterious blackness before him, therecame to his ears the sound of naked feet moving stealthily uponstone--approaching nearer and nearer to where he lay, unarmed anddefenceless.
Minutes passed--minutes that seemed hours--during which timeperiods of sepulchral silence would be followed by a repetition ofthe uncanny scraping of naked feet slinking warily upon him.
At last he heard a sudden rush of unshod soles across the emptyblackness, and at a little distance a scuffling sound, heavybreathing, and once what he thought the muttered imprecation ofa man battling against great odds. Then the clanging of a chain,and a noise as of the snapping back against stone of a broken link.
Again came silence. But for a moment only. Now he heard oncemore the soft feet approaching him. He thought that he discernedwicked eyes gleaming fearfully at him through the darkness. Heknew that he could hear the heavy breathing of powerful lungs.
Then came the rush of many feet toward him, and the THINGS wereupon him.
Hands terminating in manlike fingers clutched at his throat andarms and legs. Hairy bodies strained and struggled against hisown smooth hide as he battled in grim silence against these horridfoemen in the darkness of the pits of ancient Aaanthor.
Thewed like some giant god was Carthoris of Helium, yet in theclutches of these unseen creatures of the pit's Stygian night hewas helpless as a frail woman.
Yet he battled on, striking futile blows against great, hispidbreasts he could not see; feeling thick, squat throats beneath hisfingers; the drool of saliva upon his cheek, and hot, foul breathin his nostrils.
Fangs, too, mighty fangs, he knew were close, and why they did notsink into his flesh he could not guess.
At last he became aware of the mighty surging of a number of hisantagonists back and forth upon the great chain that held him, andpresently came the same sound that he had heard at a little distancefrom him a short time before he had been attacked--his chain hadparted and the broken end snapped back against the stone wall.
Now he was seized upon either side and dragged at a rapid pace throughthe dark corridors--toward what fate he could not even guess.
At first he had thought his foes might be of the tribe of Torquas,but their hairy bodies belied that belief. Now he was at lastquite sure of their identity, though why they had not killed anddevoured him at once he could not imagine.
After half an hour or more of rapid racing through the undergroundpassages that are a distinguishing feature of all Barsoomian cities,modern as well as ancient, his captors suddenly emerged into themoonlight of a courtyard, far from the central plaza.
Immediately Carthoris saw that he was in the power of a tribe ofthe great white apes of Barsoom. All that had caused him doubtbefore as to the identity of his attackers was the hairiness oftheir breasts, for the white apes are entirely hairless except fora great shock bristling from their heads.
Now he saw the cause of that which had deceived him--across thechest of each of them were strips of hairy hide, usually of banth,in imitation of the harness of the green warriors who so oftencamped at their deserted city.
Carthoris had read of the existence of tribes of apes that seemedto be progressing slowly toward higher standards of intelligence.Into the hands of such, he realized, he had fallen; but--what weretheir intentions toward him?
As he glanced about the courtyard, he saw fully fifty of the hideousbeasts, squatting on their haunches, and at a little distance fromhim another human being, closely guarded.
As his eyes met those of his fellow-captive a smile lit the other'sface, and: "Kaor, red man!" burst from his lips. It was Kar Komak,the bowman.
"Kaor!" cried Carthoris, in response. "How came you here, and whatbefell the princess?"
"Red men like yourself descended in mighty ships that sailed theair, even as the great ships of my distant day sailed the five seas,"replied Kar Komak. "They fought with the green men of Torquas.They slew Komal, god of Lothar. I thought they were your friends,and I was glad when finally those of them who survived the battlecarried the red girl to one of the ships and sailed away with herinto the safety of the high air.
"Then the green men seized me, and carried me to a great, emptycity, where they chained me to a wall in a black pit. Afterwardcame these and dragged me hither. And what of you, red man?"
Carthoris related all that had befallen him, and as the two mentalked the great apes squatted about them watching them intently.
"What are we to do now?" asked the bowman.
"Our case looks rather hopeless," replied Carthoris ruefully."These creatures are born man-eaters. Why they have not alreadydevoured us I cannot imagine--there!" he whispered. "See? Theend is coming."
Kar Komak looked in the direction Carthoris indicated to see a hugeape advancing with a mighty bludgeon.
"It is thus they like best to kill their prey," said Carthoris.
"Must we die without a struggle?" asked Kar Komak.
"Not I," replied Carthoris, "though I know how futile our bestdefence must be against these mighty
brutes! Oh, for a long-sword!"
"Or a good bow," added Kar Komak, "and a utan of bowmen."
At the words Carthoris half sprang to his feet, only to be draggedroughly down by his guard.
"Kar Komak!" he cried. "Why cannot you do what Tario and Jav did?They had no bowmen other than those of their own creation. Youmust know the secret of their power. Call forth your own utan,Kar Komak!"
The Lotharian looked at Carthoris in wide-eyed astonishment as thefull purport of the suggestion bore in upon his understanding.
"Why not?" he murmured.
The savage ape bearing the mighty bludgeon was slinking towardCarthoris. The Heliumite's fingers were working as he kept hiseyes upon his executioner. Kar Komak bent his gaze penetratinglyupon the apes. The effort of his mind was evidenced in the sweatupon his contracted brows.
The creature that was to slay the red man was almost within arm'sreach of his prey when Carthoris heard a hoarse shout from the oppositeside of the courtyard. In common with the squatting apes and thedemon with the club he turned in the direction of the sound, to seea company of sturdy bowmen rushing from the doorway of a near-bybuilding.
With screams of rage the apes leaped to their feet to meet thecharge. A volley of arrows met them half-way, sending a dozenrolling lifeless to the ground. Then the apes closed with theiradversaries. All their attention was occupied by the attackers--eventhe guard had deserted the prisoners to join in the battle.
"Come!" whispered Kar Komak. "Now may we escape while theirattention is diverted from us by my bowmen."
"And leave those brave fellows leaderless?" cried Carthoris, whoseloyal nature revolted at the merest suggestion of such a thing.
Kar Komak laughed.
"You forget," he said, "that they are but thin air--figments of mybrain. They will vanish, unscathed, when we have no further needfor them. Praised be your first ancestor, redman, that you thoughtof this chance in time! It would never have occurred to me to imaginethat I might wield the same power that brought me into existence."
"You are right," said Carthoris. "Still, I hate to leave them,though there is naught else to do," and so the two turned fromthe courtyard, and making their way into one of the broad avenues,crept stealthily in the shadows of the building toward the greatcentral plaza upon which were the buildings occupied by the greenwarriors when they visited the deserted city.
When they had come to the plaza's edge Carthoris halted.
"Wait here," he whispered. "I go to fetch thoats, since on footwe may never hope to escape the clutches of these green fiends."
To reach the courtyard where the thoats were kept it was necessaryfor Carthoris to pass through one of the buildings which surroundedthe square. Which were occupied and which not he could not evenguess, so he was compelled to take considerable chances to gainthe enclosure in which he could hear the restless beasts squealingand quarrelling among themselves.
Chance carried him through a dark doorway into a large chamber inwhich lay a score or more green warriors wrapped in their sleepingsilks and furs. Scarce had Carthoris passed through the shorthallway that connected the door of the building and the great roombeyond it than he became aware of the presence of something or someone in the hallway through which he had but just passed.
He heard a man yawn, and then, behind him, he saw the figure of asentry rise from where the fellow had been dozing, and stretchinghimself resume his wakeful watchfulness.
Carthoris realized that he must have passed within a foot of thewarrior, doubtless rousing him from his slumber. To retreat nowwould be impossible. Yet to cross through that roomful of sleepingwarriors seemed almost equally beyond the pale of possibility.
Carthoris shrugged his broad shoulders and chose the lesser evil.Warily he entered the room. At his right, against the wall,leaned several swords and rifles and spears--extra weapons whichthe warriors had stacked here ready to their hands should therebe a night alarm calling them suddenly from slumber. Beside eachsleeper lay his weapon--these were never far from their owners fromchildhood to death.
The sight of the swords made the young man's palm itch. He steppedquickly to them, selecting two short-swords--one for Kar Komak,the other for himself; also some trappings for his naked comrade.
Then he started directly across the centre of the apartment amongthe sleeping Torquasians.
Not a man of them moved until Carthoris had completed more than halfof the short though dangerous journey. Then a fellow directly inhis path turned restlessly upon his sleeping silks and furs.
The Heliumite paused above him, one of the short-swords in readinessshould the warrior awaken. For what seemed an eternity to the youngprince the green man continued to move uneasily upon his couch,then, as though actuated by springs, he leaped to his feet andfaced the red man.
Instantly Carthoris struck, but not before a savage grunt escapedthe other's lips. In an instant the room was in turmoil. Warriorsleaped to their feet, grasping their weapons as they rose, andshouting to one another for an explanation of the disturbance.
To Carthoris all within the room was plainly visible in the dimlight reflected from without, for the further moon stood directlyat zenith; but to the eyes of the newly-awakened green men objectsas yet had not taken on familiar forms--they but saw vaguely thefigures of warriors moving about their apartment.
Now one stumbled against the corpse of him whom Carthoris hadslain. The fellow stooped and his hand came in contact with thecleft skull. He saw about him the giant figures of other greenmen, and so he jumped to the only conclusion that was open to him.
"The Thurds!" he cried. "The Thurds are upon us! Rise, warriorsof Torquas, and drive home your swords within the hearts of Torquas'ancient enemies!"
Instantly the green men began to fall upon one another with nakedswords. Their savage lust of battle was aroused. To fight, tokill, to die with cold steel buried in their vitals! Ah, that tothem was Nirvana.
Carthoris was quick to guess their error and take advantage of it.He knew that in the pleasure of killing they might fight on longafter they had discovered their mistake, unless their attentionwas distracted by sight of the real cause of the altercation, andso he lost no time in continuing across the room to the doorwayupon the opposite side, which opened into the inner court, wherethe savage thoats were squealing and fighting among themselves.
Once here he had no easy task before him. To catch and mount oneof these habitually rageful and intractable beasts was no child'splay under the best of conditions; but now, when silence and timewere such important considerations, it might well have seemed quitehopeless to a less resourceful and optimistic man than the son ofthe great warlord.
From his father he had learned much concerning the traits of thesemighty beasts, and from Tars Tarkas, also, when he had visited thatgreat green jeddak among his horde at Thark. So now he centredupon the work in hand all that he had ever learned about them fromothers and from his own experience, for he, too, had ridden andhandled them many times.
The temper of the thoats of Torquas appeared even shorter than theirvicious cousins among the Tharks and Warhoons, and for a time itseemed unlikely that he should escape a savage charge on the partof a couple of old bulls that circled, squealing, about him; butat last he managed to get close enough to one of them to touch thebeast. With the feel of his hand upon the sleek hide the creaturequieted, and in answer to the telepathic command of the red mansank to its knees.
In a moment Carthoris was upon its back, guiding it toward thegreat gate that leads from the courtyard through a large buildingat one end into an avenue beyond.
The other bull, still squealing and enraged, followed after hisfellow. There was no bridle upon either, for these strange creaturesare controlled entirely by suggestion--when they are controlled atall.
Even in the hands of the giant green men bridle reins would behopelessly futile against the mad savagery and mastodonic strengthof the thoat, and so they are guided by that strange telepathic
power with which the men of Mars have learned to communicate in acrude way with the lower orders of their planet.
With difficulty Carthoris urged the two beasts to the gate, where,leaning down, he raised the latch. Then the thoat that he wasriding placed his great shoulder to the skeel-wood planking, pushedthrough, and a moment later the man and the two beasts were swingingsilently down the avenue to the edge of the plaza, where Kar Komakhid.
Here Carthoris found considerable difficulty in subduing the secondthoat, and as Kar Komak had never before ridden one of the beasts,it seemed a most hopeless job; but at last the bowman managed toscramble to the sleek back, and again the two beasts fled softlydown the moss-grown avenues toward the open sea-bottom beyond thecity.
All that night and the following day and the second night theyrode toward the north-east. No indication of pursuit developed,and at dawn of the second day Carthoris saw in the distance thewaving ribbon of great trees that marked one of the long Barsoomianwater-ways.
Immediately they abandoned their thoats and approached the cultivateddistrict on foot. Carthoris also discarded the metal from hisharness, or such of it as might serve to identify him as a Heliumite,or of royal blood, for he did not know to what nation belonged thiswaterway, and upon Mars it is always well to assume every man andnation your enemy until you have learned the contrary.
It was mid-forenoon when the two at last entered one of the roadsthat cut through the cultivated districts at regular intervals,joining the arid wastes on either side with the great, white,central highway that follows through the centre from end to end ofthe far-reaching, threadlike farm lands.
The high wall surrounding the fields served as a protection againstsurprise by raiding green hordes, as well as keeping the savagebanths and other carnivora from the domestic animals and the humanbeings upon the farms.
Carthoris stopped before the first gate he came to, pounding foradmission. The young man who answered his summons greeted thetwo hospitably, though he looked with considerable wonder upon thewhite skin and auburn hair of the bowman.
After he had listened for a moment to a partial narration of theirescape from the Torquasians, he invited them within, took them tohis house and bade the servants there prepare food for them.
As they waited in the low-ceiled, pleasant living room of thefarmhouse until the meal should be ready, Carthoris drew his hostinto conversation that he might learn his nationality, and thusthe nation under whose dominion lay the waterway where circumstancehad placed him.
"I am Hal Vas," said the young man, "son of Vas Kor, of Dusar, anoble in the retinue of Astok, Prince of Dusar. At present I amDwar of the Road for this district."
Carthoris was very glad that he had not disclosed his identity, forthough he had no idea of anything that had transpired since he hadleft Helium, or that Astok was at the bottom of all his misfortunes,he well knew that the Dusarian had no love for him, and that hecould hope for no assistance within the dominions of Dusar.
"And who are you?" asked Hal Vas. "By your appearance I take youfor a fighting man, but I see no insignia upon your harness. Canit be that you are a panthan?"
Now, these wandering soldiers of fortune are common upon Barsoom,where most men love to fight. They sell their services whereverwar exists, and in the occasional brief intervals when there isno organized warfare between the red nations, they join one of thenumerous expeditions that are constantly being dispatched againstthe green men in protection of the waterways that traverse thewilder portions of the globe.
When their service is over they discard the metal of the nationthey have been serving until they shall have found a new master.In the intervals they wear no insignia, their war-worn harness andgrim weapons being sufficient to attest their calling.
The suggestion was a happy one, and Carthoris embraced the chanceit afforded to account satisfactorily for himself. There was, however,a single drawback. In times of war such panthans as happened tobe within the domain of a belligerent nation were compelled to donthe insignia of that nation and fight with her warriors.
As far as Carthoris knew Dusar was not at war with any othernation, but there was never any telling when one red nation wouldbe flying at the throat of a neighbour, even though the great andpowerful alliance at the head of which was his father, John Carter,had managed to maintain a long peace upon the greater portion ofBarsoom.
A pleasant smile lighted Hal Vas' face as Carthoris admitted hisvocation.
"It is well," exclaimed the young man, "that you chanced to comehither, for here you will find the means of obtaining service inshort order. My father, Vas Kor, is even now with me, having comehither to recruit a force for the new war against Helium."