CHAPTER IV
A GREEN MAN'S CAPTIVE
When the light of day broke upon the little craft to whose deckthe Princess of Ptarth had been snatched from her father's garden,Thuvia saw that the night had wrought a change in her abductors.
No longer did their trappings gleam with the metal of Dusar, butinstead there was emblazoned there the insignia of the Prince ofHelium.
The girl felt renewed hope, for she could not believe that in theheart of Carthoris could lie intent to harm her.
She spoke to the warrior squatting before the control board.
"Last night you wore the trappings of a Dusarian," she said. "Nowyour metal is that of Helium. What means it?"
The man looked at her with a grin.
"The Prince of Helium is no fool," he said.
Just then an officer emerged from the tiny cabin. He reprimandedthe warrior for conversing with the prisoner, nor would he himselfreply to any of her inquiries.
No harm was offered her during the journey, and so they came at lastto their destination with the girl no wiser as to her abductors ortheir purpose than at first.
Here the flier settled slowly into the plaza of one of those mutemonuments of Mars' dead and forgotten past--the deserted citiesthat fringe the sad ochre sea-bottoms where once rolled the mightyfloods upon whose bosoms moved the maritime commerce of the peoplesthat are gone for ever.
Thuvia of Ptarth was no stranger to such places. During herwanderings in search of the River Iss, that time she had set outupon what, for countless ages, had been the last, long pilgrimageof Martians, toward the Valley Dor, where lies the Lost Sea ofKorus, she had encountered several of these sad reminders of thegreatness and the glory of ancient Barsoom.
And again, during her flight from the temples of the Holy Thernswith Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, she had seen them, with theirweird and ghostly inmates, the great white apes of Barsoom.
She knew, too, that many of them were used now by the nomadic tribesof green men, but that among them all was no city that the redmen did not shun, for without exception they stood amidst vast,waterless tracts, unsuited for the continued sustenance of thedominant race of Martians.
Why, then, should they be bringing her to such a place? There wasbut a single answer. Such was the nature of their work that theymust needs seek the seclusion that a dead city afforded. The girltrembled at thought of her plight.
For two days her captors kept her within a huge palace that even indecay reflected the splendour of the age which its youth had known.
Just before dawn on the third day she had been aroused by the voicesof two of her abductors.
"He should be here by dawn," one was saying. "Have her in readinessupon the plaza--else he will never land. The moment he finds thathe is in a strange country he will turn about--methinks the prince'splan is weak in this one spot."
"There was no other way," replied the other. "It is wondrous workto get them both here at all, and even if we do not succeed inluring him to the ground, we shall have accomplished much."
Just then the speaker caught the eyes of Thuvia upon him, revealedby the quick-moving patch of light cast by Thuria in her mad racethrough the heavens.
With a quick sign to the other, he ceased speaking, and advancingtoward the girl, motioned her to rise. Then he led her out intothe night toward the centre of the great plaza.
"Stand here," he commanded, "until we come for you. We shallbe watching, and should you attempt to escape it will go ill withyou--much worse than death. Such are the prince's orders."
Then he turned and retraced his steps toward the palace, leavingher alone in the midst of the unseen terrors of the haunted city,for in truth these places are haunted in the belief of many Martianswho still cling to an ancient superstition which teaches that thespirits of Holy Therns who die before their allotted one thousandyears, pass, on occasions, into the bodies of the great white apes.
To Thuvia, however, the real danger of attack by one of theseferocious, manlike beasts was quite sufficient. She no longerbelieved in the weird soul transmigration that the therns had taughther before she was rescued from their clutches by John Carter; butshe well knew the horrid fate that awaited her should one of theterrible beasts chance to spy her during its nocturnal prowlings.
What was that?
Surely she could not be mistaken. Something had moved, stealthily,in the shadow of one of the great monoliths that line the avenuewhere it entered the plaza opposite her!
Thar Ban, jed among the hordes of Torquas, rode swiftly across theochre vegetation of the dead sea-bottom toward the ruins of ancientAaanthor.
He had ridden far that night, and fast, for he had but come fromthe despoiling of the incubator of a neighbouring green horde withwhich the hordes of Torquas were perpetually warring.
His giant thoat was far from jaded, yet it would be well, thoughtThar Ban, to permit him to graze upon the ochre moss which grows togreater height within the protected courtyards of deserted cities,where the soil is richer than on the sea-bottoms, and the plantspartly shaded from the sun during the cloudless Martian day.
Within the tiny stems of this dry-seeming plant is sufficientmoisture for the needs of the huge bodies of the mighty thoats,which can exist for months without water, and for days without eventhe slight moisture which the ochre moss contains.
As Thar Ban rode noiselessly up the broad avenue which leads fromthe quays of Aaanthor to the great central plaza, he and his mountmight have been mistaken for spectres from a world of dreams, sogrotesque the man and beast, so soundless the great thoat's padded,nailless feet upon the moss-grown flagging of the ancient pavement.
The man was a splendid specimen of his race. Fully fifteen feettowered his great height from sole to pate. The moonlight glistenedagainst his glossy green hide, sparkling the jewels of his heavyharness and the ornaments that weighted his four muscular arms,while the upcurving tusks that protruded from his lower jaw gleamedwhite and terrible.
At the side of his thoat were slung his long radium rifle and hisgreat, forty-foot, metal-shod spear, while from his own harnessdepended his long-sword and his short-sword, as well as his lesserweapons.
His protruding eyes and antennae-like ears were turning constantlyhither and thither, for Thar Ban was yet in the country of theenemy, and, too, there was always the menace of the great whiteapes, which, John Carter was wont to say, are the only creaturesthat can arouse in the breasts of these fierce denizens of the deadsea-bottoms even the remotest semblance of fear.
As the rider neared the plaza, he reined suddenly in. His slender,tubular ears pointed rigidly forward. An unwonted sound had reachedthem. Voices! And where there were voices, outside of Torquas,there, too, were enemies. All the world of wide Barsoom containednaught but enemies for the fierce Torquasians.
Thar Ban dismounted. Keeping in the shadows of the great monolithsthat line the Avenue of Quays of sleeping Aaanthor, he approachedthe plaza. Directly behind him, as a hound at heel, came theslate-grey thoat, his white belly shadowed by his barrel, his vividyellow feet merging into the yellow of the moss beneath them.
In the centre of the plaza Thar Ban saw the figure of a red woman.A red warrior was conversing with her. Now the man turned andretraced his steps toward the palace at the opposite side of theplaza.
Thar Ban watched until he had disappeared within the yawningportal. Here was a captive worth having! Seldom did a female oftheir hereditary enemies fall to the lot of a green man. Thar Banlicked his thin lips.
Thuvia of Ptarth watched the shadow behind the monolith at theopening to the avenue opposite her. She hoped that it might bebut the figment of an overwrought imagination.
But no! Now, clearly and distinctly, she saw it move. It camefrom behind the screening shelter of the ersite shaft.
The sudden light of the rising sun fell upon it. The girl trembled.The THING was a huge green warrior!
Swiftly it sprang toward her. She screamed and tried to flee;but
she had scarce turned toward the palace when a giant hand fellupon her arm, she was whirled about, and half dragged, half carriedtoward a huge thoat that was slowly grazing out of the avenue'smouth on to the ochre moss of the plaza.
At the same instant she turned her face upward toward the whirringsound of something above her, and there she saw a swift flierdropping toward her, the head and shoulders of a man leaning farover the side; but the man's features were deeply shadowed, so thatshe did not recognize them.
Now from behind her came the shouts of her red abductors. Theywere racing madly after him who dared to steal what they alreadyhad stolen.
As Thar Ban reached the side of his mount he snatched his longradium rifle from its boot, and, wheeling, poured three shots intothe oncoming red men.
Such is the uncanny marksmanship of these Martian savages that threered warriors dropped in their tracks as three projectiles explodedin their vitals.
The others halted, nor did they dare return the fire for fear ofwounding the girl.
Then Thar Ban vaulted to the back of his thoat, Thuvia of Ptarthstill in his arms, and with a savage cry of triumph disappeareddown the black canyon of the Avenue of Quays between the sullenpalaces of forgotten Aaanthor.
Carthoris' flier had not touched the ground before he had sprungfrom its deck to race after the swift thoat, whose eight long legswere sending it down the avenue at the rate of an express train;but the men of Dusar who still remained alive had no mind to permitso valuable a capture to escape them.
They had lost the girl. That would be a difficult thing to explainto Astok; but some leniency might be expected could they carry thePrince of Helium to their master instead.
So the three who remained set upon Carthoris with their long-swords,crying to him to surrender; but they might as successfully have criedaloud to Thuria to cease her mad hurtling through the Barsoomiansky, for Carthoris of Helium was a true son of the Warlord of Marsand his incomparable Dejah Thoris.
Carthoris' long-sword had been already in his hand as he leaped fromthe deck of the flier, so the instant that he realized the menaceof the three red warriors, he wheeled to face them, meeting theironslaught as only John Carter himself might have done.
So swift his sword, so mighty and agile his half-earthly muscles,that one of his opponents was down, crimsoning the ochre moss withhis life-blood, when he had scarce made a single pass at Carthoris.
Now the two remaining Dusarians rushed simultaneously upon theHeliumite. Three long-swords clashed and sparkled in the moonlight,until the great white apes, roused from their slumbers, creptto the lowering windows of the dead city to view the bloody scenebeneath them.
Thrice was Carthoris touched, so that the red blood ran down hisface, blinding him and dyeing his broad chest. With his free handhe wiped the gore from his eyes, and with the fighting smile of hisfather touching his lips, leaped upon his antagonists with renewedfury.
A single cut of his heavy sword severed the head of one of them, andthen the other, backing away clear of that point of death, turnedand fled toward the palace at his back.
Carthoris made no step to pursue. He had other concern than themeting of even well-deserved punishment to strange men who masqueradedin the metal of his own house, for he had seen that these men weretricked out in the insignia that marked his personal followers.
Turning quickly toward his flier, he was soon rising from the plazain pursuit of Thar Ban.
The red warrior whom he had put to flight turned in the entranceto the palace, and, seeing Carthoris' intent, snatched a rifle fromthose that he and his fellows had left leaning against the wallas they had rushed out with drawn swords to prevent the theft oftheir prisoner.
Few red men are good shots, for the sword is their chosen weapon;so now as the Dusarian drew bead upon the rising flier, and touchedthe button upon his rifle's stock, it was more to chance thanproficiency that he owed the partial success of his aim.
The projectile grazed the flier's side, the opaque coating breakingsufficiently to permit daylight to strike in upon the powder phialwithin the bullet's nose. There was a sharp explosion. Carthorisfelt his craft reel drunkenly beneath him, and the engine stopped.
The momentum the air boat had gained carried her on over the citytoward the sea-bottom beyond.
The red warrior in the plaza fired several more shots, none ofwhich scored. Then a lofty minaret shut the drifting quarry fromhis view.
In the distance before him Carthoris could see the green warriorbearing Thuvia of Ptarth away upon his mighty thoat. The directionof his flight was toward the north-west of Aaanthor, where lay amountainous country little known to red men.
The Heliumite now gave his attention to his injured craft. A closeexamination revealed the fact that one of the buoyancy tanks hadbeen punctured, but the engine itself was uninjured.
A splinter from the projectile had damaged one of the control leversbeyond the possibility of repair outside a machine shop; but afterconsiderable tinkering, Carthoris was able to propel his woundedflier at low speed, a rate which could not approach the rapid gaitof the thoat, whose eight long, powerful legs carried it over theochre vegetation of the dead sea-bottom at terrific speed.
The Prince of Helium chafed and fretted at the slowness of hispursuit, yet he was thankful that the damage was no worse, for nowhe could at least move more rapidly than on foot.
But even this meagre satisfaction was soon to be denied him, forpresently the flier commenced to sag toward the port and by the bow.The damage to the buoyancy tanks had evidently been more grievousthan he had at first believed.
All the balance of that long day Carthoris crawled erratically throughthe still air, the bow of the flier sinking lower and lower, andthe list to port becoming more and more alarming, until at last,near dark, he was floating almost bowdown, his harness buckled toa heavy deck ring to keep him from being precipitated to the groundbelow.
His forward movement was now confined to a slow drifting with thegentle breeze that blew out of the south-east, and when this dieddown with the setting of the sun, he let the flier sink gently tothe mossy carpet beneath.
Far before him loomed the mountains toward which the green man hadbeen fleeing when last he had seen him, and with dogged resolutionthe son of John Carter, endowed with the indomitable will of hismighty sire, took up the pursuit on foot.
All that night he forged ahead until, with the dawning of a newday, he entered the low foothills that guard the approach to thefastness of the mountains of Torquas.
Rugged, granitic walls towered before him. Nowhere could he discernan opening through the formidable barrier; yet somewhere into thisinhospitable world of stone the green warrior had borne the womanof the red man's heart's desire.
Across the yielding moss of the sea-bottom there had been no spoorto follow, for the soft pads of the thoat but pressed down in hisswift passage the resilient vegetation which sprang up again behindhis fleeting feet, leaving no sign.
But here in the hills, where loose rock occasionally strewed theway; where black loam and wild flowers partially replaced the sombremonotony of the waste places of the lowlands, Carthoris hoped tofind some sign that would lead him in the right direction.
Yet, search as he would, the baffling mystery of the trail seemedlikely to remain for ever unsolved.
It was drawing toward the day's close once more when the keen eyesof the Heliumite discerned the tawny yellow of a sleek hide movingamong the boulders several hundred yards to his left.
Crouching quickly behind a large rock, Carthoris watched the thingbefore him. It was a huge banth, one of those savage Barsoomianlions that roam the desolate hills of the dying planet.
The creature's nose was close to the ground. It was evident thathe was following the spoor of meat by scent.
As Carthoris watched him, a great hope leaped into the man's heart.Here, possibly, might lie the solution to the mystery he had beenendeavouring to solve. This hungry carnivore, keen always for theflesh of man, mi
ght even now be trailing the two whom Carthorissought.
Cautiously the youth crept out upon the trail of the man-eater.Along the foot of the perpendicular cliff the creature moved,sniffing at the invisible spoor, and now and then emitting the lowmoan of the hunting banth.
Carthoris had followed the creature for but a few minutes when itdisappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as though dissolved intothin air.
The man leaped to his feet. Not again was he to be cheated as theman had cheated him. He sprang forward at a reckless pace to thespot at which he last had seen the great, skulking brute.
Before him loomed the sheer cliff, its face unbroken by any apertureinto which the huge banth might have wormed its great carcass.Beside him was a small, flat boulder, not larger than the deck ofa ten-man flier, nor standing to a greater height than twice hisown stature.
Perhaps the banth was in hiding behind this? The brute might havediscovered the man upon his trail, and even now be lying in waitfor his easy prey.
Cautiously, with drawn long-sword, Carthoris crept around thecorner of the rock. There was no banth there, but something whichsurprised him infinitely more than would the presence of twentybanths.
Before him yawned the mouth of a dark cave leading downward intothe ground. Through this the banth must have disappeared. Wasit his lair? Within its dark and forbidding interior might therenot lurk not one but many of the fearsome creatures?
Carthoris did not know, nor, with the thought that had been spurringhim onward upon the trail of the creature uppermost in his mind,did he much care; for into this gloomy cavern he was sure the banthhad trailed the green man and his captive, and into it he, too,would follow, content to give his life in the service of the womanhe loved.
Not an instant did he hesitate, nor yet did he advance rashly; butwith ready sword and cautious steps, for the way was dark, he stoleon. As he advanced, the obscurity became impenetrable blackness.