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The Chessmen of Mars
THE CHESSMEN OF MARS
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
CONTENTS
PRELUDE - John Carter Comes to Earth I Tara in a Tantrum II At the
Gale's Mercy III The Headless Humans IV Captured V The Perfect
Brain VI In the Toils of Horror VII A Repellent Sight VIII Close
Work IX Adrift Over Strange Regions X Entrapped XI The Choice of
Tara XII Ghek Plays Pranks XIII A Desperate Deed XIV At Ghek's
Command XV The Old Man of the Pits XVI Another Change of Name XVII
A Play to the Death XVIII A Task for Loyalty XIX The Menace of the
Dead XX The Charge of Cowardice XXI A Risk for Love XXII At the
Moment of Marriage
THE CHESSMEN OF MARS
PRELUDE
JOHN CARTER COMES TO EARTH
Shea had just beaten me at chess, as usual, and, also as usual, I had
gleaned what questionable satisfaction I might by twitting him with
this indication of failing mentality by calling his attention to the
nth time to that theory, propounded by certain scientists, which is
based upon the assertion that phenomenal chess players are always
found to be from the ranks of children under twelve, adults over
seventy-two or the mentally defective--a theory that is lightly
ignored upon those rare occasions that I win. Shea had gone to bed and
I should have followed suit, for we are always in the saddle here
before sunrise; but instead I sat there before the chess table in the
library, idly blowing smoke at the dishonored head of my defeated
king.
While thus profitably employed I heard the east door of the
living-room open and someone enter. I thought it was Shea returning to
speak with me on some matter of tomorrow's work; but when I raised my
eyes to the doorway that connects the two rooms I saw framed there the
figure of a bronzed giant, his otherwise naked body trapped with a
jewel-encrusted harness from which there hung at one side an ornate
short-sword and at the other a pistol of strange pattern. The black
hair, the steel-gray eyes, brave and smiling, the noble features--I
recognized them at once, and leaping to my feet I advanced with
outstretched hand.
"John Carter!" I cried. "You?"
"None other, my son," he replied, taking my hand in one of his and
placing the other upon my shoulder.
"And what are you doing here?" I asked. "It has been long years since
you revisited Earth, and never before in the trappings of Mars. Lord!
but it is good to see you--and not a day older in appearance than when
you trotted me on your knee in my babyhood. How do you explain it,
John Carter, Warlord of Mars, or do you try to explain it?"
"Why attempt to explain the inexplicable?" he replied. "As I have told
you before, I am a very old man. I do not know how old I am. I recall
no childhood; but recollect only having been always as you see me now
and as you saw me first when you were five years old. You, yourself,
have aged, though not as much as most men in a corresponding number of
years, which may be accounted for by the fact that the same blood runs
in our veins; but I have not aged at all. I have discussed the
question with a noted Martian scientist, a friend of mine; but his
theories are still only theories. However, I am content with the
fact--I never age, and I love life and the vigor of youth.
"And now as to your natural question as to what brings me to Earth
again and in this, to earthly eyes, strange habiliment. We may thank
Kar Komak, the bowman of Lothar. It was he who gave me the idea upon
which I have been experimenting until at last I have achieved success.
As you know I have long possessed the power to cross the void in
spirit, but never before have I been able to impart to inanimate
things a similar power. Now, however, you see me for the first time
precisely as my Martian fellows see me--you see the very short-sword
that has tasted the blood of many a savage foeman; the harness with
the devices of Helium and the insignia of my rank; the pistol that was
presented to me by Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark.
"Aside from seeing you, which is my principal reason for being here,
and satisfying myself that I can transport inanimate things from Mars
to Earth, and therefore animate things if I so desire, I have no
purpose. Earth is not for me. My every interest is upon Barsoom--my
wife, my children, my work; all are there. I will spend a quiet
evening with you and then back to the world I love even better than I
love life."
As he spoke he dropped into the chair upon the opposite side of the
chess table.
"You spoke of children," I said. "Have you more than Carthoris?"
"A daughter," he replied, "only a little younger than Carthoris, and,
barring one, the fairest thing that ever breathed the thin air of
dying Mars. Only Dejah Thoris, her mother, could be more beautiful
than Tara of Helium."
For a moment he fingered the chessmen idly. "We have a game on Mars
similar to chess," he said, "very similar. And there is a race there
that plays it grimly with men and naked swords. We call the game
jetan. It is played on a board like yours, except that there are a
hundred squares and we use twenty pieces on each side. I never see it
played without thinking of Tara of Helium and what befell her among
the chessmen of Barsoom. Would you like to hear her story?"
I said that I would and so he told it to me, and now I shall try to
re-tell it for you as nearly in the words of The Warlord of Mars as I
can recall them, but in the third person. If there be inconsistencies
and errors, let the blame fall not upon John Carter, but rather upon
my faulty memory, where it belongs. It is a strange tale and utterly
Barsoomian.
CHAPTER I
TARA IN A TANTRUM
Tara of Helium rose from the pile of silks and soft furs upon which
she had been reclining, stretched her lithe body languidly, and
crossed toward the center of the room, where, above a large table, a
bronze disc depended from the low ceiling. Her carriage was that of
health and physical perfection--the effortless harmony of faultless
coordination. A scarf of silken gossamer crossing over one shoulder
was wrapped about her body; her black hair was piled high upon her
head. With a wooden stick she tapped upon the bronze disc, lightly,
and presently the summons was answered by a slave girl, who entered,
smiling, to be greeted similarly by her mistress.
"Are my father's guests arriving?" asked the princess.
"Yes, Tara of Helium, they come," replied the slave. "I have seen
Kantos Kan, Overlord of the Navy, and Prince Soran of Ptarth, and Djor
Kantos, son of Kantos Kan," she shot a roguish glance at her mistress
as she mentioned Djor Kantos' name, "and--oh, there were others, many
have come."
"The bath, then, Uthia," said her mistress. "And why, Uthia," she
added, "do you look thus and smile when you mention the name of Djor
Kantos?"
The slave girl laughed gaily. "It is so plain to all that he worships
you," she replied.
"It is not plain to me," said Tara of Helium. "He is the friend of my
brother, Carthoris, and so he is here much; but not to see me. It is
his friendship for Carthoris that brings him thus often to the palace
of my father."
"But Carthoris is hunting in the north with Talu, Jeddak of Okar,"
Uthia reminded her.
"My bath, Uthia!" cried Tara of Helium. "That tongue of yours will
bring you to some misadventure yet."
"The bath is ready, Tara of Helium," the girl responded, her eyes
still twinkling with merriment, for she well knew that in the heart of
her mistress was no anger that could displace the love of the princess
for her slave. Preceding the daughter of The Warlord she opened the
door of an adjoining room where lay the bath--a gleaming pool of
scented water in a marble basin. Golden stanchions supported a chain
of gold encircling it and leading down into the water on either side
of marble steps. A glass dome let in the sun-light, which flooded the
interior, glancing from the polished white of the marble walls and the
procession of bathers and fishes, which, in conventional design, were
inlaid with gold in a broad band that circled the room.
Tara of Helium removed the scarf from about her and handed it to the
slave. Slowly she descended the steps to the water, the temperature of
which she tested with a symmetrical foot, undeformed by tight shoes
and high heels--a lovely foot, as God intended that feet should be and
seldom are. Finding the water to her liking, the girl swam leisurely
to and fro about the pool. With the silken ease of the seal she swam,
now at the surface, now below, her smooth muscles rolling softly
beneath her clear skin--a wordless song of health and happiness and
grace. Presently she emerged and gave herself into the hands of the
slave girl, who rubbed the body of her mistress with a sweet smelling
semi-liquid substance contained in a golden urn, until the glowing
skin was covered with a foamy lather, then a quick plunge into the
pool, a drying with soft towels, and the bath was over. Typical of the
life of the princess was the simple elegance of her bath--no retinue
of useless slaves, no pomp, no idle waste of precious moments. In
another half hour her hair was dried and built into the strange, but
becoming, coiffure of her station; her leathern trappings, encrusted
with gold and jewels, had been adjusted to her figure and she was
ready to mingle with the guests that had been bidden to the midday
function at the palace of The Warlord.
As she left her apartments to make her way to the gardens where the
guests were congregating, two warriors, the insignia of the House of
the Prince of Helium upon their harness, followed a few paces behind
her, grim reminders that the assassin's blade may never be ignored
upon Barsoom, where, in a measure, it counterbalances the great
natural span of human life, which is estimated at not less than a
thousand years.
As they neared the entrance to the garden another woman, similarly
guarded, approached them from another quarter of the great palace. As
she neared them Tara of Helium turned toward her with a smile and a
happy greeting, while her guards knelt with bowed heads in willing and
voluntary adoration of the beloved of Helium. Thus always, solely at
the command of their own hearts, did the warriors of Helium greet
Dejah Thoris, whose deathless beauty had more than once brought them
to bloody warfare with other nations of Barsoom. So great was the love
of the people of Helium for the mate of John Carter it amounted
practically to worship, as though she were indeed the goddess that she
looked.
The mother and daughter exchanged the gentle, Barsoomian, "kaor" of
greeting and kissed. Then together they entered the gardens where the
guests were. A huge warrior drew his short-sword and struck his metal
shield with the flat of it, the brazen sound ringing out above the
laughter and the speech.
"The Princess comes!" he cried. "Dejah Thoris! The Princess comes!
Tara of Helium!" Thus always is royalty announced. The guests arose;
the two women inclined their heads; the guards fell back upon either
side of the entrance-way; a number of nobles advanced to pay their
respects; the laughing and the talking were resumed and Dejah Thoris
and her daughter moved simply and naturally among their guests, no
suggestion of differing rank apparent in the bearing of any who were
there, though there was more than a single Jeddak and many common
warriors whose only title lay in brave deeds, or noble patriotism.
Thus it is upon Mars where men are judged upon their own merits rather
than upon those of their grandsires, even though pride of lineage be
great.
Tara of Helium let her slow gaze wander among the throng of guests
until presently it halted upon one she sought. Was the faint shadow of
a frown that crossed her brow an indication of displeasure at the
sight that met her eyes, or did the brilliant rays of the noonday sun
distress her? Who may say! She had been reared to believe that one day
she should wed Djor Kantos, son of her father's best friend. It had
been the dearest wish of Kantos Kan and The Warlord that this should
be, and Tara of Helium had accepted it as a matter of all but
accomplished fact. Djor Kantos had seemed to accept the matter in the
same way. They had spoken of it casually as something that would, as a
matter of course, take place in the indefinite future, as, for
instance, his promotion in the navy, in which he was now a padwar; or
the set functions of the court of her grandfather, Tardos Mors, Jeddak
of Helium; or Death. They had never spoken of love and that had
puzzled Tara of Helium upon the rare occasions she gave it thought,
for she knew that people who were to wed were usually much occupied
with the matter of love and she had all of a woman's curiosity--she
wondered what love was like. She was very fond of Djor Kantos and she
knew that he was very fond of her. They liked to be together, for they
liked the same things and the same people and the same books and their
dancing was a joy, not only to themselves but to those who watched
them. She could not imagine wanting to marry anyone other than Djor
Kantos.
So perhaps it was only the sun that made her brows contract just the
tiniest bit at the same instant that she discovered Djor Kantos
sitting in earnest conversation with Olvia Marthis, daughter of the
Jed of Hastor. It was Djor Kantos' duty immediately to pay his
respects to Dejah Thoris and Tara of Helium; but he did not do so and
presently the daughter of The Warlord frowned indeed. She looked long
at Olvia Marthis, and though she had seen her many times before and
knew her well, she looked at her today through new eyes that saw,
apparently for the first time, that the girl from Hastor was
noticeably beautiful even among those other beautiful women of Helium.
Tara of Helium was disturbed. She attempted to analyze her emotions;
but found it difficult. Olvia Marthis was her friend--she was very
fond of her and she felt no anger toward her. Was she angry with Djor
Kantos? No, she finally decided that she was not. It was merely
surprise, then, that she felt--surprise that Djor Kantos could be more
interested in another than in herself. She was about to cross the
garden and join them when she heard her father's voice directly behind
her.
"Tara of Helium!" he called, and she turned to see him approaching
with a strange warrior whose harness and metal bore devices with which
she was unfamiliar. Even among the gorgeous trappings of the men of
Helium and the visitors from distant empires those of the stranger
were remarkable for their barbaric splendor. The leather of his
harness was completely hidden beneath ornaments of platinum thickly
set with brilliant diamonds, as were the scabbards of his swords and
the ornate holster that held his long, Martian pistol. Moving through
the sunlit garden at the side of the great Warlord, the scintillant
rays of his countless gems enveloping him as in an aureole of light
imparted to his noble figure a suggestion of godliness.
"Tara of Helium, I bring you Gahan, Jed of Gathol," said John Carter,
after the simple Barsoomian custom of presentation.
"Kaor! Gahan, Jed of Gathol," returned Tara of Helium.
"My sword is at your feet, Tara of Helium," said the young chieftain.
The Warlord left them and the two seated themselves upon an ersite
bench beneath a spreading sorapus tree.
"Far Gathol," mused the girl. "Ever in my mind has it been connected
with mystery and romance and the half-forgotten lore of the ancients.
I cannot think of Gathol as existing today, possibly because I have
never before seen a Gatholian."
"And perhaps too because of the great distance that separates Helium
and Gathol, as well as the comparative insignificance of my little
free city, which might easily be lost in one corner of mighty Helium,"
added Gahan. "But what we lack in power we make up in pride," he
continued, laughing. "We believe ours the oldest inhabited city upon
Barsoom. It is one of the few that has retained its freedom, and this
despite the fact that its ancient diamond mines are the richest known
and, unlike practically all the other fields, are today apparently as
inexhaustible as ever."
"Tell me of Gathol," urged the girl. "The very thought fills me with
interest," nor was it likely that the handsome face of the young jed
detracted anything from the glamour of far Gathol.
Nor did Gahan seem displeased with the excuse for further monopolizing
the society of his fair companion. His eyes seemed chained to her
exquisite features, from which they moved no further than to a rounded
breast, part hid beneath its jeweled covering, a naked shoulder or the
symmetry of a perfect arm, resplendent in bracelets of barbaric
magnificence.
"Your ancient history has doubtless told you that Gathol was built
upon an island in Throxeus, mightiest of the five oceans of old
Barsoom. As the ocean receded Gathol crept down the sides of the
mountain, the summit of which was the island upon which she had been
built, until today she covers the slopes from summit to base, while
the bowels of the great hill are honeycombed with the galleries of her
mines. Entirely surrounding us is a great salt marsh, which protects
us from invasion by land, while the rugged and ofttimes vertical
topography of our mountain renders the landing of hostile airships a
precarious undertaking."
"That, and your brave warriors?" suggested the girl.
Gahan smiled. "We do not speak of that except to enemies," he said,
"and then with tongues of steel rather than of flesh."
"But what practice in the art of war has a people which nature has
thus protected from attack?" asked Tara of Helium, who had liked the
young jed's answer to her previous question, but yet in whose mind
persisted a vague conviction of the possible effeminacy of her
companion, induced, doubtless, by the magnificence of his trappings
and weapons which carried a suggestion of splendid show rather than
grim utility.
"Our natural barriers, while they have doubtless saved us from defeat
on countless occasions, have not by any means rendered us immune from
attack," he explained, "for so great is the wealth of Gathol's diamond
treasury that there yet may be found those who will risk almost
certain defeat in an effort to loot our unconquered city; so thus we
find occasional practice in the exercise of arms; but there is more to
Gathol than the mountain city. My country extends from Polodona
(Equator) north ten karads and from the tenth karad west of Horz to
the twentieth west, including thus a million square haads, the greater
proportion of which is fine grazing land where run our great herds of
thoats and zitidars.
"Surrounded as we are by predatory enemies our herdsmen must indeed be
warriors or we should have no herds, and you may be assured they get
plenty of fighting. Then there is our constant need of workers in the
mines. The Gatholians consider themselves a race of warriors and as
such prefer not to labor in the mines. The law is, however, that each
male Gatholian shall give an hour a day in labor to the government.
That is practically the only tax that is levied upon them. They prefer
however, to furnish a substitute to perform this labor, and as our own
people will not hire out for labor in the mines it has been necessary
to obtain slaves, and I do not need to tell you that slaves are not
won without fighting. We sell these slaves in the public market, the
proceeds going, half and half, to the government and the warriors who
bring them in. The purchasers are credited with the amount of labor
performed by their particular slaves. At the end of a year a good
slave will have performed the labor tax of his master for six years,
and if slaves are plentiful he is freed and permitted to return to his
own people."
"You fight in platinum and diamonds?" asked Tara, indicating his
gorgeous trappings with a quizzical smile.
Gahan laughed. "We are a vain people," he admitted, good-naturedly,
"and it is possible that we place too much value on personal
appearances. We vie with one another in the splendor of our
accoutrements when trapped for the observance of the lighter duties of
life, though when we take the field our leather is the plainest I ever
have seen worn by fighting men of Barsoom. We pride ourselves, too,
upon our physical beauty, and especially upon the beauty of our women.
May I dare to say, Tara of Helium, that I am hoping for the day when
you will visit Gathol that my people may see one who is really
beautiful?"
"The women of Helium are taught to frown with displeasure upon the
tongue of the flatterer," rejoined the girl, but Gahan, Jed of Gathol,
observed that she smiled as she said it.
A bugle sounded, clear and sweet, above the laughter and the talk.
"The Dance of Barsoom!" exclaimed the young warrior. "I claim you for
it, Tara of Helium."
The girl glanced in the direction of the bench where she had last seen
Djor Kantos. He was not in sight. She inclined her head in assent to
the claim of the Gatholian. Slaves were passing among the guests,
distributing small musical instruments of a single string. Upon each
instrument were characters which indicated the pitch and length of its
tone. The instruments were of skeel, the string of gut, and were
shaped to fit the left forearm of the dancer, to which it was
strapped. There was also a ring wound with gut which was worn between
the first and second joints of the index finger of the right hand and
which, when passed over the string of the instrument, elicited the
single note required of the dancer.
The guests had risen and were slowly making their way toward the
expanse of scarlet sward at the south end of the gardens where the
dance was to be held, when Djor Kantos came hurriedly toward Tara of
Helium. "I claim--" he exclaimed as he neared her; but she interrupted
him with a gesture.
"You are too late, Djor Kantos," she cried in mock anger. "No laggard
may claim Tara of Helium; but haste now lest thou lose also Olvia
Marthis, whom I have never seen wait long to be claimed for this or
any other dance."
"I have already lost her," admitted Djor Kantos ruefully.
"And you mean to say that you came for Tara of Helium only after
having lost Olvia Marthis?" demanded the girl, still simulating
displeasure.
"Oh, Tara of Helium, you know better than that," insisted the young
man. "Was it not natural that I should assume that you would expect
me, who alone has claimed you for the Dance of Barsoom for at least
twelve times past?"
"And sit and play with my thumbs until you saw fit to come for me?"
she questioned. "Ah, no, Djor Kantos; Tara of Helium is for no
laggard," and she threw him a sweet smile and passed on toward the
assembling dancers with Gahan, Jed of far Gathol.
The Dance of Barsoom bears a relation similar to the more formal
dancing functions of Mars that The Grand March does to ours, though it
is infinitely more intricate and more beautiful. Before a Martian
youth of either sex may attend an important social function where
there is dancing, he must have become proficient in at least three
dances--The Dance of Barsoom, his national dance, and the dance of his
city. In these three dances the dancers furnish their own music, which
never varies; nor do the steps or figures vary, having been handed
down from time immemorial. All Barsoomian dances are stately and
beautiful, but The Dance of Barsoom is a wondrous epic of motion and
harmony--there is no grotesque posturing, no vulgar or suggestive
movements. It has been described as the interpretation of the highest
ideals of a world that aspired to grace and beauty and chastity in
woman, and strength and dignity and loyalty in man.
Today, John Carter, Warlord of Mars, with Dejah Thoris, his mate, led
in the dancing, and if there was another couple that vied with them in
possession of the silent admiration of the guests it was the
resplendent Jed of Gathol and his beautiful partner. In the
ever-changing figures of the dance the man found himself now with the
girl's hand in his and again with an arm about the lithe body that the
jeweled harness but inadequately covered, and the girl, though she had
danced a thousand dances in the past, realized for the first time the
personal contact of a man's arm against her naked flesh. It troubled
her that she should notice it, and she looked up questioningly and
almost with displeasure at the man as though it was his fault. Their
eyes met and she saw in his that which she had never seen in the eyes
of Djor Kantos. It was at the very end of the dance and they both
stopped suddenly with the music and stood there looking straight into
each other's eyes. It was Gahan of Gathol who spoke first.
"Tara of Helium, I love you!" he said.
The girl drew herself to her full height. "The Jed of Gathol forgets
himself," she exclaimed haughtily.
"The Jed of Gathol would forget everything but you, Tara of Helium,"
he replied. Fiercely he pressed the soft hand that he still retained
from the last position of the dance. "I love you, Tara of Helium," he
repeated. "Why should your ears refuse to hear what your eyes but just
now did not refuse to see--and answer?"
"What meanest thou?" she cried. "Are the men of Gathol such boors,
then?"
"They are neither boors nor fools," he replied, quietly. "They know
when they love a woman--and when she loves them."
Tara of Helium stamped her little foot in anger. "Go!" she said,
"before it is necessary to acquaint my father with the dishonor of his
guest."
She turned and walked away. "Wait!" cried the man. "Just another
word."
"Of apology?" she asked.
"Of prophecy," he said.
"I do not care to hear it," replied Tara of Helium, and left him
standing there. She was strangely unstrung and shortly thereafter
returned to her own quarter of the palace, where she stood for a long
time by a window looking out beyond the scarlet tower of Greater
Helium toward the northwest.
Presently she turned angrily away. "I hate him!" she exclaimed aloud.
"Whom?" inquired the privileged Uthia.
Tara of Helium stamped her foot. "That ill-mannered boor, the Jed of
Gathol," she replied.
Uthia raised her slim brows.
At the stamping of the little foot, a great beast rose from the corner
of the room and crossed to Tara of Helium where it stood looking up
into her face. She placed her hand upon the ugly head. "Dear old
Woola," she said; "no love could be deeper than yours, yet it never
offends. Would that men might pattern themselves after you!"
CHAPTER II
AT THE GALE'S MERCY
Tara of Helium did not return to her father's guests, but awaited in
her own apartments the word from Djor Kantos which she knew must come,
begging her to return to the gardens. She would then refuse,
haughtily. But no appeal came from Djor Kantos. At first Tara of
Helium was angry, then she was hurt, and always she was puzzled. She
could not understand. Occasionally she thought of the Jed of Gathol
and then she would stamp her foot, for she was very angry indeed with
Gahan. The presumption of the man! He had insinuated that he read love
for him in her eyes. Never had she been so insulted and humiliated.
Never had she so thoroughly hated a man. Suddenly she turned toward
Uthia.
"My flying leather!" she commanded.
"But the guests!" exclaimed the slave girl. "Your father, The Warlord,
will expect you to return."
"He will be disappointed," snapped Tara of Helium.
The slave hesitated. "He does not approve of your flying alone," she
reminded her mistress.
The young princess sprang to her feet and seized the unhappy slave by
the shoulders, shaking her. "You are becoming unbearable, Uthia," she
cried. "Soon there will be no alternative than to send you to the
public slave-market. Then possibly you will find a master to your
liking."
Tears came to the soft eyes of the slave girl. "It is because I love
you, my princess," she said softly. Tara of Helium melted. She took
the slave in her arms and kissed her.
"I have the disposition of a thoat, Uthia," she said. "Forgive me! I
love you and there is nothing that I would not do for you and nothing
would I do to harm you. Again, as I have so often in the past, I offer
you your freedom."
"I do not wish my freedom if it will separate me from you, Tara of
Helium," replied Uthia. "I am happy here with you--I think that I
should die without you."
Again the girls kissed. "And you will not fly alone, then?" questioned
the slave.
Tara of Helium laughed and pinched her companion. "You persistent
little pest," she cried. "Of course I shall fly--does not Tara of
Helium always do that which pleases her?"
Uthia shook her head sorrowfully. "Alas! she does," she admitted.
"Iron is the Warlord of Barsoom to the influences of all but two. In
the hands of Dejah Thoris and Tara of Helium he is as potters' clay."
"Then run and fetch my flying leather like the sweet slave you are,"
directed the mistress.
* * * * *
Far out across the ochre sea-bottoms beyond the twin cities of Helium
raced the swift flier of Tara of Helium. Thrilling to the speed and
the buoyancy and the obedience of the little craft the girl drove
toward the northwest. Why she should choose that direction she did not
pause to consider. Perhaps because in that direction lay the least
known areas of Barsoom, and, ergo, Romance, Mystery, and Adventure. In
that direction also lay far Gathol; but to that fact she gave no
conscious thought.
She did, however, think occasionally of the jed of that distant
kingdom, but the reaction to these thoughts was scarcely pleasurable.
They still brought a flush of shame to her cheeks and a surge of angry
blood to her heart. She was very angry with the Jed of Gathol, and
though she should never see him again she was quite sure that hate of
him would remain fresh in her memory forever. Mostly her thoughts
revolved about another--Djor Kantos. And when she thought of him she
thought also of Olvia Marthis of Hastor. Tara of Helium thought that
she was jealous of the fair Olvia and it made her very angry to think
that. She was angry with Djor Kantos and herself, but she was not
angry at all with Olvia Marthis, whom she loved, and so of course she
was not jealous really. The trouble was, that Tara of Helium had
failed for once to have her own way. Djor Kantos had not come running
like a willing slave when she had expected him, and, ah, here was the
nub of the whole thing! Gahan, Jed of Gathol, a stranger, had been a
witness to her humiliation. He had seen her unclaimed at the beginning
of a great function and he had had to come to her rescue to save her,
as he doubtless thought, from the inglorious fate of a wall-flower. At
the recurring thought, Tara of Helium could feel her whole body
burning with scarlet shame and then she went suddenly white and cold
with rage; whereupon she turned her flier about so abruptly that she
was all but torn from her lashings upon the flat, narrow deck. She
reached home just before dark. The guests had departed. Quiet had
descended upon the palace. An hour later she joined her father and
mother at the evening meal.
"You deserted us, Tara of Helium," said John Carter. "It is not what
the guests of John Carter should expect."
"They did not come to see me," replied Tara of Helium. "I did not ask
them."
"They were no less your guests," replied her father.
The girl rose, and came and stood beside him and put her arms about
his neck.
"My proper old Virginian," she cried, rumpling his shock of black
hair.
"In Virginia you would be turned over your father's knee and spanked,"
said the man, smiling.
She crept into his lap and kissed him. "You do not love me any more,"
she announced. "No one loves me," but she could not compose her
features into a pout because bubbling laughter insisted upon breaking
through.
"The trouble is there are too many who love you," he said. "And now
there is another."
"Indeed!" she cried. "What do you mean?"
"Gahan of Gathol has asked permission to woo you."
The girl sat up very straight and tilted her chin in the air. "I would
not wed with a walking diamond-mine," she said. "I will not have him."
"I told him as much," replied her father, "and that you were as good
as betrothed to another. He was very courteous about it; but at the
same time he gave me to understand that he was accustomed to getting
what he wanted and that he wanted you very much. I suppose it will
mean another war. Your mother's beauty kept Helium at war for many
years, and--well, Tara of Helium, if I were a young man I should
doubtless be willing to set all Barsoom afire to win you, as I still
would to keep your divine mother," and he smiled across the sorapus
table and its golden service at the undimmed beauty of Mars' most
beautiful woman.
"Our little girl should not yet be troubled with such matters," said
Dejah Thoris. "Remember, John Carter, that you are not dealing with an
Earth child, whose span of life would be more than half completed
before a daughter of Barsoom reached actual maturity."
"But do not the daughters of Barsoom sometimes marry as early as
twenty?" he insisted.
"Yes, but they will still be desirable in the eyes of men after forty
generations of Earth folk have returned to dust--there is no hurry, at
least, upon Barsoom. We do not fade and decay here as you tell me
those of your planet do, though you, yourself, belie your own words.
When the time seems proper Tara of Helium shall wed with Djor Kantos,
and until then let us give the matter no further thought."
"No," said the girl, "the subject irks me, and I shall not marry Djor
Kantos, or another--I do not intend to wed."
Her father and mother looked at her and smiled. "When Gahan of Gathol
returns he may carry you off," said the former.
"He has gone?" asked the girl.
"His flier departs for Gathol in the morning," John Carter replied.
"I have seen the last of him then," remarked Tara of Helium with a
sigh of relief.
"He says not," returned John Carter.
The girl dismissed the subject with a shrug and the conversation
passed to other topics. A letter had arrived from Thuvia of Ptarth,
who was visiting at her father's court while Carthoris, her mate,
hunted in Okar. Word had been received that the Tharks and Warhoons
were again at war, or rather that there had been an engagement, for
war was their habitual state. In the memory of man there had been no
peace between these two savage green hordes--only a single temporary
truce. Two new battleships had been launched at Hastor. A little band
of holy therns was attempting to revive the ancient and discredited
religion of Issus, who they claimed still lived in spirit and had
communicated with them. There were rumors of war from Dusar. A
scientist claimed to have discovered human life on the further moon. A
madman had attempted to destroy the atmosphere plant. Seven people had
been assassinated in Greater Helium during the last ten zodes, (the
equivalent of an Earth day).
Following the meal Dejah Thoris and The Warlord played at jetan, the
Barsoomian game of chess, which is played upon a board of a hundred
alternate black and orange squares. One player has twenty black
pieces, the other, twenty orange pieces. A brief description of the
game may interest those Earth readers who care for chess, and will not
be lost upon those who pursue this narrative to its conclusion, since
before they are done they will find that a knowledge of jetan will add
to the interest and the thrills that are in store for them.
The men are placed upon the board as in chess upon the first two rows
next the players. In order from left to right on the line of squares
nearest the players, the jetan pieces are Warrior, Padwar, Dwar,
Flier, Chief, Princess, Flier, Dwar, Padwar, Warrior. In the next line
all are Panthans except the end pieces, which are called Thoats, and
represent mounted warriors.
The Panthans, which are represented as warriors with one feather, may
move one space in any direction except backward; the Thoats, mounted
warriors with three feathers, may move one straight and one diagonal,
and may jump intervening pieces; Warriors, foot soldiers with two
feathers, straight in any direction, or diagonally, two spaces;
Padwars, lieutenants wearing two feathers, two diagonal in any
direction, or combination; Dwars, captains wearing three feathers,
three spaces straight in any direction, or combination; Fliers,
represented by a propellor with three blades, three spaces in any
direction, or combination, diagonally, and may jump intervening
pieces; the Chief, indicated by a diadem with ten jewels, three spaces
in any direction, straight, or diagonal; Princess, diadem with a
single jewel, same as Chief, and can jump intervening pieces.
The game is won when a player places any of his pieces on the same
square with his opponent's Princess, or when a Chief takes a Chief. It
is drawn when a Chief is taken by any opposing piece other than the
opposing Chief; or when both sides have been reduced to three pieces,
or less, of equal value, and the game is not terminated in the
following ten moves, five apiece. This is but a general outline of the
game, briefly stated.
It was this game that Dejah Thoris and John Carter were playing when
Tara of Helium bid them good night, retiring to her own quarters and
her sleeping silks and furs. "Until morning, my beloved," she called
back to them as she passed from the apartment, nor little did she
guess, nor her parents, that this might indeed be the last time that
they would ever set eyes upon her.
The morning broke dull and gray. Ominous clouds billowed restlessly
and low. Beneath them torn fragments scudded toward the northwest.
From her window Tara of Helium looked out upon this unusual scene.
Dense clouds seldom overcast the Barsoomian sky. At this hour of the
day it was her custom to ride one of those small thoats that are the
saddle animals of the red Martians, but the sight of the billowing
clouds lured her to a new adventure. Uthia still slept and the girl
did not disturb her. Instead, she dressed quietly and went to the
hangar upon the roof of the palace directly above her quarters where
her own swift flier was housed. She had never driven through the
clouds. It was an adventure that always she had longed to experience.
The wind was strong and it was with difficulty that she maneuvered the
craft from the hangar without accident, but once away it raced swiftly
out above the twin cities. The buffeting winds caught and tossed it,
and the girl laughed aloud in sheer joy of the resultant thrills. She
handled the little ship like a veteran, though few veterans would have
faced the menace of such a storm in so light a craft. Swiftly she rose
toward the clouds, racing with the scudding streamers of the
storm-swept fragments, and a moment later she was swallowed by the
dense masses billowing above. Here was a new world, a world of chaos
unpeopled except for herself; but it was a cold, damp, lonely world
and she found it depressing after the novelty of it had been
dissipated, by an overpowering sense of the magnitude of the forces
surging about her. Suddenly she felt very lonely and very cold and
very little. Hurriedly, therefore, she rose until presently her craft
broke through into the glorious sunlight that transformed the upper
surface of the somber element into rolling masses of burnished silver.
Here it was still cold, but without the dampness of the clouds, and in
the eye of the brilliant sun her spirits rose with the mounting needle
of her altimeter. Gazing at the clouds, now far beneath, the girl
experienced the sensation of hanging stationary in mid-heaven; but the
whirring of her propellor, the wind beating upon her, the high figures
that rose and fell beneath the glass of her speedometer, these told
her that her speed was terrific. It was then that she determined to
turn back.
The first attempt she made above the clouds, but it was unsuccessful.
To her surprise she discovered that she could not even turn against
the high wind, which rocked and buffeted the frail craft. Then she
dropped swiftly to the dark and wind-swept zone between the hurtling
clouds and the gloomy surface of the shadowed ground. Here she tried
again to force the nose of the flier back toward Helium, but the
tempest seized the frail thing and hurled it remorselessly about,
rolling it over and over and tossing it as it were a cork in a
cataract. At last the girl succeeded in righting the flier, perilously
close to the ground. Never before had she been so close to death, yet
she was not terrified. Her coolness had saved her, that and the
strength of the deck lashings that held her. Traveling with the storm
she was safe, but where was it bearing her? She pictured the
apprehension of her father and mother when she failed to appear at the
morning meal. They would find her flier missing and they would guess
that somewhere in the path of the storm it lay a wrecked and tangled
mass upon her dead body, and then brave men would go out in search of
her, risking their lives; and that lives would be lost in the search,
she knew, for she realized now that never in her life-time had such a
tempest raged upon Barsoom.
She must turn back! She must reach Helium before her mad lust for
thrills had cost the sacrifice of a single courageous life! She
determined that greater safety and likelihood of success lay above the
clouds, and once again she rose through the chilling, wind-tossed
vapor. Her speed again was terrific, for the wind seemed to have
increased rather than to have lessened. She sought gradually to check
the swift flight of her craft, but though she finally succeeded in
reversing her motor the wind but carried her on as it would. Then it
was that Tara of Helium lost her temper. Had her world not always
bowed in acquiescence to her every wish? What were these elements that
they dared to thwart her? She would demonstrate to them that the
daughter of The Warlord was not to be denied! They would learn that
Tara of Helium might not be ruled even by the forces of nature!
And so she drove her motor forward again and then with her firm, white
teeth set in grim determination she drove the steering lever far down
to port with the intention of forcing the nose of her craft straight
into the teeth of the wind, and the wind seized the frail thing and
toppled it over upon its back, and twisted and turned it and hurled it
over and over; the propellor raced for an instant in an air pocket and
then the tempest seized it again and twisted it from its shaft,
leaving the girl helpless upon an unmanageable atom that rose and
fell, and rolled and tumbled--the sport of the elements she had
defied. Tara of Helium's first sensation was one of surprise--that she
had failed to have her own way. Then she commenced to feel
concern--not for her own safety but for the anxiety of her parents and
the dangers that the inevitable searchers must face. She reproached
herself for the thoughtless selfishness that had jeopardized the peace
and safety of others. She realized her own grave danger, too; but she
was still unterrified, as befitted the daughter of Dejah Thoris and
John Carter. She knew that her buoyancy tanks might keep her afloat
indefinitely, but she had neither food nor water, and she was being
borne toward the least-known area of Barsoom. Perhaps it would be
better to land immediately and await the coming of the searchers,
rather than to allow herself to be carried still further from Helium,
thus greatly reducing the chances of early discovery; but when she
dropped toward the ground she discovered that the violence of the wind
rendered an attempt to land tantamount to destruction and she rose
again, rapidly.
Carried along a few hundred feet above the ground she was better able
to appreciate the Titanic proportions of the storm than when she had
flown in the comparative serenity of the zone above the clouds, for
now she could distinctly see the effect of the wind upon the surface
of Barsoom. The air was filled with dust and flying bits of vegetation
and when the storm carried her across an irrigated area of farm land
she saw great trees and stone walls and buildings lifted high in air
and scattered broadcast over the devastated country; and then she was
carried swiftly on to other sights that forced in upon her
consciousness a rapidly growing conviction that after all Tara of
Helium was a very small and insignificant and helpless person. It was
quite a shock to her self-pride while it lasted, and toward evening
she was ready to believe that it was going to last forever. There had
been no abatement in the ferocity of the tempest, nor was there
indication of any. She could only guess at the distance she had been
carried for she could not believe in the correctness of the high
figures that had been piled upon the record of her odometer. They
seemed unbelievable and yet, had she known it, they were quite
true--in twelve hours she had flown and been carried by the storm full
seven thousand haads. Just before dark she was carried over one of the
deserted cities of ancient Mars. It was Torquas, but she did not know
it. Had she, she might readily have been forgiven for abandoning the
last vestige of hope, for to the people of Helium Torquas seems as
remote as do the South Sea Islands to us. And still the tempest, its
fury unabated, bore her on.
All that night she hurtled through the dark beneath the clouds, or
rose to race through the moonlit void beneath the glory of Barsoom's
two satellites. She was cold and hungry and altogether miserable, but
her brave little spirit refused to admit that her plight was hopeless
even though reason proclaimed the truth. Her reply to reason, sometime
spoken aloud in sudden defiance, recalled the Spartan stubbornness of
her sire in the face of certain annihilation: "I still live!"
That morning there had been an early visitor at the palace of The
Warlord. It was Gahan, Jed of Gathol. He had arrived shortly after the
absence of Tara of Helium had been noted, and in the excitement he had
remained unannounced until John Carter had happened upon him in the
great reception corridor of the palace as The Warlord was hurrying out
to arrange for the dispatch of ships in search of his daughter.
Gahan read the concern upon the face of The Warlord. "Forgive me if I
intrude, John Carter," he said. "I but came to ask the indulgence of
another day since it would be fool-hardy to attempt to navigate a ship
in such a storm."
"Remain, Gahan, a welcome guest until you choose to leave us," replied
The Warlord; "but you must forgive any seeming inattention upon the
part of Helium until my daughter is restored to us."
"You daughter! Restored! What do you mean?" exclaimed the Gatholian.
"I do not understand."
"She is gone, together with her light flier. That is all we know. We
can only assume that she decided to fly before the morning meal and
was caught in the clutches of the tempest. You will pardon me, Gahan,
if I leave you abruptly--I am arranging to send ships in search of
her;" but Gahan, Jed of Gathol, was already speeding in the direction
of the palace gate. There he leaped upon a waiting thoat and followed
by two warriors in the metal of Gathol, he dashed through the avenues
of Helium toward the palace that had been set aside for his
entertainment.