CHAPTER XXII

A Princess of Mars

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER XXII, A PRINCESS OF MARS by Edgar R. Burroughs
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I FIND DEJAH


The major-domo to whom I reported had been given instructions
to station me near the person of the jeddak, who, in time
of war, is always in great danger of assassination, as the
rule that all is fair in war seems to constitute the entire
ethics of Martian conflict.

He therefore escorted me immediately to the apartment
in which Than Kosis then was. The ruler was engaged in
conversation with his son, Sab Than, and several courtiers
of his household, and did not perceive my entrance.

The walls of the apartment were completely hung with
splendid tapestries which hid any windows or doors which
may have pierced them. The room was lighted by imprisoned
rays of sunshine held between the ceiling proper and what
appeared to be a ground-glass false ceiling a few inches
below.

My guide drew aside one of the tapestries, disclosing a
passage which encircled the room, between the hangings and
the walls of the chamber. Within this passage I was to
remain, he said, so long as Than Kosis was in the apartment.
When he left I was to follow. My only duty was to guard
the ruler and keep out of sight as much as possible. I
would be relieved after a period of four hours. The major-
domo then left me.

The tapestries were of a strange weaving which gave the
appearance of heavy solidity from one side, but from my hiding
place I could perceive all that took place within the room as
readily as though there had been no curtain intervening.

Scarcely had I gained my post than the tapestry at the
opposite end of the chamber separated and four soldiers of
The Guard entered, surrounding a female figure. As they
approached Than Kosis the soldiers fell to either side and
there standing before the jeddak and not ten feet from me,
her beautiful face radiant with smiles, was Dejah Thoris.

Sab Than, Prince of Zodanga, advanced to meet her, and
hand in hand they approached close to the jeddak. Than
Kosis looked up in surprise, and, rising, saluted her.

"To what strange freak do I owe this visit from the Princess
of Helium, who, two days ago, with rare consideration
for my pride, assured me that she would prefer Tal Hajus,
the green Thark, to my son?"

Dejah Thoris only smiled the more and with the roguish dimples
playing at the corners of her mouth she made answer:

"From the beginning of time upon Barsoom it has been
the prerogative of woman to change her mind as she listed
and to dissemble in matters concerning her heart. That you
will forgive, Than Kosis, as has your son. Two days ago I
was not sure of his love for me, but now I am, and I have
come to beg of you to forget my rash words and to accept
the assurance of the Princess of Helium that when the time
comes she will wed Sab Than, Prince of Zodanga."

"I am glad that you have so decided," replied Than Kosis.
"It is far from my desire to push war further against the
people of Helium, and, your promise shall be recorded and
a proclamation to my people issued forthwith."

"It were better, Than Kosis," interrupted Dejah Thoris,
"that the proclamation wait the ending of this war. It would
look strange indeed to my people and to yours were the
Princess of Helium to give herself to her country's enemy
in the midst of hostilities."

"Cannot the war be ended at once?" spoke Sab Than.
"It requires but the word of Than Kosis to bring peace.
Say it, my father, say the word that will hasten my
happiness, and end this unpopular strife."

"We shall see," replied Than Kosis, "how the people of
Helium take to peace. I shall at least offer it to them."

Dejah Thoris, after a few words, turned and left the
apartment, still followed by her guards.

Thus was the edifice of my brief dream of happiness
dashed, broken, to the ground of reality. The woman for
whom I had offered my life, and from whose lips I had so
recently heard a declaration of love for me, had lightly
forgotten my very existence and smilingly given herself to
the son of her people's most hated enemy.

Although I had heard it with my own ears I could not
believe it. I must search out her apartments and force her
to repeat the cruel truth to me alone before I would be
convinced, and so I deserted my post and hastened through
the passage behind the tapestries toward the door by which
she had left the chamber. Slipping quietly through this
opening I discovered a maze of winding corridors, branching
and turning in every direction.

Running rapidly down first one and then another of them
I soon became hopelessly lost and was standing panting
against a side wall when I heard voices near me. Apparently
they were coming from the opposite side of the partition
against which I leaned and presently I made out the tones
of Dejah Thoris. I could not hear the words but I knew
that I could not possibly be mistaken in the voice.

Moving on a few steps I discovered another passageway
at the end of which lay a door. Walking boldly forward I
pushed into the room only to find myself in a small ante-
chamber in which were the four guards who had accompanied
her. One of them instantly arose and accosted me, asking
the nature of my business.

"I am from Than Kosis," I replied, "and wish to speak
privately with Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium."

"And your order?" asked the fellow.

I did not know what he meant, but replied that I was a
member of The Guard, and without waiting for a reply
from him I strode toward the opposite door of the ante-
chamber, behind which I could hear Dejah Thoris conversing.

But my entrance was not to be so easily accomplished.
The guardsman stepped before me, saying,

"No one comes from Than Kosis without carrying an
order or the password. You must give me one or the other
before you may pass."

"The only order I require, my friend, to enter where I
will, hangs at my side," I answered, tapping my long-sword;
"will you let me pass in peace or no?"

For reply he whipped out his own sword, calling to the
others to join him, and thus the four stood, with drawn
weapons, barring my further progress.

"You are not here by the order of Than Kosis," cried
the one who had first addressed me, "and not only shall
you not enter the apartments of the Princess of Helium but
you shall go back to Than Kosis under guard to explain
this unwarranted temerity. Throw down your sword; you
cannot hope to overcome four of us," he added with a grim
smile.

My reply was a quick thrust which left me but three
antagonists and I can assure you that they were worthy of
my metal. They had me backed against the wall in no time,
fighting for my life. Slowly I worked my way to a corner
of the room where I could force them to come at me only
one at a time, and thus we fought upward of twenty minutes;
the clanging of steel on steel producing a veritable bedlam
in the little room.

The noise had brought Dejah Thoris to the door of her
apartment, and there she stood throughout the conflict with
Sola at her back peering over her shoulder. Her face was
set and emotionless and I knew that she did not recognize
me, nor did Sola.

Finally a lucky cut brought down a second guardsman
and then, with only two opposing me, I changed my tactics
and rushed them down after the fashion of my fighting
that had won me many a victory. The third fell within ten
seconds after the second, and the last lay dead upon the
bloody floor a few moments later. They were brave men
and noble fighters, and it grieved me that I had been forced
to kill them, but I would have willingly depopulated all
Barsoom could I have reached the side of my Dejah Thoris
in no other way.

Sheathing my bloody blade I advanced toward my Martian
Princess, who still stood mutely gazing at me without
sign of recognition.

"Who are you, Zodangan?" she whispered. "Another enemy
to harass me in my misery?"

"I am a friend," I answered, "a once cherished friend."

"No friend of Helium's princess wears that metal," she replied,
"and yet the voice! I have heard it before; it is not--it
cannot be--no, for he is dead."

"It is, though, my Princess, none other than John Carter,"
I said. "Do you not recognize, even through paint and
strange metal, the heart of your chieftain?"

As I came close to her she swayed toward me with outstretched
hands, but as I reached to take her in my arms she drew back
with a shudder and a little moan of misery.

"Too late, too late," she grieved. "O my chieftain that was,
and whom I thought dead, had you but returned one little
hour before--but now it is too late, too late."

"What do you mean, Dejah Thoris?" I cried. "That you
would not have promised yourself to the Zodangan prince
had you known that I lived?"

"Think you, John Carter, that I would give my heart to you
yesterday and today to another? I thought that it lay buried
with your ashes in the pits of Warhoon, and so today I have
promised my body to another to save my people from the
curse of a victorious Zodangan army."

"But I am not dead, my princess. I have come to claim
you, and all Zodanga cannot prevent it."

"It is too late, John Carter, my promise is given, and on
Barsoom that is final. The ceremonies which follow later are
but meaningless formalities. They make the fact of marriage
no more certain than does the funeral cortege of a jeddak
again place the seal of death upon him. I am as good as
married, John Carter. No longer may you call me your
princess. No longer are you my chieftain."

"I know but little of your customs here upon Barsoom,
Dejah Thoris, but I do know that I love you, and if you
meant the last words you spoke to me that day as the hordes
of Warhoon were charging down upon us, no other man shall
ever claim you as his bride. You meant them then, my
princess, and you mean them still! Say that it is true."

"I meant them, John Carter," she whispered. "I cannot
repeat them now for I have given myself to another. Ah,
if you had only known our ways, my friend," she continued,
half to herself, "the promise would have been yours long
months ago, and you could have claimed me before all others.
It might have meant the fall of Helium, but I would have
given my empire for my Tharkian chief."

Then aloud she said: "Do you remember the night when
you offended me? You called me your princess without having
asked my hand of me, and then you boasted that you had
fought for me. You did not know, and I should not have
been offended; I see that now. But there was no one to tell
you what I could not, that upon Barsoom there are two
kinds of women in the cities of the red men. The one they
fight for that they may ask them in marriage; the other kind
they fight for also, but never ask their hands. When a man
has won a woman he may address her as his princess, or in
any of the several terms which signify possession. You had
fought for me, but had never asked me in marriage, and so
when you called me your princess, you see," she faltered,
"I was hurt, but even then, John Carter, I did not repulse you,
as I should have done, until you made it doubly worse by
taunting me with having won me through combat."

"I do not need ask your forgiveness now, Dejah Thoris,"
I cried. "You must know that my fault was of ignorance of
your Barsoomian customs. What I failed to do, through
implicit belief that my petition would be presumptuous and
unwelcome, I do now, Dejah Thoris; I ask you to be my wife,
and by all the Virginian fighting blood that flows in my
veins you shall be."

"No, John Carter, it is useless," she cried, hopelessly,
"I may never be yours while Sab Than lives."

"You have sealed his death warrant, my princess--Sab Than dies."

"Nor that either," she hastened to explain. "I may not
wed the man who slays my husband, even in self-defense.
It is custom. We are ruled by custom upon Barsoom. It is
useless, my friend. You must bear the sorrow with me. That
at least we may share in common. That, and the memory of
the brief days among the Tharks. You must go now, nor ever
see me again. Good-bye, my chieftain that was."

Disheartened and dejected, I withdrew from the room,
but I was not entirely discouraged, nor would I admit that
Dejah Thoris was lost to me until the ceremony had actually
been performed.

As I wandered along the corridors, I was as absolutely
lost in the mazes of winding passageways as I had been
before I discovered Dejah Thoris' apartments.

I knew that my only hope lay in escape from the city of
Zodanga, for the matter of the four dead guardsmen would
have to be explained, and as I could never reach my original
post without a guide, suspicion would surely rest on me so
soon as I was discovered wandering aimlessly through the
palace.

Presently I came upon a spiral runway leading to a lower
floor, and this I followed downward for several stories until
I reached the doorway of a large apartment in which were a
number of guardsmen. The walls of this room were hung with
transparent tapestries behind which I secreted myself without
being apprehended.

The conversation of the guardsmen was general, and
awakened no interest in me until an officer entered the room
and ordered four of the men to relieve the detail who were
guarding the Princess of Helium. Now, I knew, my troubles
would commence in earnest and indeed they were upon
me all too soon, for it seemed that the squad had scarcely
left the guardroom before one of their number burst in
again breathlessly, crying that they had found their four
comrades butchered in the antechamber.

In a moment the entire palace was alive with people.
Guardsmen, officers, courtiers, servants, and slaves ran
helter-skelter through the corridors and apartments carrying
messages and orders, and searching for signs of the assassin.

This was my opportunity and slim as it appeared I grasped it,
for as a number of soldiers came hurrying past my hiding place
I fell in behind them and followed through the mazes of the
palace until, in passing through a great hall, I saw the blessed
light of day coming in through a series of larger windows.

Here I left my guides, and, slipping to the nearest window,
sought for an avenue of escape. The windows opened
upon a great balcony which overlooked one of the broad
avenues of Zodanga. The ground was about thirty feet below,
and at a like distance from the building was a wall fully
twenty feet high, constructed of polished glass about a foot
in thickness. To a red Martian escape by this path would have
appeared impossible, but to me, with my earthly strength
and agility, it seemed already accomplished. My only fear
was in being detected before darkness fell, for I could not
make the leap in broad daylight while the court below and
the avenue beyond were crowded with Zodangans.

Accordingly I searched for a hiding place and finally found
one by accident, inside a huge hanging ornament which
swung from the ceiling of the hall, and about ten feet from
the floor. Into the capacious bowl-like vase I sprang with
ease, and scarcely had I settled down within it than I heard
a number of people enter the apartment. The group stopped
beneath my hiding place and I could plainly overhear their
every word.

"It is the work of Heliumites," said one of the men.

"Yes, O Jeddak, but how had they access to the palace? I
could believe that even with the diligent care of your
guardsmen a single enemy might reach the inner chambers,
but how a force of six or eight fighting men could have
done so unobserved is beyond me. We shall soon know, however,
for here comes the royal psychologist."

Another man now joined the group, and, after making his
formal greetings to his ruler, said:

"O mighty Jeddak, it is a strange tale I read in the dead
minds of your faithful guardsmen. They were felled not by a
number of fighting men, but by a single opponent."

He paused to let the full weight of this announcement
impress his hearers, and that his statement was scarcely
credited was evidenced by the impatient exclamation of
incredulity which escaped the lips of Than Kosis.

"What manner of weird tale are you bringing me, Notan?" he cried.

"It is the truth, my Jeddak," replied the psychologist.
"In fact the impressions were strongly marked on the brain
of each of the four guardsmen. Their antagonist was a very
tall man, wearing the metal of one of your own guardsmen,
and his fighting ability was little short of marvelous for he
fought fair against the entire four and vanquished them by
his surpassing skill and superhuman strength and endurance.
Though he wore the metal of Zodanga, my Jeddak, such a
man was never seen before in this or any other country upon
Barsoom.

"The mind of the Princess of Helium whom I have examined
and questioned was a blank to me, she has perfect
control, and I could not read one iota of it. She said that
she witnessed a portion of the encounter, and that when she
looked there was but one man engaged with the guardsmen;
a man whom she did not recognize as ever having seen."

"Where is my erstwhile savior?" spoke another of the
party, and I recognized the voice of the cousin of Than Kosis,
whom I had rescued from the green warriors. "By the metal
of my first ancestor," he went on, "but the description fits
him to perfection, especially as to his fighting ability."

"Where is this man?" cried Than Kosis. "Have him brought
to me at once. What know you of him, cousin? It seemed
strange to me now that I think upon it that there should
have been such a fighting man in Zodanga, of whose name,
even, we were ignorant before today. And his name too,
John Carter, who ever heard of such a name upon Barsoom!"

Word was soon brought that I was nowhere to be found,
either in the palace or at my former quarters in the
barracks of the air-scout squadron. Kantos Kan, they had
found and questioned, but he knew nothing of my whereabouts,
and as to my past, he had told them he knew as little, since he
had but recently met me during our captivity among the Warhoons.

"Keep your eyes on this other one," commanded Than Kosis.
"He also is a stranger and likely as not they both hail
from Helium, and where one is we shall sooner or later
find the other. Quadruple the air patrol, and let every man
who leaves the city by air or ground be subjected to the
closest scrutiny."

Another messenger now entered with word that I was still
within the palace walls.

"The likeness of every person who has entered or left the
palace grounds today has been carefully examined," concluded
the fellow, "and not one approaches the likeness of this new
padwar of the guards, other than that which was recorded of
him at the time he entered."

"Then we will have him shortly," commented Than Kosis
contentedly, "and in the meanwhile we will repair to the
apartments of the Princess of Helium and question her in
regard to the affair. She may know more than she cared to
divulge to you, Notan. Come."

They left the hall, and, as darkness had fallen without, I
slipped lightly from my hiding place and hastened to the
balcony. Few were in sight, and choosing a moment when
none seemed near I sprang quickly to the top of the glass
wall and from there to the avenue beyond the palace grounds.