CHAPTER I

Gods of Mars

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER I, GODS OF MARS by Edgar R. Burroughs
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THE PLANT MEN


As I stood upon the bluff before my cottage on that clear
cold night in the early part of March, 1886, the noble Hudson
flowing like the grey and silent spectre of a dead river
below me, I felt again the strange, compelling influence of
the mighty god of war, my beloved Mars, which for ten long
and lonesome years I had implored with outstretched arms
to carry me back to my lost love.

Not since that other March night in 1866, when I had
stood without that Arizona cave in which my still and lifeless
body lay wrapped in the similitude of earthly death had I felt
the irresistible attraction of the god of my profession.

With arms outstretched toward the red eye of the great
star I stood praying for a return of that strange power which
twice had drawn me through the immensity of space, praying
as I had prayed on a thousand nights before during the long
ten years that I had waited and hoped.

Suddenly a qualm of nausea swept over me, my senses
swam, my knees gave beneath me and I pitched headlong
to the ground upon the very verge of the dizzy bluff.

Instantly my brain cleared and there swept back across
the threshold of my memory the vivid picture of the horrors
of that ghostly Arizona cave; again, as on that far-gone night,
my muscles refused to respond to my will and again, as
though even here upon the banks of the placid Hudson, I
could hear the awful moans and rustling of the fearsome
thing which had lurked and threatened me from the dark
recesses of the cave, I made the same mighty and superhuman
effort to break the bonds of the strange anaesthesia which
held me, and again came the sharp click as of the sudden
parting of a taut wire, and I stood naked and free beside
the staring, lifeless thing that had so recently pulsed with
the warm, red life-blood of John Carter.

With scarcely a parting glance I turned my eyes again toward
Mars, lifted my hands toward his lurid rays, and waited.

Nor did I have long to wait; for scarce had I turned ere I
shot with the rapidity of thought into the awful void before
me. There was the same instant of unthinkable cold and utter
darkness that I had experienced twenty years before, and
then I opened my eyes in another world, beneath the burning
rays of a hot sun, which beat through a tiny opening in the
dome of the mighty forest in which I lay.

The scene that met my eyes was so un-Martian that my
heart sprang to my throat as the sudden fear swept through
me that I had been aimlessly tossed upon some strange planet
by a cruel fate.

Why not? What guide had I through the trackless waste of
interplanetary space? What assurance that I might not as
well be hurtled to some far-distant star of another
solar system, as to Mars?

I lay upon a close-cropped sward of red grasslike vegetation,
and about me stretched a grove of strange and beautiful trees,
covered with huge and gorgeous blossoms and filled with brilliant,
voiceless birds. I call them birds since they were winged, but
mortal eye ne'er rested on such odd, unearthly shapes.

The vegetation was similar to that which covers the lawns
of the red Martians of the great waterways, but the trees
and birds were unlike anything that I had ever seen upon
Mars, and then through the further trees I could see that
most un-Martian of all sights--an open sea, its blue waters
shimmering beneath the brazen sun.

As I rose to investigate further I experienced the same
ridiculous catastrophe that had met my first attempt to walk
under Martian conditions. The lesser attraction of this smaller
planet and the reduced air pressure of its greatly rarefied
atmosphere, afforded so little resistance to my earthly muscles
that the ordinary exertion of the mere act of rising sent
me several feet into the air and precipitated me upon my
face in the soft and brilliant grass of this strange world.

This experience, however, gave me some slightly increased
assurance that, after all, I might indeed be in some, to me,
unknown corner of Mars, and this was very possible since
during my ten years' residence upon the planet I had
explored but a comparatively tiny area of its vast expanse.

I arose again, laughing at my forgetfulness, and soon had
mastered once more the art of attuning my earthly sinews
to these changed conditions.

As I walked slowly down the imperceptible slope toward
the sea I could not help but note the park-like appearance of
the sward and trees. The grass was as close-cropped and
carpet-like as some old English lawn and the trees themselves
showed evidence of careful pruning to a uniform height of
about fifteen feet from the ground, so that as one turned his
glance in any direction the forest had the appearance at a
little distance of a vast, high-ceiled chamber.

All these evidences of careful and systematic cultivation
convinced me that I had been fortunate enough to make my
entry into Mars on this second occasion through the domain
of a civilized people and that when I should find them I
would be accorded the courtesy and protection that my rank
as a Prince of the house of Tardos Mors entitled me to.

The trees of the forest attracted my deep admiration as I
proceeded toward the sea. Their great stems, some of them
fully a hundred feet in diameter, attested their prodigious
height, which I could only guess at, since at no point could
I penetrate their dense foliage above me to more than sixty
or eighty feet.

As far aloft as I could see the stems and branches and
twigs were as smooth and as highly polished as the newest of
American-made pianos. The wood of some of the trees was
as black as ebony, while their nearest neighbours might
perhaps gleam in the subdued light of the forest as clear
and white as the finest china, or, again, they were azure,
scarlet, yellow, or deepest purple.

And in the same way was the foliage as gay and variegated
as the stems, while the blooms that clustered thick upon
them may not be described in any earthly tongue, and indeed
might challenge the language of the gods.

As I neared the confines of the forest I beheld before me
and between the grove and the open sea, a broad expanse
of meadow land, and as I was about to emerge from the
shadows of the trees a sight met my eyes that banished
all romantic and poetic reflection upon the beauties of
the strange landscape.

To my left the sea extended as far as the eye could reach,
before me only a vague, dim line indicated its further shore,
while at my right a mighty river, broad, placid, and majestic,
flowed between scarlet banks to empty into the quiet sea before me.

At a little distance up the river rose mighty perpendicular bluffs,
from the very base of which the great river seemed to rise.

But it was not these inspiring and magnificent evidences of
Nature's grandeur that took my immediate attention from the
beauties of the forest. It was the sight of a score of figures
moving slowly about the meadow near the bank of the mighty river.

Odd, grotesque shapes they were; unlike anything that I had
ever seen upon Mars, and yet, at a distance, most manlike
in appearance. The larger specimens appeared to be about
ten or twelve feet in height when they stood erect, and
to be proportioned as to torso and lower extremities
precisely as is earthly man.

Their arms, however, were very short, and from where I stood
seemed as though fashioned much after the manner of an
elephant's trunk, in that they moved in sinuous and snakelike
undulations, as though entirely without bony structure, or if
there were bones it seemed that they must be vertebral in nature.

As I watched them from behind the stem of a huge tree,
one of the creatures moved slowly in my direction, engaged
in the occupation that seemed to be the principal business of
each of them, and which consisted in running their oddly
shaped hands over the surface of the sward, for what purpose
I could not determine.

As he approached quite close to me I obtained an excellent
view of him, and though I was later to become better
acquainted with his kind, I may say that that single cursory
examination of this awful travesty on Nature would have
proved quite sufficient to my desires had I been a free agent.
The fastest flier of the Heliumetic Navy could not quickly
enough have carried me far from this hideous creature.

Its hairless body was a strange and ghoulish blue, except
for a broad band of white which encircled its protruding,
single eye: an eye that was all dead white--pupil, iris,
and ball.

Its nose was a ragged, inflamed, circular hole in the centre
of its blank face; a hole that resembled more closely nothing
that I could think of other than a fresh bullet wound which
has not yet commenced to bleed.

Below this repulsive orifice the face was quite blank to
the chin, for the thing had no mouth that I could discover.

The head, with the exception of the face, was covered by a tangled
mass of jet-black hair some eight or ten inches in length. Each
hair was about the bigness of a large angleworm, and as the thing
moved the muscles of its scalp this awful head-covering seemed
to writhe and wriggle and crawl about the fearsome face as though
indeed each separate hair was endowed with independent life.

The body and the legs were as symmetrically human as Nature
could have fashioned them, and the feet, too, were human
in shape, but of monstrous proportions. From heel to toe
they were fully three feet long, and very flat and very broad.

As it came quite close to me I discovered that its strange
movements, running its odd hands over the surface of the
turf, were the result of its peculiar method of feeding, which
consists in cropping off the tender vegetation with its
razorlike talons and sucking it up from its two mouths, which
lie one in the palm of each hand, through its arm-like throats.

In addition to the features which I have already described,
the beast was equipped with a massive tail about six feet in
length, quite round where it joined the body, but tapering to
a flat, thin blade toward the end, which trailed at right
angles to the ground.

By far the most remarkable feature of this most remarkable
creature, however, were the two tiny replicas of it, each
about six inches in length, which dangled, one on either side,
from its armpits. They were suspended by a small stem which
seemed to grow from the exact tops of their heads to where
it connected them with the body of the adult.

Whether they were the young, or merely portions of a
composite creature, I did not know.

As I had been scrutinizing this weird monstrosity the
balance of the herd had fed quite close to me and I now saw
that while many had the smaller specimens dangling from
them, not all were thus equipped, and I further noted that
the little ones varied in size from what appeared to be but
tiny unopened buds an inch in diameter through various
stages of development to the full-fledged and perfectly
formed creature of ten to twelve inches in length.

Feeding with the herd were many of the little fellows not
much larger than those which remained attached to their
parents, and from the young of that size the herd graded up
to the immense adults.

Fearsome-looking as they were, I did not know whether to
fear them or not, for they did not seem to be particularly
well equipped for fighting, and I was on the point of stepping
from my hiding-place and revealing myself to them to
note the effect upon them of the sight of a man when my
rash resolve was, fortunately for me, nipped in the bud by
a strange shrieking wail, which seemed to come from the
direction of the bluffs at my right.

Naked and unarmed, as I was, my end would have been
both speedy and horrible at the hands of these cruel creatures
had I had time to put my resolve into execution, but at the
moment of the shriek each member of the herd turned in the
direction from which the sound seemed to come, and at
the same instant every particular snake-like hair upon their
heads rose stiffly perpendicular as if each had been a sentient
organism looking or listening for the source or meaning of the
wail. And indeed the latter proved to be the truth, for this
strange growth upon the craniums of the plant men of Barsoom
represents the thousand ears of these hideous creatures,
the last remnant of the strange race which sprang from the
original Tree of Life.

Instantly every eye turned toward one member of the
herd, a large fellow who evidently was the leader. A strange
purring sound issued from the mouth in the palm of one of
his hands, and at the same time he started rapidly toward the
bluff, followed by the entire herd.

Their speed and method of locomotion were both remarkable,
springing as they did in great leaps of twenty or thirty
feet, much after the manner of a kangaroo.

They were rapidly disappearing when it occurred to me
to follow them, and so, hurling caution to the winds, I sprang
across the meadow in their wake with leaps and bounds even
more prodigious than their own, for the muscles of an
athletic Earth man produce remarkable results when pitted
against the lesser gravity and air pressure of Mars.

Their way led directly towards the apparent source of the
river at the base of the cliffs, and as I neared this point I
found the meadow dotted with huge boulders that the ravages
of time had evidently dislodged from the towering crags above.

For this reason I came quite close to the cause of the
disturbance before the scene broke upon my horrified gaze.
As I topped a great boulder I saw the herd of plant men
surrounding a little group of perhaps five or six green men
and women of Barsoom.

That I was indeed upon Mars I now had no doubt, for
here were members of the wild hordes that people the dead
sea bottoms and deserted cities of that dying planet.

Here were the great males towering in all the majesty of
their imposing height; here were the gleaming white tusks
protruding from their massive lower jaws to a point near the
centre of their foreheads, the laterally placed, protruding
eyes with which they could look forward or backward, or to
either side without turning their heads, here the strange
antennae-like ears rising from the tops of their foreheads;
and the additional pair of arms extending from midway between
the shoulders and the hips.

Even without the glossy green hide and the metal ornaments
which denoted the tribes to which they belonged, I would
have known them on the instant for what they were,
for where else in all the universe is their like duplicated?

There were two men and four females in the party and
their ornaments denoted them as members of different
hordes, a fact which tended to puzzle me infinitely, since
the various hordes of green men of Barsoom are eternally at
deadly war with one another, and never, except on that single
historic instance when the great Tars Tarkas of Thark gathered
a hundred and fifty thousand green warriors from several
hordes to march upon the doomed city of Zodanga to rescue
Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, from the clutches of
Than Kosis, had I seen green Martians of different hordes
associated in other than mortal combat.

But now they stood back to back, facing, in wide-eyed amazement,
the very evidently hostile demonstrations of a common enemy.

Both men and women were armed with long-swords and
daggers, but no firearms were in evidence, else it had been
short shrift for the gruesome plant men of Barsoom.

Presently the leader of the plant men charged the little
party, and his method of attack was as remarkable as it was
effective, and by its very strangeness was the more potent,
since in the science of the green warriors there was no
defence for this singular manner of attack, the like of which
it soon was evident to me they were as unfamiliar with as
they were with the monstrosities which confronted them.

The plant man charged to within a dozen feet of the party
and then, with a bound, rose as though to pass directly above
their heads. His powerful tail was raised high to one side, and
as he passed close above them he brought it down in one terrific
sweep that crushed a green warrior's skull as though it had been
an eggshell.

The balance of the frightful herd was now circling rapidly
and with bewildering speed about the little knot of victims.
Their prodigious bounds and the shrill, screeching purr of
their uncanny mouths were well calculated to confuse and
terrorize their prey, so that as two of them leaped
simultaneously from either side, the mighty sweep of
those awful tails met with no resistance and two more
green Martians went down to an ignoble death.

There were now but one warrior and two females left,
and it seemed that it could be but a matter of seconds
ere these, also, lay dead upon the scarlet sward.

But as two more of the plant men charged, the warrior,
who was now prepared by the experiences of the past few
minutes, swung his mighty long-sword aloft and met the
hurtling bulk with a clean cut that clove one of the
plant men from chin to groin.

The other, however, dealt a single blow with his cruel tail
that laid both of the females crushed corpses upon the ground.

As the green warrior saw the last of his companions go
down and at the same time perceived that the entire herd
was charging him in a body, he rushed boldly to meet them,
swinging his long-sword in the terrific manner that I had so
often seen the men of his kind wield it in their ferocious and
almost continual warfare among their own race.

Cutting and hewing to right and left, he laid an open path
straight through the advancing plant men, and then commenced
a mad race for the forest, in the shelter of which
he evidently hoped that he might find a haven of refuge.

He had turned for that portion of the forest which abutted
on the cliffs, and thus the mad race was taking the entire
party farther and farther from the boulder where I lay concealed.

As I had watched the noble fight which the great warrior
had put up against such enormous odds my heart had swelled
in admiration for him, and acting as I am wont to do, more
upon impulse than after mature deliberation, I instantly
sprang from my sheltering rock and bounded quickly toward
the bodies of the dead green Martians, a well-defined plan
of action already formed.

Half a dozen great leaps brought me to the spot, and another
instant saw me again in my stride in quick pursuit of the
hideous monsters that were rapidly gaining on the fleeing
warrior, but this time I grasped a mighty long-sword in my
hand and in my heart was the old blood lust of the fighting
man, and a red mist swam before my eyes and I felt my lips
respond to my heart in the old smile that has ever marked
me in the midst of the joy of battle.

Swift as I was I was none too soon, for the green warrior
had been overtaken ere he had made half the distance to the
forest, and now he stood with his back to a boulder, while
the herd, temporarily balked, hissed and screeched about him.

With their single eyes in the centre of their heads and every
eye turned upon their prey, they did not note my soundless
approach, so that I was upon them with my great long-sword
and four of them lay dead ere they knew that I was among them.

For an instant they recoiled before my terrific onslaught,
and in that instant the green warrior rose to the occasion
and, springing to my side, laid to the right and left of him as
I had never seen but one other warrior do, with great circling
strokes that formed a figure eight about him and that never
stopped until none stood living to oppose him, his keen blade
passing through flesh and bone and metal as though each
had been alike thin air.

As we bent to the slaughter, far above us rose that shrill,
weird cry which I had heard once before, and which had
called the herd to the attack upon their victims. Again and
again it rose, but we were too much engaged with the fierce
and powerful creatures about us to attempt to search out
even with our eyes the author of the horrid notes.

Great tails lashed in frenzied anger about us, razor-like
talons cut our limbs and bodies, and a green and sticky
syrup, such as oozes from a crushed caterpillar, smeared us
from head to foot, for every cut and thrust of our longswords
brought spurts of this stuff upon us from the severed arteries
of the plant men, through which it courses in its sluggish
viscidity in lieu of blood.

Once I felt the great weight of one of the monsters upon
my back and as keen talons sank into my flesh I experienced
the frightful sensation of moist lips sucking the lifeblood from
the wounds to which the claws still clung.

I was very much engaged with a ferocious fellow who
was endeavouring to reach my throat from in front, while
two more, one on either side, were lashing viciously at me
with their tails.

The green warrior was much put to it to hold his own,
and I felt that the unequal struggle could last but a
moment longer when the huge fellow discovered my plight,
and tearing himself from those that surrounded him, he raked
the assailant from my back with a single sweep of his blade,
and thus relieved I had little difficulty with the others.

Once together, we stood almost back to back against the
great boulder, and thus the creatures were prevented from
soaring above us to deliver their deadly blows, and as we
were easily their match while they remained upon the
ground, we were making great headway in dispatching what
remained of them when our attention was again attracted by
the shrill wail of the caller above our heads.

This time I glanced up, and far above us upon a little
natural balcony on the face of the cliff stood a strange figure
of a man shrieking out his shrill signal, the while he waved
one hand in the direction of the river's mouth as though
beckoning to some one there, and with the other pointed and
gesticulated toward us.

A glance in the direction toward which he was looking
was sufficient to apprise me of his aims and at the same time
to fill me with the dread of dire apprehension, for, streaming
in from all directions across the meadow, from out of the
forest, and from the far distance of the flat land across the
river, I could see converging upon us a hundred different
lines of wildly leaping creatures such as we were now
engaged with, and with them some strange new monsters which
ran with great swiftness, now erect and now upon all fours.

"It will be a great death," I said to my companion. "Look!"

As he shot a quick glance in the direction I indicated he smiled.

"We may at least die fighting and as great warriors should,
John Carter," he replied.

We had just finished the last of our immediate antagonists
as he spoke, and I turned in surprised wonderment at the
sound of my name.

And there before my astonished eyes I beheld the greatest
of the green men of Barsoom; their shrewdest statesman,
their mightiest general, my great and good friend,
Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark.