CHAPTER XIX

Gods of Mars

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER XIX, GODS OF MARS by Edgar R. Burroughs
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BLACK DESPAIR


"Ah," said Zat Arras, "to what kindly circumstance am I
indebted for the pleasure of this unexpected visit from the
Prince of Helium?"

While he was speaking, one of my guards had removed the
gag from my mouth, but I made no reply to Zat Arras:
simply standing there in silence with level gaze fixed upon
the Jed of Zodanga. And I doubt not that my expression
was coloured by the contempt I felt for the man.

The eyes of those within the chamber were fixed first upon
me and then upon Zat Arras, until finally a flush of anger
crept slowly over his face.

"You may go," he said to those who had brought me,
and when only his two companions and ourselves were left
in the chamber, he spoke to me again in a voice of ice--
very slowly and deliberately, with many pauses, as though
he would choose his words cautiously.

"John Carter," he said, "by the edict of custom, by the law
of our religion, and by the verdict of an impartial court,
you are condemned to die. The people cannot save you--I
alone may accomplish that. You are absolutely in my power
to do with as I wish--I may kill you, or I may free you,
and should I elect to kill you, none would be the wiser.

"Should you go free in Helium for a year, in accordance with
the conditions of your reprieve, there is little fear that
the people would ever insist upon the execution of the sentence
imposed upon you.

"You may go free within two minutes, upon one condition.
Tardos Mors will never return to Helium. Neither will
Mors Kajak, nor Dejah Thoris. Helium must select a new
Jeddak within the year. Zat Arras would be Jeddak of Helium.
Say that you will espouse my cause. This is the price of
your freedom. I am done."

I knew it was within the scope of Zat Arras' cruel heart
to destroy me, and if I were dead I could see little reason
to doubt that he might easily become Jeddak of Helium. Free,
I could prosecute the search for Dejah Thoris. Were I dead,
my brave comrades might not be able to carry out our plans.
So, by refusing to accede to his request, it was quite
probable that not only would I not prevent him from
becoming Jeddak of Helium, but that I would be the
means of sealing Dejah Thoris' fate--of consigning her,
through my refusal, to the horrors of the arena of Issus.

For a moment I was perplexed, but for a moment only.
The proud daughter of a thousand Jeddaks would choose
death to a dishonorable alliance such as this, nor could
John Carter do less for Helium than his Princess would do.

Then I turned to Zat Arras.

"There can be no alliance," I said, "between a traitor to
Helium and a prince of the House of Tardos Mors. I
do not believe, Zat Arras, that the great Jeddak is dead."

Zat Arras shrugged his shoulders.

"It will not be long, John Carter," he said, "that your
opinions will be of interest even to yourself, so make the best
of them while you can. Zat Arras will permit you in due
time to reflect further upon the magnanimous offer he has
made you. Into the silence and darkness of the pits you
will enter upon your reflection this night with the knowledge
that should you fail within a reasonable time to agree to the
alternative which has been offered you, never shall you emerge
from the darkness and the silence again. Nor shall you know
at what minute the hand will reach out through the darkness
and the silence with the keen dagger that shall rob you
of your last chance to win again the warmth and the freedom
and joyousness of the outer world."

Zat Arras clapped his hands as he ceased speaking.
The guards returned.

Zat Arras waved his hand in my direction.

"To the pits," he said. That was all. Four men accompanied
me from the chamber, and with a radium hand-light to illumine
the way, escorted me through seemingly interminable tunnels,
down, ever down beneath the city of Helium.

At length they halted within a fair-sized chamber. There
were rings set in the rocky walls. To them chains were
fastened, and at the ends of many of the chains were human
skeletons. One of these they kicked aside, and, unlocking the
huge padlock that had held a chain about what had once
been a human ankle, they snapped the iron band about my
own leg. Then they left me, taking the light with them.

Utter darkness prevailed. For a few minutes I could hear
the clanking of accoutrements, but even this grew fainter
and fainter, until at last the silence was as complete as
the darkness. I was alone with my gruesome companions--with
the bones of dead men whose fate was likely but the index
of my own.

How long I stood listening in the darkness I do not know,
but the silence was unbroken, and at last I sunk to the hard
floor of my prison, where, leaning my head against the stony
wall, I slept.

It must have been several hours later that I awakened
to find a young man standing before me. In one hand he
bore a light, in the other a receptacle containing a gruel-like
mixture--the common prison fare of Barsoom.

"Zat Arras sends you greetings," said the young man, "and
commands me to inform you that though he is fully advised
of the plot to make you Jeddak of Helium, he is, however, not
inclined to withdraw the offer which he has made you.
To gain your freedom you have but to request me to advise
Zat Arras that you accept the terms of his proposition."

I but shook my head. The youth said no more, and, after
placing the food upon the floor at my side, returned up the
corridor, taking the light with him.

Twice a day for many days this youth came to my cell
with food, and ever the same greetings from Zat Arras.
For a long time I tried to engage him in conversation
upon other matters, but he would not talk, and so,
at length, I desisted.

For months I sought to devise methods to inform Carthoris
of my whereabouts. For months I scraped and scraped
upon a single link of the massive chain which held me,
hoping eventually to wear it through, that I might follow
the youth back through the winding tunnels to a point where
I could make a break for liberty.

I was beside myself with anxiety for knowledge of the
progress of the expedition which was to rescue Dejah Thoris.
I felt that Carthoris would not let the matter drop, were he
free to act, but in so far as I knew, he also might be a
prisoner in Zat Arras' pits.

That Zat Arras' spy had overheard our conversation relative
to the selection of a new Jeddak, I knew, and scarcely
a half-dozen minutes prior we had discussed the details
of the plan to rescue Dejah Thoris. The chances were that
that matter, too, was well known to him. Carthoris, Kantos
Kan, Tars Tarkas, Hor Vastus, and Xodar might even now
be the victims of Zat Arras' assassins, or else his prisoners.

I determined to make at least one more effort to learn
something, and to this end I adopted strategy when next
the youth came to my cell. I had noticed that he was a
handsome fellow, about the size and age of Carthoris.
And I had also noticed that his shabby trappings but illy
comported with his dignified and noble bearing.

It was with these observations as a basis that I opened
my negotiations with him upon his next subsequent visit.

"You have been very kind to me during my imprisonment here,"
I said to him, "and as I feel that I have at best but a
very short time to live, I wish, ere it is too late,
to furnish substantial testimony of my appreciation of all
that you have done to render my imprisonment bearable.

"Promptly you have brought my food each day, seeing that
it was pure and of sufficient quantity. Never by word
or deed have you attempted to take advantage of my
defenceless condition to insult or torture me. You have
been uniformly courteous and considerate--it is this more
than any other thing which prompts my feeling of gratitude
and my desire to give you some slight token of it.

"In the guard-room of my palace are many fine trappings.
Go thou there and select the harness which most pleases you
--it shall be yours. All I ask is that you wear it, that I
may know that my wish has been realized. Tell me that you
will do it."

The boy's eyes had lighted with pleasure as I spoke, and I
saw him glance from his rusty trappings to the magnificence
of my own. For a moment he stood in thought before he
spoke, and for that moment my heart fairly ceased beating
--so much for me there was which hung upon the substance
of his answer.

"And I went to the palace of the Prince of Helium with any
such demand, they would laugh at me and, into the bargain,
would more than likely throw me headforemost into the avenue.
No, it cannot be, though I thank you for the offer. Why,
if Zat Arras even dreamed that I contemplated such a thing
he would have my heart cut out of me."

"There can be no harm in it, my boy," I urged. "By night
you may go to my palace with a note from me to Carthoris,
my son. You may read the note before you deliver it,
that you may know that it contains nothing harmful to
Zat Arras. My son will be discreet, and so none but us
three need know. It is very simple, and such a harmless
act that it could be condemned by no one."

Again he stood silently in deep thought.

"And there is a jewelled short-sword which I took from the
body of a northern Jeddak. When you get the harness, see
that Carthoris gives you that also. With it and the harness
which you may select there will be no more handsomely
accoutred warrior in all Zodanga.

"Bring writing materials when you come next to my cell,
and within a few hours we shall see you garbed in a style
befitting your birth and carriage."

Still in thought, and without speaking, he turned and
left me. I could not guess what his decision might be, and
for hours I sat fretting over the outcome of the matter.

If he accepted a message to Carthoris it would mean to me
that Carthoris still lived and was free. If the youth returned
wearing the harness and the sword, I would know that Carthoris
had received my note and that he knew that I still lived.
That the bearer of the note was a Zodangan would be sufficient
to explain to Carthoris that I was a prisoner of Zat Arras.

It was with feelings of excited expectancy which I could scarce
hide that I heard the youth's approach upon the occasion of
his next regular visit. I did not speak beyond my accustomed
greeting of him. As he placed the food upon the floor by my
side he also deposited writing materials at the same time.

My heart fairly bounded for joy. I had won my point. For
a moment I looked at the materials in feigned surprise, but
soon I permitted an expression of dawning comprehension to
come into my face, and then, picking them up, I penned
a brief order to Carthoris to deliver to Parthak a harness of his
selection and the short-sword which I described. That was all.
But it meant everything to me and to Carthoris.

I laid the note open upon the floor. Parthak picked it up and,
without a word, left me.

As nearly as I could estimate, I had at this time been
in the pits for three hundred days. If anything was to be done
to save Dejah Thoris it must be done quickly, for, were she
not already dead, her end must soon come, since those
whom Issus chose lived but a single year.

The next time I heard approaching footsteps I could scarce
await to see if Parthak wore the harness and the sword, but
judge, if you can, my chagrin and disappointment when I
saw that he who bore my food was not Parthak.

"What has become of Parthak?" I asked, but the fellow
would not answer, and as soon as he had deposited my food,
turned and retraced his steps to the world above.

Days came and went, and still my new jailer continued
his duties, nor would he ever speak a word to me, either in
reply to the simplest question or of his own initiative.

I could only speculate on the cause of Parthak's removal,
but that it was connected in some way directly with the note
I had given him was most apparent to me. After all my
rejoicing, I was no better off than before, for now I did not
even know that Carthoris lived, for if Parthak had wished to
raise himself in the estimation of Zat Arras he would have
permitted me to go on precisely as I did, so that he could
carry my note to his master, in proof of his own loyalty
and devotion.

Thirty days had passed since I had given the youth the
note. Three hundred and thirty days had passed since my
incarceration. As closely as I could figure, there remained a
bare thirty days ere Dejah Thoris would be ordered to
the arena for the rites of Issus.

As the terrible picture forced itself vividly across my
imagination, I buried my face in my arms, and only with the
greatest difficulty was it that I repressed the tears that welled
to my eyes despite my every effort. To think of that beautiful
creature torn and rended by the cruel fangs of the hideous
white apes! It was unthinkable. Such a horrid fact could
not be; and yet my reason told me that within thirty days
my incomparable Princess would be fought over in the
arena of the First Born by those very wild beasts; that her
bleeding corpse would be dragged through the dirt and the dust,
until at last a part of it would be rescued to be served as
food upon the tables of the black nobles.

I think that I should have gone crazy but for the sound
of my approaching jailer. It distracted my attention from
the terrible thoughts that had been occupying my entire mind.
Now a new and grim determination came to me. I would make
one super-human effort to escape. Kill my jailer by a ruse,
and trust to fate to lead me to the outer world in safety.

With the thought came instant action. I threw myself upon
the floor of my cell close by the wall, in a strained and
distorted posture, as though I were dead after a struggle
or convulsions. When he should stoop over me I had but to
grasp his throat with one hand and strike him a terrific blow
with the slack of my chain, which I gripped firmly in my
right hand for the purpose.

Nearer and nearer came the doomed man. Now I heard
him halt before me. There was a muttered exclamation, and
then a step as he came to my side. I felt him kneel beside me.
My grip tightened upon the chain. He leaned close to me.
I must open my eyes to find his throat, grasp it, and strike
one mighty final blow all at the same instant.

The thing worked just as I had planned. So brief was the
interval between the opening of my eyes and the fall of the
chain that I could not check it, though it that minute
interval I recognized the face so close to mine as that
of my son, Carthoris.

God! What cruel and malign fate had worked to such a
frightful end! What devious chain of circumstances had led
my boy to my side at this one particular minute of our lives
when I could strike him down and kill him, in ignorance
of his identity! A benign though tardy Providence blurred my
vision and my mind as I sank into unconsciousness across the
lifeless body of my only son.

When I regained consciousness it was to feel a cool, firm
hand pressed upon my forehead. For an instant I did not
open my eyes. I was endeavouring to gather the loose ends
of many thoughts and memories which flitted elusively
through my tired and overwrought brain.

At length came the cruel recollection of the thing that I
had done in my last conscious act, and then I dared not
to open my eyes for fear of what I should see lying beside
me. I wondered who it could be who ministered to me.
Carthoris must have had a companion whom I had not seen.
Well, I must face the inevitable some time, so why not now,
and with a sigh I opened my eyes.

Leaning over me was Carthoris, a great bruise upon his
forehead where the chain had struck, but alive, thank
God, alive! There was no one with him. Reaching out my
arms, I took my boy within them, and if ever there arose
from any planet a fervent prayer of gratitude, it was there
beneath the crust of dying Mars as I thanked the Eternal
Mystery for my son's life.

The brief instant in which I had seen and recognized
Carthoris before the chain fell must have been ample to
check the force of the blow. He told me that he had
lain unconscious for a time--how long he did not know.

"How came you here at all?" I asked, mystified that he
had found me without a guide.

"It was by your wit in apprising me of your existence and
imprisonment through the youth, Parthak. Until he came for
his harness and his sword, we had thought you dead. When
I had read your note I did as you had bid, giving Parthak his
choice of the harnesses in the guardroom, and later bringing
the jewelled short-sword to him; but the minute that I had
fulfilled the promise you evidently had made him, my
obligation to him ceased. Then I commenced to question him,
but he would give me no information as to your whereabouts.
He was intensely loyal to Zat Arras.

"Finally I gave him a fair choice between freedom and
the pits beneath the palace--the price of freedom to be full
information as to where you were imprisoned and directions
which would lead us to you; but still he maintained his
stubborn partisanship. Despairing, I had him removed to
the pits, where he still is.

"No threats of torture or death, no bribes, however fabulous,
would move him. His only reply to all our importunities
was that whenever Parthak died, were it to-morrow or a
thousand years hence, no man could truly say, 'A traitor is
gone to his deserts.'

"Finally, Xodar, who is a fiend for subtle craftiness,
evolved a plan whereby we might worm the information
from him. And so I caused Hor Vastus to be harnessed in
the metal of a Zodangan soldier and chained in Parthak's
cell beside him. For fifteen days the noble Hor Vastus has
languished in the darkness of the pits, but not in vain.
Little by little he won the confidence and friendship of the
Zodangan, until only to-day Parthak, thinking that he was
speaking not only to a countryman, but to a dear friend,
revealed that Hor Vastus the exact cell in which you lay.

"It took me but a short time to locate the plans of the pits
of Helium among thy official papers. To come to you, though,
was a trifle more difficult matter. As you know, while all
the pits beneath the city are connected, there are but single
entrances from those beneath each section and its neighbour,
and that at the upper level just underneath the ground.

"Of course, these openings which lead from contiguous pits to
those beneath government buildings are always guarded, and so,
while I easily came to the entrance to the pits beneath the
palace which Zat Arras is occupying, I found there a Zodangan
soldier on guard. There I left him when I had gone by,
but his soul was no longer with him.

"And here I am, just in time to be nearly killed by you,"
he ended, laughing.

As he talked Carthoris had been working at the lock which
held my fetters, and now, with an exclamation of pleasure,
he dropped the end of the chain to the floor, and I stood up
once more, freed from the galling irons I had chafed in for
almost a year.

He had brought a long-sword and a dagger for me, and
thus armed we set out upon the return journey to my palace.

At the point where we left the pits of Zat Arras we found
the body of the guard Carthoris had slain. It had not yet been
discovered, and, in order to still further delay search and
mystify the jed's people, we carried the body with us for a
short distance, hiding it in a tiny cell off the main corridor
of the pits beneath an adjoining estate.

Some half-hour later we came to the pits beneath our own
palace, and soon thereafter emerged into the audience chamber
itself, where we found Kantos Kan, Tars Tarkas, Hor Vastus,
and Xodar awaiting us most impatiently.

No time was lost in fruitless recounting of my imprisonment.
What I desired to know was how well the plans we had laid
nearly a year ago and had been carried out.

"It has taken much longer than we had expected," replied
Kantos Kan. "The fact that we were compelled to maintain
utter secrecy has handicapped us terribly. Zat Arras' spies
are everywhere. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, no word
of our real plans has reached the villain's ear.

"To-night there lies about the great docks at Hastor a fleet
of a thousand of the mightiest battleships that ever sailed
above Barsoom, and each equipped to navigate the air of Omean
and the waters of Omean itself. Upon each battleship
there are five ten-man cruisers, and ten five-man scouts,
and a hundred one-man scouts; in all, one hundred and sixteen
thousand craft fitted with both air and water propellers.

"At Thark lie the transports for the green warriors of Tars
Tarkas, nine hundred large troopships, and with them their
convoys. Seven days ago all was in readiness, but we waited
in the hope that by so doing your rescue might be encompassed
in time for you to command the expedition. It is well we waited,
my Prince."

"How is it, Tars Tarkas," I asked, "that the men of Thark
take not the accustomed action against one who returns from
the bosom of Iss?"

"They sent a council of fifty chieftains to talk with me
here," replied the Thark. "We are a just people, and when I
had told them the entire story they were as one man in
agreeing that their action toward me would be guided by the
action of Helium toward John Carter. In the meantime, at
their request, I was to resume my throne as Jeddak of Thark,
that I might negotiate with neighboring hordes for warriors
to compose the land forces of the expedition. I have done
that which I agreed. Two hundred and fifty thousand fighting
men, gathered from the ice cap at the north to the ice cap at
the south, and representing a thousand different communities,
from a hundred wild and warlike hordes, fill the great city
of Thark to-night. They are ready to sail for the Land of
the First Born when I give the word and fight there until
I bid them stop. All they ask is the loot they take and
transportation to their own territories when the fighting
and the looting are over. I am done."

"And thou, Hor Vastus," I asked, "what has been thy success?"

"A million veteran fighting-men from Helium's thin waterways man
the battleships, the transports, and the convoys," he replied.
"Each is sworn to loyalty and secrecy, nor were enough recruited
from a single district to cause suspicion."

"Good!" I cried. "Each has done his duty, and now, Kantos Kan,
may we not repair at once to Hastor and get under way before
to-morrow's sun?"

"We should lose no time, Prince," replied Kantos Kan.
"Already the people of Hastor are questioning the purpose of
so great a fleet fully manned with fighting-men. I wonder
much that word of it has not before reached Zat Arras. A
cruiser awaits above at your own dock; let us leave at--"
A fusillade of shots from the palace gardens just without cut
short his further words.

Together we rushed to the balcony in time to see a dozen
members of my palace guard disappear in the shadows of
some distant shrubbery as in pursuit of one who fled. Directly
beneath us upon the scarlet sward a handful of guardsmen
were stooping above a still and prostrate form.

While we watched they lifted the figure in their arms and
at my command bore it to the audience chamber where we
had been in council. When they stretched the body at our
feet we saw that it was that of a red man in the prime of life
--his metal was plain, such as common soldiers wear, or
those who wish to conceal their identity.

"Another of Zat Arras' spies," said Hor Vastus.

"So it would seem," I replied, and then to the guard:
"You may remove the body."

"Wait!" said Xodar. "If you will, Prince, ask that a cloth
and a little thoat oil be brought."

I nodded to one of the soldiers, who left the chamber,
returning presently with the things that Xodar had requested.
The black kneeled beside the body and, dipping a corner of
the cloth in the thoat oil, rubbed for a moment on the dead
face before him, Then he turned to me with a smile, pointing
to his work. I looked and saw that where Xodar had applied
the thoat oil the face was white, as white as mine, and then
Xodar seized the black hair of the corpse and with a sudden
wrench tore it all away, revealing a hairless pate beneath.

Guardsmen and nobles pressed close about the silent witness
upon the marble floor. Many were the exclamations of
astonishment and questioning wonder as Xodar's acts
confirmed the suspicion which he had held.

"A thern!" whispered Tars Tarkas.

"Worse than that, I fear," replied Xodar. "But let us see."

With that he drew his dagger and cut open a locked pouch
which had dangled from the thern's harness, and from it
he brought forth a circlet of gold set with a large gem--it
was the mate to that which I had taken from Sator Throg.

"He was a Holy Thern," said Xodar. "Fortunate indeed it
is for us that he did not escape."

The officer of the guard entered the chamber at this juncture.

"My Prince," he said, "I have to report that this fellow's
companion escaped us. I think that it was with the connivance
of one or more of the men at the gate. I have ordered
them all under arrest."

Xodar handed him the thoat oil and cloth.

"With this you may discover the spy among you," he said.

I at once ordered a secret search within the city, for every
Martian noble maintains a secret service of his own.

A half-hour later the officer of the guard came again to report.
This time it was to confirm our worst fears--half the guards at
the gate that night had been therns disguised as red men.

"Come!" I cried. "We must lose no time. On to Hastor at
once. Should the therns attempt to check us at the southern
verge of the ice cap it may result in the wrecking of all our
plans and the total destruction of the expedition."

Ten minutes later we were speeding through the night toward Hastor,
prepared to strike the first blow for the preservation of Dejah Thoris.