CHAPTER XX

Gods of Mars

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER XX, GODS OF MARS by Edgar R. Burroughs
An eText from LiteratureClassics.com.

Please see the eText readme for important copyright information (available from the options menu above if you are browsing online or as a separate file in the archive if you are browsing offline.)




THE AIR BATTLE


Two hours after leaving my palace at Helium, or about
midnight, Kantos Kan, Xodar, and I arrived at Hastor.
Carthoris, Tars Tarkas, and Hor Vastus had gone directly
to Thark upon another cruiser.

The transports were to get under way immediately and
move slowly south. The fleet of battleships would overtake
them on the morning of the second day.

At Hastor we found all in readiness, and so perfectly had
Kantos Kan planned every detail of the campaign that within
ten minutes of our arrival the first of the fleet had soared
aloft from its dock, and thereafter, at the rate of one a
second, the great ships floated gracefully out into the night
to form a long, thin line which stretched for miles toward
the south.

It was not until after we had entered the cabin of Kantos
Kan that I thought to ask the date, for up to now I was
not positive how long I had lain in the pits of Zat Arras.
When Kantos Kan told me, I realized with a pang of dismay
that I had misreckoned the time while I lay in the utter
darkness of my cell. Three hundred and sixty-five
days had passed--it was too late to save Dejah Thoris.

The expedition was no longer one of rescue but of revenge.
I did not remind Kantos Kan of the terrible fact that ere
we could hope to enter the Temple of Issus, the Princess
of Helium would be no more. In so far as I knew she might
be already dead, for I did not know the exact date on which
she first viewed Issus.

What now the value of burdening my friends with my
added personal sorrows--they had shared quite enough of
them with me in the past. Hereafter I would keep my grief
to myself, and so I said nothing to any other of the fact
that we were too late. The expedition could yet do much
if it could but teach the people of Barsoom the facts of
the cruel deception that had been worked upon them for
countless ages, and thus save thousands each year from the
horrid fate that awaited them at the conclusion of the
voluntary pilgrimage.

If it could open to the red men the fair Valley Dor it
would have accomplished much, and in the Land of Lost
Souls between the Mountains of Otz and the ice barrier
were many broad acres that needed no irrigation to bear
rich harvests.

Here at the bottom of a dying world was the only naturally
productive area upon its surface. Here alone were dews
and rains, here alone was an open sea, here was water in
plenty; and all this was but the stamping ground of fierce
brutes and from its beauteous and fertile expanse the
wicked remnants of two once mighty races barred all the
other millions of Barsoom. Could I but succeed in once
breaking down the barrier of religious superstition which
had kept the red races from this El Dorado it would be
a fitting memorial to the immortal virtues of my Princess--I
should have again served Barsoom and Dejah Thoris' martyrdom
would not have been in vain.

On the morning of the second day we raised the great
fleet of transports and their consorts at the first flood
of dawn, and soon were near enough to exchange signals.
I may mention here that radio-aerograms are seldom if
ever used in war time, or for the transmission of secret
dispatches at any time, for as often as one nation discovers
a new cipher, or invents a new instrument for wireless
purposes its neighbours bend every effort until they are
able to intercept and translate the messages. For so long
a time has this gone on that practically every possibility
of wireless communication has been exhausted and no nation
dares transmit dispatches of importance in this way.

Tars Tarkas reported all well with the transports. The
battleships passed through to take an advanced position,
and the combined fleets moved slowly over the ice cap,
hugging the surface closely to prevent detection by the
therns whose land we were approaching.

Far in advance of all a thin line of one-man air scouts
protected us from surprise, and on either side they flanked
us, while a smaller number brought up the rear some
twenty miles behind the transports. In this formation we
had progressed toward the entrance to Omean for several
hours when one of our scouts returned from the front to
report that the cone-like summit of the entrance was in
sight. At almost the same instant another scout from the
left flank came racing toward the flagship.

His very speed bespoke the importance of his information.
Kantos Kan and I awaited him upon the little forward deck
which corresponds with the bridge of earthly battleships.
Scarcely had his tiny flier come to rest upon the broad
landing-deck of the flagship ere he was bounding up the
stairway to the deck where we stood.

"A great fleet of battleships south-south-east, my Prince,"
he cried. "There must be several thousands and they are
bearing down directly upon us."

"The thern spies were not in the palace of John Carter
for nothing," said Kantos Kan to me. "Your orders, Prince."

"Dispatch ten battleships to guard the entrance to Omean,
with orders to let no hostile enter or leave the shaft.
That will bottle up the great fleet of the First Born.

"Form the balance of the battleships into a great V with the
apex pointing directly south-south-east. Order the transports,
surrounded by their convoys, to follow closely in the wake of
the battleships until the point of the V has entered the
enemies' line, then the V must open outward at the apex,
the battleships of each leg engage the enemy fiercely and
drive him back to form a lane through his line into which the
transports with their convoys must race at top speed that they
may gain a position above the temples and gardens of the therns.

"Here let them land and teach the Holy Therns such a
lesson in ferocious warfare as they will not forget for
countless ages. It had not been my intention to be
distracted from the main issue of the campaign, but we must
settle this attack with the therns once and for all, or there
will be no peace for us while our fleet remains near Dor,
and our chances of ever returning to the outer world will
be greatly minimized."

Kantos Kan saluted and turned to deliver my instructions
to his waiting aides. In an incredibly short space of time
the formation of the battleships changed in accordance with
my commands, the ten that were to guard the way to
Omean were speeding toward their destination, and the
troopships and convoys were closing up in preparation for
the spurt through the lane.

The order of full speed ahead was given, the fleet sprang
through the air like coursing greyhounds, and in another
moment the ships of the enemy were in full view. They
formed a ragged line as far as the eye could reach in
either direction and about three ships deep. So sudden was
our onslaught that they had no time to prepare for it. It was
as unexpected as lightning from a clear sky.

Every phase of my plan worked splendidly. Our huge
ships mowed their way entirely through the line of thern
battlecraft; then the V opened up and a broad lane appeared
through which the transports leaped toward the temples of
the therns which could now be plainly seen glistening in the
sunlight. By the time the therns had rallied from the attack a
hundred thousand green warriors were already pouring
through their courts and gardens, while a hundred and fifty
thousand others leaned from low swinging transports to direct
their almost uncanny marksmanship upon the thern soldiery
that manned the ramparts, or attempted to defend the temples.

Now the two great fleets closed in a titanic struggle
far above the fiendish din of battle in the gorgeous gardens
of the therns. Slowly the two lines of Helium's battleships
joined their ends, and then commenced the circling within
the line of the enemy which is so marked a characteristic of
Barsoomian naval warfare.

Around and around in each other's tracks moved the ships under
Kantos Kan, until at length they formed nearly a perfect circle.
By this time they were moving at high speed so that they presented
a difficult target for the enemy. Broadside after broadside they
delivered as each vessel came in line with the ships of the therns.
The latter attempted to rush in and break up the formation, but it
was like stopping a buzz saw with the bare hand.

From my position on the deck beside Kantos Kan I saw
ship after ship of the enemy take the awful, sickening dive
which proclaims its total destruction. Slowly we manoeuvered
our circle of death until we hung above the gardens where
our green warriors were engaged. The order was passed down
for them to embark. Then they rose slowly to a position within
the centre of the circle.

In the meantime the therns' fire had practically ceased.
They had had enough of us and were only too glad to let
us go on our way in peace. But our escape was not to be
encompassed with such ease, for scarcely had we gotten
under way once more in the direction of the entrance to
Omean than we saw far to the north a great black line topping
the horizon. It could be nothing other than a fleet of war.

Whose or whither bound, we could not even conjecture.
When they had come close enough to make us out at all,
Kantos Kan's operator received a radio-aerogram, which
he immediately handed to my companion. He read the thing
and handed it to me.

"Kantos Kan:" it read. "Surrender, in the name of the
Jeddak of Helium, for you cannot escape," and it was
signed, "Zat Arras."

The therns must have caught and translated the message
almost as soon as did we, for they immediately renewed
hostilities when they realized that we were soon to be set
upon by other enemies.

Before Zat Arras had approached near enough to fire a
shot we were again hotly engaged with the thern fleet, and
as soon as he drew near he too commenced to pour a
terrific fusillade of heavy shot into us. Ship after ship reeled
and staggered into uselessness beneath the pitiless fire that
we were undergoing.

The thing could not last much longer. I ordered the transports
to descend again into the gardens of the therns.

"Wreak your vengeance to the utmost," was my message
to the green allies, "for by night there will be none left to
avenge your wrongs."

Presently I saw the ten battleships that had been ordered
to hold the shaft of Omean. They were returning at full
speed, firing their stern batteries almost continuously. There
could be but one explanation. They were being pursued by
another hostile fleet. Well, the situation could be no worse.
The expedition already was doomed. No man that had
embarked upon it would return across that dreary ice cap.
How I wished that I fight face Zat Arras with my longsword
for just an instant before I died! It was he who had
caused our failure.

As I watched the oncoming ten I saw their pursuers race
swiftly into sight. It was another great fleet; for a moment
I could not believe my eyes, but finally I was forced to
admit that the most fatal calamity had overtaken the expedition,
for the fleet I saw was none other than the fleet of the
First Born, that should have been safely bottled up in Omean.
What a series of misfortunes and disasters! What awful
fate hovered over me, that I should have been so terribly
thwarted at every angle of my search for my lost love!
Could it be possible that the curse of Issus was upon me!
That there was, indeed, some malign divinity in that hideous
carcass! I would not believe it, and, throwing back my
shoulders, I ran to the deck below to join my men in repelling
boarders from one of the thern craft that had grappled
us broadside. In the wild lust of hand-to-hand combat
my old dauntless hopefulness returned. And as thern after
thern went down beneath my blade, I could almost feel that
we should win success in the end, even from apparent failure.

My presence among the men so greatly inspirited them
that they fell upon the luckless whites with such terrible
ferocity that within a few moments we had turned the
tables upon them and a second later as we swarmed their
own decks I had the satisfaction of seeing their commander
take the long leap from the bows of his vessel in token of
surrender and defeat.

Then I joined Kantos Kan. He had been watching what
had taken place on the deck below, and it seemed to have
given him a new thought. Immediately he passed an order
to one of his officers, and presently the colours of the
Prince of Helium broke from every point of the flagship.
A great cheer arose from the men of our own ship, a cheer
that was taken up by every other vessel of our expedition
as they in turn broke my colours from their upper works.

Then Kantos Kan sprang his coup. A signal legible to
every sailor of all the fleets engaged in that fierce struggle
was strung aloft upon the flagship.

"Men of Helium for the Prince of Helium against all
his enemies," it read. Presently my colours broke from
one of Zat Arras' ships. Then from another and another.
On some we could see fierce battles waging between the
Zodangan soldiery and the Heliumetic crews, but eventually
the colours of the Prince of Helium floated above every
ship that had followed Zat Arras upon our trail--only his
flagship flew them not.

Zat Arras had brought five thousand ships. The sky was
black with the three enormous fleets. It was Helium against
the field now, and the fight had settled to countless individual
duels. There could be little or no manoeuvering of fleets in
that crowded, fire-split sky.

Zat Arras' flagship was close to my own. I could see the
thin features of the man from where I stood. His Zodangan
crew was pouring broadside after broadside into us and we were
returning their fire with equal ferocity. Closer and closer
came the two vessels until but a few yards intervened.
Grapplers and boarders lined the contiguous rails of each.
We were preparing for the death struggle with our hated enemy.

There was but a yard between the two mighty ships as
the first grappling irons were hurled. I rushed to the deck to
be with my men as they boarded. Just as the vessels came
together with a slight shock, I forced my way through the
lines and was the first to spring to the deck of Zat Arras'
ship. After me poured a yelling, cheering, cursing throng of
Helium's best fighting-men. Nothing could withstand them
in the fever of battle lust which enthralled them.

Down went the Zodangans before that surging tide of
war, and as my men cleared the lower decks I sprang to
the forward deck where stood Zat Arras.

"You are my prisoner, Zat Arras," I cried. "Yield and
you shall have quarter."

For a moment I could not tell whether he contemplated
acceding to my demand or facing me with drawn sword.
For an instant he stood hesitating, and then throwing down
his arms he turned and rushed to the opposite side of the
deck. Before I could overtake him he had sprung to the rail
and hurled himself headforemost into the awful depths below.

And thus came Zat Arras, Jed of Zodanga, to his end.

On and on went that strange battle. The therns and
blacks had not combined against us. Wherever thern ship
met ship of the First Born was a battle royal, and in this I
thought I saw our salvation. Wherever messages could be
passed between us that could not be intercepted by our
enemies I passed the word that all our vessels were to
withdraw from the fight as rapidly as possible, taking a
position to the west and south of the combatants. I also sent
an air scout to the fighting green men in the gardens below
to re-embark, and to the transports to join us.

My commanders were further instructed than when engaged
with an enemy to draw him as rapidly as possible toward a
ship of his hereditary foeman, and by careful manoeuvring to
force the two to engage, thus leaving him- self free to withdraw.
This stratagem worked to perfection, and just before the sun
went down I had the satisfaction of seeing all that was left
of my once mighty fleet gathered nearly twenty miles southwest
of the still terrific battle between the blacks and whites.

I now transferred Xodar to another battleship and sent
him with all the transports and five thousand battleships
directly overhead to the Temple of Issus. Carthoris and I,
with Kantos Kan, took the remaining ships and headed
for the entrance to Omean.

Our plan now was to attempt to make a combined assault
upon Issus at dawn of the following day. Tars Tarkas
with his green warriors and Hor Vastus with the red men,
guided by Xodar, were to land within the garden of Issus
or the surrounding plains; while Carthoris, Kantos Kan, and
I were to lead our smaller force from the sea of Omean through
the pits beneath the temple, which Carthoris knew so well.

I now learned for the first time the cause of my ten
ships' retreat from the mouth of the shaft. It seemed
that when they had come upon the shaft the navy of the
First Born were already issuing from its mouth. Fully twenty
vessels had emerged, and though they gave battle immediately
in an effort to stem the tide that rolled from the black pit,
the odds against them were too great and they were forced to flee.

With great caution we approached the shaft, under cover
of darkness. At a distance of several miles I caused the
fleet to be halted, and from there Carthoris went ahead alone
upon a one-man flier to reconnoitre. In perhaps half an
hour he returned to report that there was no sign of a patrol
boat or of the enemy in any form, and so we moved swiftly
and noiselessly forward once more toward Omean.

At the mouth of the shaft we stopped again for a moment
for all the vessels to reach their previously appointed stations,
then with the flagship I dropped quickly into the black depths,
while one by one the other vessels followed me in quick succession.

We had decided to stake all on the chance that we
would be able to reach the temple by the subterranean way
and so we left no guard of vessels at the shaft's mouth.
Nor would it have profited us any to have done so, for we
did not have sufficient force all told to have withstood the
vast navy of the First Born had they returned to engage us.

For the safety of our entrance upon Omean we depended
largely upon the very boldness of it, believing that it would
be some little time before the First Born on guard there
would realize that it was an enemy and not their own
returning fleet that was entering the vault of the buried sea.

And such proved to be the case. In fact, four hundred of
my fleet of five hundred rested safely upon the bosom of
Omean before the first shot was fired. The battle was short
and hot, but there could have been but one outcome, for the
First Born in the carelessness of fancied security had left
but a handful of ancient and obsolete hulks to guard their
mighty harbour.

It was at Carthoris' suggestion that we landed our prisoners
under guard upon a couple of the larger islands, and then
towed the ships of the First Born to the shaft, where we
managed to wedge a number of them securely in the
interior of the great well. Then we turned on the buoyance
rays in the balance of them and let them rise by themselves
to further block the passage to Omean as they came into
contact with the vessels already lodged there.

We now felt that it would be some time at least before
the returning First Born could reach the surface of Omean,
and that we would have ample opportunity to make for the
subterranean passages which lead to Issus. One of the first
steps I took was to hasten personally with a good-sized force
to the island of the submarine, which I took without
resistance on the part of the small guard there.

I found the submarine in its pool, and at once placed a
strong guard upon it and the island, where I remained to
wait the coming of Carthoris and the others.

Among the prisoners was Yersted, commander of the
submarine. He recognized me from the three trips that I
had taken with him during my captivity among the First Born.

"How does it seem," I asked him, "to have the tables
turned? To be prisoner of your erstwhile captive?"

He smiled, a very grim smile pregnant with hidden meaning.

"It will not be for long, John Carter," he replied.
"We have been expecting you and we are prepared."

"So it would appear," I answered, "for you were all
ready to become my prisoners with scarce a blow struck
on either side."

"The fleet must have missed you," he said, "but it will
return to Omean, and then that will be a very different
matter--for John Carter."

"I do not know that the fleet has missed me as yet," I
said, but of course he did not grasp my meaning, and
only looked puzzled.

"Many prisoners travel to Issus in your grim craft, Yersted?"
I asked.

"Very many," he assented.

Might you remember one whom men called Dejah Thoris?"

"Well, indeed, for her great beauty, and then, too, for the
fact that she was wife to the first mortal that ever escaped
from Issus through all the countless ages of her godhood.
And they way that Issus remembers her best as the wife of
one and the mother of another who raised their hands
against the Goddess of Life Eternal."

I shuddered for fear of the cowardly revenge that I knew
Issus might have taken upon the innocent Dejah Thoris for
the sacrilege of her son and her husband.

"And where is Dejah Thoris now?" I asked, knowing that
he would say the words I most dreaded, but yet I loved her
so that I could not refrain from hearing even the worst
about her fate so that it fell from the lips of one who
had seen her but recently. It was to me as though it
brought her closer to me.

"Yesterday the monthly rites of Issus were held," replied
Yersted, "and I saw her then sitting in her accustomed
place at the foot of Issus."

"What," I cried, "she is not dead, then?"

"Why, no," replied the black, "it has been no year
since she gazed upon the divine glory of the radiant face of--"

"No year?" I interrupted.

"Why, no," insisted Yersted. "It cannot have been upward
of three hundred and seventy or eighty days."

A great light burst upon me. How stupid I had been! I
could scarcely retain an outward exhibition of my great
joy. Why had I forgotten the great difference in the length
of Martian and Earthly years! The ten Earth years I had
spent upon Barsoom had encompassed but five years and
ninety-six days of Martian time, whose days are forty-one
minutes longer than ours, and whose years number six hundred
and eighty-seven days.

I am in time! I am in time! The words surged through
my brain again and again, until at last I must have voiced
them audibly, for Yersted shook his head.

"In time to save your Princess?" he asked, and then without
waiting for my reply, "No, John Carter, Issus will not give
up her own. She knows that you are coming, and ere ever a
vandal foot is set within the precincts of the Temple of Issus,
if such a calamity should befall, Dejah Thoris will be put
away for ever from the last faint hope of rescue."

"You mean that she will be killed merely to thwart me?" I asked.

"Not that, other than as a last resort," he replied. "Hast
ever heard of the Temple of the Sun? It is there that they
will put her. It lies far within the inner court of the Temple
of Issus, a little temple that raises a thin spire far above the
spires and minarets of the great temple that surrounds it.
Beneath it, in the ground, there lies the main body of the
temple consisting in six hundred and eighty-seven circular
chambers, one below another. To each chamber a single
corridor leads through solid rock from the pits of Issus.

"As the entire Temple of the Sun revolves once with
each revolution of Barsoom about the sun, but once each
year does the entrance to each separate chamber come
opposite the mouth of the corridor which forms its only
link to the world without.

"Here Issus puts those who displease her, but whom she
does not care to execute forthwith. Or to punish a noble
of the First Born she may cause him to be placed within
a chamber of the Temple of the Sun for a year. Ofttimes
she imprisons an executioner with the condemned, that
death may come in a certain horrible form upon a given
day, or again but enough food is deposited in the chamber
to sustain life but the number of days that Issus has
allotted for mental anguish.

"Thus will Dejah Thoris die, and her fate will be sealed
by the first alien foot that crosses the threshold of Issus."

So I was to be thwarted in the end, although I had performed
the miraculous and come within a few short moments of my
divine Princess, yet was I as far from her as when I stood
upon the banks of the Hudson forty-eight million miles away.