CHAPTER XXII

Gods of Mars

by Edgar R. Burroughs

CHAPTER XXII, GODS OF MARS by Edgar R. Burroughs
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VICTORY AND DEFEAT


"John Carter, John Carter," she sobbed, with her dear
head upon my shoulder; "even now I can scarce believe the
witness of my own eyes. When the girl, Thuvia, told me
that you had returned to Barsoom, I listened, but I could
not understand, for it seemed that such happiness would be
impossible for one who had suffered so in silent loneliness for
all these long years. At last, when I realized that it was truth,
and then came to know the awful place in which I was held prisoner,
I learned to doubt that even you could reach me here.

"As the days passed, and moon after moon went by
without bringing even the faintest rumour of you, I resigned
myself to my fate. And now that you have come, scarce can
I believe it. For an hour I have heard the sounds of
conflict within the palace. I knew not what they meant, but
I have hoped against hope that it might be the men of
Helium headed by my Prince.

"And tell me, what of Carthoris, our son?"

"He was with me less than an hour since, Dejah Thoris,"
I replied. "It must have been he whose men you have heard
battling within the precincts of the temple.

"Where is Issus?" I asked suddenly.

Dejah Thoris shrugged her shoulders.

"She sent me under guard to this room just before the
fighting began within the temple halls. She said that she
would send for me later. She seemed very angry and somewhat
fearful. Never have I seen her act in so uncertain and almost
terrified a manner. Now I know that it must have been because
she had learned that John Carter, Prince of Helium, was
approaching to demand an accounting of her for the
imprisonment of his Princess."

The sounds of conflict, the clash of arms, the shouting and
the hurrying of many feet came to us from various parts of
the temple. I knew that I was needed there, but I dared
not leave Dejah Thoris, nor dared I take her with me into
the turmoil and danger of battle.

At last I bethought me of the pits from which I had just
emerged. Why not secrete her there until I could return and
fetch her away in safety and for ever from this awful place.
I explained my plan to her.

For a moment she clung more closely to me.

"I cannot bear to be parted from you now, even for a moment,
John Carter," she said. "I shudder at the thought of
being alone again where that terrible creature might
discover me. You do not know her. None can imagine her
ferocious cruelty who has not witnessed her daily acts for
over half a year. It has taken me nearly all this time to
realize even the things that I have seen with my own eyes."

"I shall not leave you, then, my Princess," I replied.

She was silent for a moment, then she drew my face to hers
and kissed me.

"Go, John Carter," she said. "Our son is there, and the
soldiers of Helium, fighting for the Princess of Helium.
Where they are you should be. I must not think of myself now,
but of them and of my husband's duty. I may not stand in
the way of that. Hide me in the pits, and go."

I led her to the door through which I had entered the
chamber from below. There I pressed her dear form to me,
and then, though it tore my heart to do it, and filled me only
with the blackest shadows of terrible foreboding, I guided
her across the threshold, kissed her once again, and closed
the door upon her.

Without hesitating longer, I hurried from the chamber in the
direction of the greatest tumult. Scarce half a dozen chambers
had I traversed before I came upon the theatre of a fierce
struggle. The blacks were massed at the entrance to a great
chamber where they were attempting to block the further
progress of a body of red men toward the inner sacred
precincts of the temple.

Coming from within as I did, I found myself behind the
blacks, and, without waiting to even calculate their numbers
or the foolhardiness of my venture, I charged swiftly across
the chamber and fell upon them from the rear with my
keen long-sword.

As I struck the first blow I cried aloud, "For Helium!"
And then I rained cut after cut upon the surprised warriors,
while the reds without took heart at the sound of my voice,
and with shouts of "John Carter! John Carter!" redoubled
their efforts so effectually that before the blacks could
recover from their temporary demoralization their ranks
were broken and the red men had burst into the chamber.

The fight within that room, had it had but a competent
chronicler, would go down in the annals of Barsoom as a
historic memorial to the grim ferocity of her warlike people.
Five hundred men fought there that day, the black men against
the red. No man asked quarter or gave it. As though by
common assent they fought, as though to determine once
and for all their right to live, in accordance with the law of
the survival of the fittest.

I think we all knew that upon the outcome of this battle
would hinge for ever the relative positions of these two
races upon Barsoom. It was a battle between the old and the
new, but not for once did I question the outcome of it.
With Carthoris at my side I fought for the red men of Barsoom
and for their total emancipation from the throttling bondage
of a hideous superstition.

Back and forth across the room we surged, until the floor
was ankle deep in blood, and dead men lay so thickly there
that half the time we stood upon their bodies as we fought.
As we swung toward the great windows which overlooked
the gardens of Issus a sight met my gaze which sent a wave of
exultation over me.

"Look!" I cried. "Men of the First Born, look!"

For an instant the fighting ceased, and with one accord
every eye turned in the direction I had indicated, and the
sight they saw was one no man of the First Born had ever
imagined could be.

Across the gardens, from side to side, stood a wavering
line of black warriors, while beyond them and forcing them
ever back was a great horde of green warriors astride their
mighty thoats. And as we watched, one, fiercer and more
grimly terrible than his fellows, rode forward from the rear,
and as he came he shouted some fierce command to his terrible legion.

It was Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, and as he couched his great
forty-foot metal-shod lance we saw his warriors do likewise.
Then it was that we interpreted his command. Twenty yards
now separated the green men from the black line.
Another word from the great Thark, and with a wild and
terrifying battle-cry the green warriors charged.
For a moment the black line held, but only for a moment--then
the fearsome beasts that bore equally terrible riders passed
completely through it.

After them came utan upon utan of red men. The green
horde broke to surround the temple. The red men charged
for the interior, and then we turned to continue our interrupted
battle; but our foes had vanished.

My first thought was of Dejah Thoris. Calling to Carthoris
that I had found his mother, I started on a run toward the
chamber where I had left her, with my boy close beside me.
After us came those of our little force who had survived
the bloody conflict.

The moment I entered the room I saw that some one
had been there since I had left. A silk lay upon the floor.
It had not been there before. There were also a dagger and
several metal ornaments strewn about as though torn from
their wearer in a struggle. But worst of all, the door
leading to the pits where I had hidden my Princess was ajar.

With a bound I was before it, and, thrusting it open,
rushed within. Dejah Thoris had vanished. I called her name
aloud again and again, but there was no response. I think
in that instant I hovered upon the verge of insanity. I do not
recall what I said or did, but I know that for an instant I
was seized with the rage of a maniac.

"Issus!" I cried. "Issus! Where is Issus? Search the temple
for her, but let no man harm her but John Carter. Carthoris,
where are the apartments of Issus?"

"This way," cried the boy, and, without waiting to know
that I had heard him, he dashed off at breakneck speed,
further into the bowels of the temple. As fast as he went,
however, I was still beside him, urging him on to greater speed.

At last we came to a great carved door, and through
this Carthoris dashed, a foot ahead of me. Within, we came
upon such a scene as I had witnessed within the temple
once before--the throne of Issus, with the reclining slaves,
and about it the ranks of soldiery.

We did not even give the men a chance to draw, so quickly
were we upon them. With a single cut I struck down two
in the front rank. And then by the mere weight and
momentum of my body, I rushed completely through the two
remaining ranks and sprang upon the dais beside the carved
sorapus throne.

The repulsive creature, squatting there in terror, attempted
to escape me and leap into a trap behind her. But this time
I was not to be outwitted by any such petty subterfuge.
Before she had half arisen I had grasped her by the arm, and
then, as I saw the guard starting to make a concerted rush
upon me from all sides, I whipped out my dagger and,
holding it close to that vile breast, ordered them to halt.

"Back!" I cried to them. "Back! The first black foot that is
planted upon this platform sends my dagger into Issus' heart."

For an instant they hesitated. Then an officer ordered
them back, while from the outer corridor there swept into the
throne room at the heels of my little party of survivors a
full thousand red men under Kantos Kan, Hor Vastus, and Xodar.

"Where is Dejah Thoris?" I cried to the thing within my hands.

For a moment her eyes roved wildly about the scene beneath her.
I think that it took a moment for the true condition to make
any impression upon her--she could not at first realize that
the temple had fallen before the assault of men of the outer world.
When she did, there must have come, too, a terrible realization
of what it meant to her--the loss of power--humiliation--the
exposure of the fraud and imposture which she had for so long
played upon her own people.

There was just one thing needed to complete the reality
of the picture she was seeing, and that was added by the
highest noble of her realm--the high priest of her religion--
the prime minister of her government.

"Issus, Goddess of Death, and of Life Eternal," he cried,
"arise in the might of thy righteous wrath and with one
single wave of thy omnipotent hand strike dead thy blasphemers!
Let not one escape. Issus, thy people depend upon thee.
Daughter of the Lesser Moon, thou only art all-powerful.
Thou only canst save thy people. I am done. We await thy will.
Strike!"

And then it was that she went mad. A screaming, gibbering
maniac writhed in my grasp. It bit and clawed and scratched
in impotent fury. And then it laughed a weird and
terrible laughter that froze the blood. The slave girls upon
the dais shrieked and cowered away. And the thing jumped
at them and gnashed its teeth and then spat upon them from
frothing lips. God, but it was a horrid sight.

Finally, I shook the thing, hoping to recall it for a moment
to rationality.

"Where is Dejah Thoris?" I cried again.

The awful creature in my grasp mumbled inarticulately
for a moment, then a sudden gleam of cunning shot into
those hideous, close-set eyes.

"Dejah Thoris? Dejah Thoris?" and then that shrill, unearthly
laugh pierced our ears once more.

"Yes, Dejah Thoris--I know. And Thuvia, and Phaidor,
daughter of Matai Shang. They each love John Carter. Ha-ah!
but it is droll. Together for a year they will meditate within
the Temple of the Sun, but ere the year is quite gone there will
be no more food for them. Ho-oh! what divine entertainment,"
and she licked the froth from her cruel lips. "There
will be no more food--except each other. Ha-ah! Ha-ah!"

The horror of the suggestion nearly paralysed me. To this
awful fate the creature within my power had condemned
my Princess. I trembled in the ferocity of my rage. As a
terrier shakes a rat I shook Issus, Goddess of Life Eternal.

"Countermand your orders!" I cried. "Recall the condemned.
Haste, or you die!"

"It is too late. Ha-ah! Ha-ah!" and then she commenced
her gibbering and shrieking again.

Almost of its own volition, my dagger flew up above that
putrid heart. But something stayed my hand, and I am now
glad that it did. It were a terrible thing to have struck down
a woman with one's own hand. But a fitter fate occurred to
me for this false deity.

"First Born," I cried, turning to those who stood within
the chamber, "you have seen to-day the impotency of Issus
--the gods are impotent. Issus is no god. She is a cruel
and wicked old woman, who has deceived and played upon
you for ages. Take her. John Carter, Prince of Helium, would
not contaminate his hand with her blood," and with that I
pushed the raving beast, whom a short half-hour before a
whole world had worshipped as divine, from the platform of
her throne into the waiting clutches of her betrayed and
vengeful people.

Spying Xodar among the officers of the red men, I called
him to lead me quickly to the Temple of the Sun, and,
without waiting to learn what fate the First Born would
wreak upon their goddess, I rushed from the chamber with
Xodar, Carthoris, Hor Vastus, Kantos Kan, and a score of
other red nobles.

The black led us rapidly through the inner chambers of
the temple, until we stood within the central court--a great
circular space paved with a transparent marble of exquisite
whiteness. Before us rose a golden temple wrought in the
most wondrous and fanciful designs, inlaid with diamond,
ruby, sapphire, turquoise, emerald, and the thousand nameless
gems of Mars, which far transcend in loveliness and purity
of ray the most priceless stones of Earth.

"This way," cried Xodar, leading us toward the entrance to
a tunnel which opened in the courtyard beside the temple.
Just as we were on the point of descending we heard a
deep-toned roar burst from the Temple of Issus, which we
had but just quitted, and then a red man, Djor Kantos,
padwar of the fifth utan, broke from a nearby gate,
crying to us to return.

"The blacks have fired the temple," he cried. "In a thousand
places it is burning now. Haste to the outer gardens, or you are lost."

As he spoke we saw smoke pouring from a dozen windows
looking out upon the courtyard of the Temple of the Sun,
and far above the highest minaret of Issus hung an
ever-growing pall of smoke.

"Go back! Go back!" I cried to those who had accompanied me.
"The way! Xodar; point the way and leave me.
I shall reach my Princess yet."

"Follow me, John Carter," replied Xodar, and without
waiting for my reply he dashed down into the tunnel at our
feet. At his heels I ran down through a half-dozen tiers of
galleries, until at last he led me along a level floor at the
end of which I discerned a lighted chamber.

Massive bars blocked our further progress, but beyond I
saw her--my incomparable Princess, and with her were
Thuvia and Phaidor. When she saw me she rushed toward the
bars that separated us. Already the chamber had turned
upon its slow way so far that but a portion of the opening
in the temple wall was opposite the barred end of the corridor.
Slowly the interval was closing. In a short time there
would be but a tiny crack, and then even that would be
closed, and for a long Barsoomian year the chamber would
slowly revolve until once more for a brief day the aperture
in its wall would pass the corridor's end.

But in the meantime what horrible things would go on
within that chamber!

"Xodar!" I cried. "Can no power stop this awful revolving thing?
Is there none who holds the secret of these terrible bars?"

"None, I fear, whom we could fetch in time, though I
shall go and make the attempt. Wait for me here."

After he had left I stood and talked with Dejah Thoris,
and she stretched her dear hand through those cruel bars
that I might hold it until the last moment.

Thuvia and Phaidor came close also, but when Thuvia saw
that we would be alone she withdrew to the further side of
the chamber. Not so the daughter of Matai Shang.

"John Carter," she said, "this be the last time that you shall
see any of us. Tell me that you love me, that I may die happy."

"I love only the Princess of Helium," I replied quietly. "I am
sorry, Phaidor, but it is as I have told you from the beginning."

She bit her lip and turned away, but not before I saw
the black and ugly scowl she turned upon Dejah Thoris.
Thereafter she stood a little way apart, but not so far as I
should have desired, for I had many little confidences to
impart to my long-lost love.

For a few minutes we stood thus talking in low tones.
Ever smaller and smaller grew the opening. In a short time
now it would be too small even to permit the slender form
of my Princess to pass. Oh, why did not Xodar haste. Above
we could hear the faint echoes of a great tumult. It was the
multitude of black and red and green men fighting their way
through the fire from the burning Temple of Issus.

A draught from above brought the fumes of smoke to
our nostrils. As we stood waiting for Xodar the smoke
became thicker and thicker. Presently we heard shouting at
the far end of the corridor, and hurrying feet.

"Come back, John Carter, come back!" cried a voice, "even
the pits are burning."

In a moment a dozen men broke through the now blinding
smoke to my side. There was Carthoris, and Kantos Kan,
and Hor Vastus, and Xodar, with a few more who had
followed me to the temple court.

"There is no hope, John Carter," cried Xodar. "The keeper
of the keys is dead and his keys are not upon his carcass.
Our only hope is to quench this conflagration and trust to
fate that a year will find your Princess alive and well. I
have brought sufficient food to last them. When this crack
closes no smoke can reach them, and if we hasten to extinguish
the flames I believe they will be safe."

"Go, then, yourself and take these others with you," I replied.
"I shall remain here beside my Princess until a merciful
death releases me from my anguish. I care not to live."

As I spoke Xodar had been tossing a great number of
tiny cans within the prison cell. The remaining crack was
not over an inch in width a moment later. Dejah Thoris
stood as close to it as she could, whispering words of hope
and courage to me, and urging me to save myself.

Suddenly beyond her I saw the beautiful face of Phaidor
contorted into an expression of malign hatred. As my eyes
met hers she spoke.

"Think not, John Carter, that you may so lightly cast aside
the love of Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang. Nor ever hope
to hold thy Dejah Thoris in thy arms again. Wait you the
long, long year; but know that when the waiting is over it
shall be Phaidor's arms which shall welcome you--not those
of the Princess of Helium. Behold, she dies!"

And as she finished speaking I saw her raise a dagger on high,
and then I saw another figure. It was Thuvia's. As the
dagger fell toward the unprotected breast of my love, Thuvia
was almost between them. A blinding gust of smoke
blotted out the tragedy within that fearsome cell--a shriek
rang out, a single shriek, as the dagger fell.

The smoke cleared away, but we stood gazing upon a
blank wall. The last crevice had closed, and for a long
year that hideous chamber would retain its secret from the
eyes of men.

They urged me to leave.

"In a moment it will be too late," cried Xodar. "There is,
in fact, but a bare chance that we can come through to the
outer garden alive even now. I have ordered the pumps
started, and in five minutes the pits will be flooded. If we
would not drown like rats in a trap we must hasten above
and make a dash for safety through the burning temple."

"Go," I urged them. "Let me die here beside my
Princess--there is no hope or happiness elsewhere for me.
When they carry her dear body from that terrible place a
year hence let them find the body of her lord awaiting her."

Of what happened after that I have only a confused
recollection. It seems as though I struggled with many men,
and then that I was picked bodily from the ground and
borne away. I do not know. I have never asked, nor has
any other who was there that day intruded on my sorrow
or recalled to my mind the occurrences which they know
could but at best reopen the terrible wound within my heart.

Ah! If I could but know one thing, what a burden of
suspense would be lifted from my shoulders! But whether the
assassin's dagger reached one fair bosom or another, only
time will divulge.