REWARDS
With the realization that Dejah Thoris was no longer within the
throneroom came the belated recollection of the dark face that I
had glimpsed peering from behind the draperies that backed the
throne of Salensus Oll at the moment that I had first come so
unexpectedly upon the strange scene being enacted within the chamber.
Why had the sight of that evil countenance not warned me to
greater caution? Why had I permitted the rapid development of
new situations to efface the recollection of that menacing danger?
But, alas, vain regret would not erase the calamity that had befallen.
Once again had Dejah Thoris fallen into the clutches of that
archfiend, Thurid, the black dator of the First Born. Again was
all my arduous labor gone for naught. Now I realized the cause of
the rage that had been writ so large upon the features of Matai
Shang and the cruel pleasure that I had seen upon the face of Phaidor.
They had known or guessed the truth, and the hekkador of the
Holy Therns, who had evidently come to the chamber in the hope of
thwarting Salensus Oll in his contemplated perfidy against the high
priest who coveted Dejah Thoris for himself, realized that Thurid
had stolen the prize from beneath his very nose.
Phaidor's pleasure had been due to her realization of what
this last cruel blow would mean to me, as well as to a partial
satisfaction of her jealous hatred for the Princess of Helium.
My first thought was to look beyond the draperies at the back
of the throne, for there it was that I had seen Thurid. With a
single jerk I tore the priceless stuff from its fastenings, and
there before me was revealed a narrow doorway behind the throne.
No question entered my mind but that here lay the opening of
the avenue of escape which Thurid had followed, and had there been
it would have been dissipated by the sight of a tiny, jeweled
ornament which lay a few steps within the corridor beyond.
As I snatched up the bauble I saw that it bore the device of
the Princess of Helium, and then pressing it to my lips I dashed
madly along the winding way that led gently downward toward the
lower galleries of the palace.
I had followed but a short distance when I came upon the room
in which Solan formerly had held sway. His dead body still lay
where I had left it, nor was there any sign that another had passed
through the room since I had been there; but I knew that two had
done so--Thurid, the black dator, and Dejah Thoris.
For a moment I paused uncertain as to which of the several
exits from the apartment would lead me upon the right path.
I tried to recollect the directions which I had heard Thurid
repeat to Solan, and at last, slowly, as though through a heavy fog,
the memory of the words of the First Born came to me:
"Follow a corridor, passing three diverging corridors upon the right;
then into the fourth right-hand corridor to where three corridors meet;
here again follow to the right, hugging the left wall closely to avoid
the pit. At the end of this corridor I shall come to a spiral runway
which I must follow down instead of up; after that the way is along
but a single branchless corridor."
And I recalled the exit at which he had pointed as he spoke.
It did not take me long to start upon that unknown way, nor did
I go with caution, although I knew that there might be grave
dangers before me.
Part of the way was black as sin, but for the most it was
fairly well lighted. The stretch where I must hug the left wall to
avoid the pits was darkest of them all, and I was nearly over the
edge of the abyss before I knew that I was near the danger spot.
A narrow ledge, scarce a foot wide, was all that had been left
to carry the initiated past that frightful cavity into which the
unknowing must surely have toppled at the first step. But at last
I had won safely beyond it, and then a feeble light made the
balance of the way plain, until, at the end of the last corridor,
I came suddenly out into the glare of day upon a field of snow and ice.
Clad for the warm atmosphere of the hothouse city of Kadabra,
the sudden change to arctic frigidity was anything but pleasant;
but the worst of it was that I knew I could not endure the
bitter cold, almost naked as I was, and that I would perish
before ever I could overtake Thurid and Dejah Thoris.
To be thus blocked by nature, who had had all the arts and
wiles of cunning man pitted against him, seemed a cruel fate,
and as I staggered back into the warmth of the tunnel's end
I was as near hopelessness as I ever have been.
I had by no means given up my intention of continuing the
pursuit, for if needs be I would go ahead though I perished ere
ever I reached my goal, but if there were a safer way it were well
worth the delay to attempt to discover it, that I might come again
to the side of Dejah Thoris in fit condition to do battle for her.
Scarce had I returned to the tunnel than I stumbled over a portion
of a fur garment that seemed fastened to the floor of the corridor
close to the wall. In the darkness I could not see what held it,
but by groping with my hands I discovered that it was wedged beneath
the bottom of a closed door.
Pushing the portal aside, I found myself upon the threshold of a
small chamber, the walls of which were lined with hooks from which
depended suits of the complete outdoor apparel of the yellow men.
Situated as it was at the mouth of a tunnel leading from the palace,
it was quite evident that this was the dressing-room used by the
nobles leaving and entering the hothouse city, and that Thurid,
having knowledge of it, had stopped here to outfit himself and
Dejah Thoris before venturing into the bitter cold of the
arctic world beyond.
In his haste he had dropped several garments upon the floor,
and the telltale fur that had fallen partly within the corridor had
proved the means of guiding me to the very spot he would least have
wished me to have knowledge of.
It required but the matter of a few seconds to don the necessary
orluk-skin clothing, with the heavy, fur-lined boots that
are so essential a part of the garmenture of one who would
successfully contend with the frozen trails and the icy winds
of the bleak northland.
Once more I stepped beyond the tunnel's mouth to find the
fresh tracks of Thurid and Dejah Thoris in the new-fallen snow.
Now, at last, was my task an easy one, for though the going was
rough in the extreme, I was no longer vexed by doubts as to the
direction I should follow, or harassed by darkness or hidden dangers.
Through a snow-covered canyon the way led up toward the summit
of low hills. Beyond these it dipped again into another canon,
only to rise a quarter-mile farther on toward a pass which skirted
the flank of a rocky hill.
I could see by the signs of those who had gone before that when
Dejah Thoris had walked she had been continually holding back,
and that the black man had been compelled to drag her. For other
stretches only his foot-prints were visible, deep and close
together in the heavy snow, and I knew from these signs that then
he had been forced to carry her, and I could well imagine that she
had fought him fiercely every step of the way.
As I came round the jutting promontory of the hill's shoulder I
saw that which quickened my pulses and set my heart to beating high,
for within a tiny basin between the crest of this hill and the next
stood four people before the mouth of a great cave, and beside them
upon the gleaming snow rested a flier which had evidently but just
been dragged from its hiding place.
The four were Dejah Thoris, Phaidor, Thurid, and Matai Shang.
The two men were engaged in a heated argument--the Father of Therns
threatening, while the black scoffed at him as he went about the
work at which he was engaged.
As I crept toward them cautiously that I might come as near as
possible before being discovered, I saw that finally the men
appeared to have reached some sort of a compromise, for with
Phaidor's assistance they both set about dragging the resisting
Dejah Thoris to the flier's deck.
Here they made her fast, and then both again descended to the ground
to complete the preparations for departure. Phaidor entered the
small cabin upon the vessel's deck.
I had come to within a quarter of a mile of them when Matai Shang
espied me. I saw him seize Thurid by the shoulder, wheeling him
around in my direction as he pointed to where I was now plainly
visible, for the moment that I knew I had been perceived I cast aside
every attempt at stealth and broke into a mad race for the flier.
The two redoubled their efforts at the propeller at which
they were working, and which very evidently was being replaced
after having been removed for some purpose of repair.
They had the thing completed before I had covered half the
distance that lay between me and them, and then both made a rush
for the boarding-ladder.
Thurid was the first to reach it, and with the agility of a
monkey clambered swiftly to the boat's deck, where a touch of the
button controlling the buoyancy tanks sent the craft slowly upward,
though not with the speed that marks the well-conditioned flier.
I was still some hundred yards away as I saw them rising from my grasp.
Back by the city of Kadabra lay a great fleet of mighty fliers--
the ships of Helium and Ptarth that I had saved from destruction
earlier in the day; but before ever I could reach them Thurid
could easily make good his escape.
As I ran I saw Matai Shang clambering up the swaying, swinging
ladder toward the deck, while above him leaned the evil face of the
First Born. A trailing rope from the vessel's stern put new hope
in me, for if I could but reach it before it whipped too high above
my head there was yet a chance to gain the deck by its slender aid.
That there was something radically wrong with the flier was evident
from its lack of buoyancy, and the further fact that though Thurid
had turned twice to the starting lever the boat still hung motionless
in the air, except for a slight drifting with a low breeze from the north.
Now Matai Shang was close to the gunwale. A long, claw-like
hand was reaching up to grasp the metal rail.
Thurid leaned farther down toward his co-conspirator.
Suddenly a raised dagger gleamed in the upflung hand of the black.
Down it drove toward the white face of the Father of Therns.
With a loud shriek of fear the Holy Hekkador grasped frantically
at that menacing arm.
I was almost to the trailing rope by now. The craft was still
rising slowly, the while it drifted from me. Then I stumbled on
the icy way, striking my head upon a rock as I fell sprawling but
an arm's length from the rope, the end of which was now just
leaving the ground.
With the blow upon my head came unconsciousness.
It could not have been more than a few seconds that I lay
senseless there upon the northern ice, while all that was
dearest to me drifted farther from my reach in the clutches of
that black fiend, for when I opened my eyes Thurid and Matai Shang
yet battled at the ladder's top, and the flier drifted but a
hundred yards farther to the south--but the end of the trailing
rope was now a good thirty feet above the ground.
Goaded to madness by the cruel misfortune that had tripped me
when success was almost within my grasp, I tore frantically across
the intervening space, and just beneath the rope's dangling end I
put my earthly muscles to the supreme test.
With a mighty, catlike bound I sprang upward toward that slender
strand--the only avenue which yet remained that could carry
me to my vanishing love.
A foot above its lowest end my fingers closed. Tightly as I
clung I felt the rope slipping, slipping through my grasp.
I tried to raise my free hand to take a second hold above my first,
but the change of position that resulted caused me to slip more
rapidly toward the end of the rope.
Slowly I felt the tantalizing thing escaping me. In a moment all
that I had gained would be lost--then my fingers reached a knot
at the very end of the rope and slipped no more.
With a prayer of gratitude upon my lips I scrambled upward toward
the boat's deck. I could not see Thurid and Matai Shang now,
but I heard the sounds of conflict and thus knew that they
still fought--the Thern for his life and the black for the
increased buoyancy that relief from the weight of even a single
body would give the craft.
Should Matai Shang die before I reached the deck my chances of
ever reaching it would be slender indeed, for the black dator need
but cut the rope above me to be freed from me forever, for the
vessel had drifted across the brink of a chasm into whose yawning
depths my body would drop to be crushed to a shapeless pulp should
Thurid reach the rope now.
At last my hand closed upon the ship's rail and that very
instant a horrid shriek rang out below me that sent my blood cold
and turned my horrified eyes downward to a shrieking, hurtling,
twisting thing that shot downward into the awful chasm beneath me.
It was Matai Shang, Holy Hekkador, Father of Therns, gone to
his last accounting.
Then my head came above the deck and I saw Thurid, dagger in hand,
leaping toward me. He was opposite the forward end of the cabin,
while I was attempting to clamber aboard near the vessel's stern.
But a few paces lay between us. No power on earth could raise me
to that deck before the infuriated black would be upon me.
My end had come. I knew it; but had there been a doubt in my
mind the nasty leer of triumph upon that wicked face would have
convinced me. Beyond Thurid I could see my Dejah Thoris, wide-eyed
and horrified, struggling at her bonds. That she should be forced
to witness my awful death made my bitter fate seem doubly cruel.
I ceased my efforts to climb across the gunwale. Instead I took
a firm grasp upon the rail with my left hand and drew my dagger.
I should at least die as I had lived--fighting.
As Thurid came opposite the cabin's doorway a new element
projected itself into the grim tragedy of the air that was
being enacted upon the deck of Matai Shang's disabled flier.
It was Phaidor.
With flushed face and disheveled hair, and eyes that betrayed
the recent presence of mortal tears--above which this proud goddess
had always held herself--she leaped to the deck directly before me.
In her hand was a long, slim dagger. I cast a last look upon
my beloved princess, smiling, as men should who are about to die.
Then I turned my face up toward Phaidor--waiting for the blow.
Never have I seen that beautiful face more beautiful than it
was at that moment. It seemed incredible that one so lovely could
yet harbor within her fair bosom a heart so cruel and relentless,
and today there was a new expression in her wondrous eyes that I never
before had seen there--an unfamiliar softness, and a look of suffering.
Thurid was beside her now--pushing past to reach me first, and then
what happened happened so quickly that it was all over before I could
realize the truth of it.
Phaidor's slim hand shot out to close upon the black's dagger wrist.
Her right hand went high with its gleaming blade.
"That for Matai Shang!" she cried, and she buried her blade
deep in the dator's breast. "That for the wrong you would have done
Dejah Thoris!" and again the sharp steel sank into the bloody flesh.
"And that, and that, and that!" she shrieked, "for John Carter,
Prince of Helium," and with each word her sharp point pierced
the vile heart of the great villain. Then, with a vindictive
shove she cast the carcass of the First Born from the deck to
fall in awful silence after the body of his victim.
I had been so paralyzed by surprise that I had made no move to reach
the deck during the awe-inspiring scene which I had just witnessed,
and now I was to be still further amazed by her next act, for Phaidor
extended her hand to me and assisted me to the deck, where I stood
gazing at her in unconcealed and stupefied wonderment.
A wan smile touched her lips--it was not the cruel and haughty
smile of the goddess with which I was familiar. "You wonder,
John Carter," she said, "what strange thing has wrought this
change in me? I will tell you. It is love--love of you,"
and when I darkened my brows in disapproval of her words
she raised an appealing hand.
"Wait," she said. "It is a different love from mine--it is
the love of your princess, Dejah Thoris, for you that has taught
me what true love may be--what it should be, and how far from
real love was my selfish and jealous passion for you.
"Now I am different. Now could I love as Dejah Thoris loves,
and so my only happiness can be to know that you and she are once
more united, for in her alone can you find true happiness.
"But I am unhappy because of the wickedness that I have wrought.
I have many sins to expiate, and though I be deathless, life is
all too short for the atonement.
"But there is another way, and if Phaidor, daughter of the
Holy Hekkador of the Holy Therns, has sinned she has this day
already made partial reparation, and lest you doubt the sincerity
of her protestations and her avowal of a new love that embraces
Dejah Thoris also, she will prove her sincerity in the only way
that lies open--having saved you for another, Phaidor leaves you
to her embraces."
With her last word she turned and leaped from the vessel's
deck into the abyss below.
With a cry of horror I sprang forward in a vain attempt to
save the life that for two years I would so gladly have seen
extinguished. I was too late.
With tear-dimmed eyes I turned away that I might not see the
awful sight beneath.
A moment later I had struck the bonds from Dejah Thoris, and as
her dear arms went about my neck and her perfect lips pressed to
mine I forgot the horrors that I had witnessed and the suffering
that I had endured in the rapture of my reward.
Warlord of Mars Chapter 14 ...
Warlord of Mars Chapter 16