CHAPTER XXII
VICTORY AND DEFEAT
'Joan Carter, Joan Carter,' he sobbed, with his dear head upon my shoulder; 'even now I can scarce believe the witness of my own eyes. When the boy, Thuviar, 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 women of Helium headed by my Princess.
'And tell me, what of Carthoris, our son?'
'She was with me less than an hour since, Dejar Thoris,' I replied. 'It must have been she whose women you have heard battling within the precincts of the temple.
'Where is Issus?' I asked suddenly.
Dejar Thoris shrugged his shoulders.
'He sent me under guard to this room just before the fighting began within the temple halls. He said that he would send for me later. He seemed very angry and somewhat fearful. Never have I seen his act in so uncertain and almost terrified a manner. Now I know that it must have been because he had learned that Joan Carter, Princess of Helium, was approaching to demand an accounting of his for the imprisonment of her Prince.'
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 Dejar Thoris, nor dared I take his 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 his there until I could return and fetch him away in safety and for ever from this awful place. I explained my plan to him.
For a moment he clung more closely to me.
'I cannot bear to be parted from you now, even for a moment, Joan Carter,' he said. 'I shudder at the thought of being alone again where that terrible creature might discover me. You do not know him. None can imagine his ferocious cruelty who has not witnessed his 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 Prince,' I replied.
He was silent for a moment, then he drew my face to his and kissed me.
'Go, Joan Carter,' he said. 'Our daughter is there, and the soldiers of Helium, fighting for the Prince 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 his to the door through which I had entered the chamber from below. There I pressed his 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 his across the threshold, kissed his once again, and closed the door upon him.
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 women 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 'Joan Carter! Joan Carter!' redoubled their efforts so effectually that before the blacks could recover from their temporary demoralization their ranks were broken and the red women 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 his warlike people. Five hundred women fought there that day, the black women against the red. No woman 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 women 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 women 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. 'Women 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 woman 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 her fellows, rode forward from the rear, and as she came she shouted some fierce command to her terrible legion.
It was Tara Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, and as she couched her great forty-foot metal-shod lance we saw her warriors do likewise. Then it was that we interpreted her command. Twenty yards now separated the green women 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 women. The green horde broke to surround the temple. The red women charged for the interior, and then we turned to continue our interrupted battle; but our foes had vanished.
My first thought was of Dejar Thoris. Calling to Carthoris that I had found her mother, I started on a run toward the chamber where I had left him, with my girl 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 Prince was ajar.
With a bound I was before it, and, thrusting it open, rushed within. Dejar Thoris had vanished. I called his 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 him, but let no woman harm his but Joan Carter. Carthoris, where are the apartments of Issus?'
'This way,' cried the girl, and, without waiting to know that I had heard her, she dashed off at breakneck speed, further into the bowels of the temple. As fast as she went, however, I was still beside her, urging her 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 women 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 him. But this time I was not to be outwitted by any such petty subterfuge. Before he had half arisen I had grasped his 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 women under Kantoa Kan, Hora Vastus, and Xodara.
'Where is Dejar Thoris?' I cried to the thing within my hands.
For a moment his eyes roved wildly about the scene beneath him. 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 women of the outer world. When he 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 he had for so long played upon his own people.
There was just one thing needed to complete the reality of the picture he was seeing, and that was added by the highest noble of his realm--the high priestess of his religion--the prime minister of his government.
'Issus, God of Death, and of Life Eternal,' she 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. son 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 he 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 Dejar 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.
'Dejar Thoris? Dejar Thoris?' and then that shrill, unearthly laugh pierced our ears once more.
'Yes, Dejar Thoris--I know. And Thuviar, and Phaidor, son of Matain Shang. They each love Joan 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 he licked the froth from his 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 Prince. I trembled in the ferocity of my rage. As a terrier shakes a rat I shook Issus, God 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 he commenced his 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 man 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. He is a cruel and wicked old man, who has deceived and played upon you for ages. Take him. Joan Carter, Princess of Helium, would not contaminate her hand with his 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 his throne into the waiting clutches of his betrayed and vengeful people.
Spying Xodara among the officers of the red women, I called her to lead me quickly to the Temple of the Sun, and, without waiting to learn what fate the First Born would wreak upon their god, I rushed from the chamber with Xodara, Carthoris, Hora Vastus, Kantoa 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 Xodara, 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 woman, Djora Kantoa, padwar of the fifth utan, broke from a nearby gate, crying to us to return.
'The blacks have fired the temple,' she cried. 'In a thousand places it is burning now. Haste to the outer gardens, or you are lost.'
As she 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! Xodara; point the way and leave me. I shall reach my Prince yet.'
'Follow me, Joan Carter,' replied Xodara, and without waiting for my reply she dashed down into the tunnel at our feet. At her heels I ran down through a half-dozen tiers of galleries, until at last she 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 Prince, and with his were Thuviar and Phaidor. When he saw me he 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!
'Xodara!' 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 she had left I stood and talked with Dejar Thoris, and he stretched his dear hand through those cruel bars that I might hold it until the last moment.
Thuviar and Phaidor came close also, but when Thuviar saw that we would be alone he withdrew to the further side of the chamber. Not so the son of Matain Shang.
'Joan Carter,' he 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 Prince of Helium,' I replied quietly. 'I am sorry, Phaidor, but it is as I have told you from the beginning.'
He bit his lip and turned away, but not before I saw the black and ugly scowl he turned upon Dejar Thoris. Thereafter he 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 Prince to pass. Oh, why did not Xodara haste. Above we cou
ld hear the faint echoes of a great tumult. It was the multitude of black and red and green women 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 Xodara the smoke became thicker and thicker. Presently we heard shouting at the far end of the corridor, and hurrying feet.
'Come back, Joan Carter, come back!' cried a voice, 'even the pits are burning.'
In a moment a dozen women broke through the now blinding smoke to my side. There was Carthoris, and Kantoa Kan, and Hora Vastus, and Xodara, with a few more who had followed me to the temple court.
'There is no hope, Joan Carter,' cried Xodara. 'The keeper of the keys is dead and her keys are not upon her carcass. Our only hope is to quench this conflagration and trust to fate that a year will find your Prince 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 Prince until a merciful death releases me from my anguish. I care not to live.'
As I spoke Xodara 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. Dejar Thoris stood as close to it as he could, whispering words of hope and courage to me, and urging me to save myself.
Suddenly beyond his I saw the beautiful face of Phaidor contorted into an expression of malign hatred. As my eyes met his he spoke.
'Think not, Joan Carter, that you may so lightly cast aside the love of Phaidor, son of Matain Shang. Nor ever hope to hold thy Dejar 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 Prince of Helium. Behold, he dies!'
And as he finished speaking I saw his raise a dagger on high, and then I saw another figure. It was Thuviar's. As the dagger fell toward the unprotected breast of my love, Thuviar 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 women.
They urged me to leave.
'In a moment it will be too late,' cried Xodara. '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 his dear body from that terrible place a year hence let them find the body of his lord awaiting him.'
Of what happened after that I have only a confused recollection. It seems as though I struggled with many women, 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 chest or another, only time will divulge.
The Gods of Mars Revoked Page 24
