CHAPTER XV
THE OLD MAN OF THE PITS
"I shall not desert you, Ghek," said Tara of Helium, simply.
"Go! Go!" whispered the kaldane. "You can do me no good. Go, or all Ihave done is for naught."
Tara shook her head. "I cannot," she said.
"They will slay her," said Ghek to Turan, and the panthan, torn betweenloyalty to this strange creature who had offered its life for him, andlove of the woman, hesitated but a moment, then he swept Tara from herfeet and lifting her in his arms leaped up the steps that led to thethrone of Manator. Behind the throne he parted the arras and found thesecret opening. Into this he bore the girl and down a long, narrowcorridor and winding runways that led to lower levels until they cameto the pits of the palace of O-Tar. Here was a labyrinth of passagesand chambers presenting a thousand hiding-places.
As Turan bore Tara up the steps toward the throne a score of warriorsrose as though to rush forward to intercept them. "Stay!" cried Ghek,"or your jeddak dies," and they halted in their tracks, waiting thewill of this strange, uncanny creature.
Presently Ghek took his eyes from the eyes of O-Tar and the jeddakshook himself as one who would be rid of a bad dream and straightenedup, half dazed still.
"Look," said Ghek, then, "I have given your jeddak his life, nor have Iharmed one of those whom I might easily have slain when they were in mypower. No harm have I or my friends done in the city of Manator. Whythen should you persecute us? Give us our lives. Give us our liberty."
O-Tar, now in command of his faculties, stooped and regained his sword.In the room was silence as all waited to hear the jeddak's answer.
"Just are the laws of Manator," he said at last. "Perhaps, after all,there is truth in the words of the stranger. Return him then to thepits and pursue the others and capture them. Through the mercy of O-Tarthey shall be permitted to win their freedom upon the Field of Jetan,in the coming games."
Still ashen was the face of the jeddak as Ghek was led away and hisappearance was that of a man who had been snatched from the brink ofeternity into which he has gazed, not with the composure of greatcourage, but with fear. There were those in the throne room who knewthat the execution of the three prisoners had but been delayed and theresponsibility placed upon the shoulders of others, and one of thosewho knew was U-Thor, the great jed of Manatos. His curling lipbetokened his scorn of the jeddak who had chosen humiliation ratherthan death. He knew that O-Tar had lost more of prestige in those fewmoments than he could regain in a lifetime, for the Martians arejealous of the courage of their chiefs--there can be no evasions ofstern duty, no temporizing with honor. That there were others in theroom who shared U-Thor's belief was evidenced by the silence and thegrim scowls.
O-Tar glanced quickly around. He must have sensed the hostility andguessed its cause, for he went suddenly angry, and as one who seeks bythe vehemence of his words to establish the courage of his heart heroared forth what could be considered as naught other than a challenge.
"The will of O-Tar, the jeddak, is the law of Manator," he cried, "andthe laws of Manator are just--they cannot err. U-Dor, dispatch thosewho will search the palace, the pits, and the city, and return thefugitives to their cells.
"And now for you, U-Thor of Manatos! Think you with impunity tothreaten your jeddak--to question his right to punish traitors andinstigators of treason? What am I to think of your own loyalty, whotakes to wife a woman I have banished from my court because of herintrigues against the authority of her jeddak and her master? But O-Taris just. Make your explanations and your peace, then, before it is toolate."
"U-Thor has nothing to explain," replied the jed of Manatos; "nor is heat war with his jeddak; but he has the right that every jed and everywarrior enjoys, of demanding justice at the hands of the jeddak forwhomsoever he believes to be persecuted. With increasing rigor has thejeddak of Manator persecuted the slaves from Gathol since he took tohimself the unwilling Princess Haja. If the slaves from Gathol haveharbored thoughts of vengeance and escape 'tis no more than might beexpected from a proud and courageous people. Ever have I counselledgreater fairness in our treatment of our slaves, many of whom, in theirown lands, are people of great distinction and power; but always hasO-Tar, the jeddak, flouted with arrogance my every suggestion. Thoughit has been through none of my seeking that the question has arisen nowI am glad that it has, for the time was bound to come when the jeds ofManator would demand from O-Tar the respect and consideration that istheir due from the man who holds his high office at their pleasure.Know, then, O-Tar, that you must free A-Kor, the dwar, forthwith orbring him to fair trial before the assembled jeds of Manator. I havespoken."
"You have spoken well and to the point, U-Thor," cried O-Tar, "for youhave revealed to your jeddak and your fellow jeds the depth of thedisloyalty that I have long suspected. A-Kor already has been tried andsentenced by the supreme tribunal of Manator--O-Tar, the jeddak; andyou too shall receive justice from the same unfailing source. In themeantime you are under arrest. To the pits with him! To the pits withU-Thor the false jed!" He clapped his hands to summon the surroundingwarriors to do his bidding. A score leaped forward to seize U-Thor.They were warriors of the palace, mostly; but two score leaped todefend U-Thor, and with ringing steel they fought at the foot of thesteps to the throne of Manator where stood O-Tar, the jeddak, withdrawn sword ready to take his part in the melee.
At the clash of steel, palace guards rushed to the scene from otherparts of the great building until those who would have defended U-Thorwere outnumbered two to one, and then the jed of Manatos slowlywithdrew with his forces, and fighting his way through the corridorsand chambers of the palace came at last to the avenue. Here he wasreinforced by the little army that had marched with him into Manator.Slowly they retreated toward The Gate of Enemies between the rows ofsilent people looking down upon them from the balconies and there,within the city walls, they made their stand.
In a dimly-lighted chamber beneath the palace of O-Tar the jeddak,Turan the panthan lowered Tara of Helium from his arms and faced her."I am sorry, Princess," he said, "that I was forced to disobey yourcommands, or to abandon Ghek; but there was no other way. Could he havesaved you I would have stayed in his place. Tell me that you forgiveme."
"How could I do less?" she replied graciously. "But it seemed cowardlyto abandon a friend."
"Had we been three fighting men it had been different," he said. "Wecould only have remained and died together, fighting; but you know,Tara of Helium, that we may not jeopardize a woman's safety even thoughwe risk the loss of honor."
"I know that, Turan," she said; "but no one may say that you haverisked honor, who knows the honor and bravery that are yours."
He heard her with surprise for these were the first words that she hadspoken to him that did not savor of the attitude of a princess to apanthan--though it was more in her tone than the actual words that heapprehended the difference. How at variance were they to her recentrepudiation of him! He could not fathom her, and so he blurted out thequestion that had been in his mind since she had told O-Tar that shedid not know him.
"Tara of Helium," he said, "your words are balm to the wound you gaveme in the throne room of O-Tar. Tell me, Princess, why you denied me."
She turned her great, deep eyes up to his and in them was a little ofreproach.
"You did not guess," she asked, "that it was my lips alone and not myheart that denied you? O-Tar had ordered that I die, more because I wasa companion of Ghek than because of any evidence against me, and so Iknew that if I acknowledged you as one of us, you would be slain, too."
"It was to save me, then?" he cried, his face suddenly lighting.
"It was to save my brave panthan," she said in a low voice.
"Tara of Helium," said the warrior, dropping to one knee, "your wordsare as food to my hungry heart," and he took her fingers in his andpressed them to his lips.
Gently she raised him to his feet. "You need not tell me, kneeling,"she said, softly.
; Her hand was still in his as he rose and they were very close, and theman was still flushed with the contact of her body since he had carriedher from the throne room of O-Tar. He felt his heart pounding in hisbreast and the hot blood surging through his veins as he looked at herbeautiful face, with its downcast eyes and the half-parted lips that hewould have given a kingdom to possess, and then he swept her to him andas he crushed her against his breast his lips smothered hers withkisses.
But only for an instant. Like a tigress the girl turned upon him,striking him, and thrusting him away. She stepped back, her head highand her eyes flashing fire. "You would dare?" she cried. "You woulddare thus defile a princess of Helium?"
His eyes met hers squarely and there was no shame and no remorse inthem.
"Yes, I would dare," he said. "I would dare love Tara of Helium; but Iwould not dare defile her or any woman with kisses that were notprompted by love of her alone." He stepped closer to her and laid hishands upon her shoulders. "Look into my eyes, daughter of The Warlord,"he said, "and tell me that you do not wish the love of Turan, thepanthan."
"I do not wish your love," she cried, pulling away. "I hate you!" andthen turning away she bent her head into the hollow of her arm, andwept.
The man took a step toward her as though to comfort her when he wasarrested by the sound of a crackling laugh behind him. Wheeling about,he discovered a strange figure of a man standing in a doorway. It wasone of those rarities occasionally to be seen upon Barsoom--an old manwith the signs of age upon him. Bent and wrinkled, he had more theappearance of a mummy than a man.
"Love in the pits of O-Tar!" he cried, and again his thin laughterjarred upon the silence of the subterranean vaults. "A strange place towoo! A strange place to woo, indeed! When I was a young man we roamedin the gardens beneath giant pimalias and stole our kisses in the briefshadows of hurtling Thuria. We came not to the gloomy pits to speak oflove; but times have changed and ways have changed, though I had neverthought to live to see the time when the way of a man with a maid, or amaid with a man would change. Ah, but we kissed them then! And what ifthey objected, eh? What if they objected? Why, we kissed them more. Ey,ey, those were the days!" and he cackled again. "Ey, well do I recallthe first of them I ever kissed, and I've kissed an army of them since;she was a fine girl, but she tried to slip a dagger into me while I waskissing her. Ey, ey, those were the days! But I kissed her. She's beendead over a thousand years now, but she was never kissed again likethat while she lived, I'll swear, not since she's been dead, either.And then there was that other--" but Turan, seeing a thousand or moreyears of osculatory memoirs portending, interrupted.
"Tell me, ancient one," he said, "not of thy loves but of thyself. Whoare you? What do you here in the pits of O-Tar?"
"I might ask you the same, young man," replied the other. "Few thereare who visit the pits other than the dead, except my pupils--ey! Thatis it--you are new pupils! Good! But never before have they sent awoman to learn the great art from the greatest artist. But times havechanged. Now, in my day the women did no work--they were just forkissing and loving. Ey, those were the women. I mind the one wecaptured in the south--ey! she was a devil, but how she could love. Shehad breasts of marble and a heart of fire. Why, she--"
"Yes, yes," interrupted Turan; "we are pupils, and we are anxious toget to work. Lead on and we will follow."
"Ey, yes! Ey, yes! Come! All is rush and hurry as though there were notanother countless myriad of ages ahead. Ey, yes! as many as lie behind.Two thousand years have passed since I broke my shell and always rush,rush, rush, yet I cannot see that aught has been accomplished. Manatoris the same today as it was then--except the girls. We had the girlsthen. There was one that I gained upon The Fields of Jetan. Ey, but youshould have seen--"
"Lead on!" cried Turan. "After we are at work you shall tell us of her."
"Ey, yes," said the old fellow and shuffled off down a dimly lightedpassage. "Follow me!"
"You are going with him?" asked Tara.
"Why not?" replied Turan. "We know not where we are, or the way fromthese pits; for I know not east from west; but he doubtless knows andif we are shrewd we may learn from him that which we would know. Atleast we cannot afford to arouse his suspicions"; and so they followedhim--followed along winding corridors and through many chambers, untilthey came at last to a room in which there were several marble slabsraised upon pedestals some three feet above the floor and upon eachslab lay a human corpse.
"Here we are," exclaimed the old man. "These are fresh and we shallhave to get to work upon them soon. I am working now on one for TheGate of Enemies. He slew many of our warriors. Truly is he entitled toa place in The Gate. Come, you shall see him."
He led them to an adjoining apartment. Upon the floor were many fresh,human bones and upon a marble slab a mass of shapeless flesh.
"You will learn this later," announced the old man; "but it will notharm you to watch me now, for there are not many thus prepared, and itmay be long before you will have the opportunity to see anotherprepared for The Gate of Enemies. First, you see, I remove all thebones, carefully that the skin may be damaged as little as possible.The skull is the most difficult, but it can be removed by a skilfulartist. You see, I have made but a single opening. This I now sew up,and that done, the body is hung so," and he fastened a piece of rope tothe hair of the corpse and swung the horrid thing to a ring in theceiling. Directly below it was a circular manhole in the floor fromwhich he removed the cover revealing a well partially filled with areddish liquid. "Now we lower it into this, the formula for which youshall learn in due time. We fasten it thus to the bottom of the cover,which we now replace. In a year it will be ready; but it must beexamined often in the meantime and the liquid kept above the level ofits crown. It will be a very beautiful piece, this one, when it isready.
"And you are fortunate again, for there is one to come out today." Hecrossed to the opposite side of the room and raised another cover,reached in and dragged a grotesque looking figure from the hole. It wasa human body, shrunk by the action of the chemical in which it had beenimmersed, to a little figure scarce a foot high.
"Ey! is it not fine?" cried the little old man. "Tomorrow it will takeits place in The Gate of Enemies." He dried it off with cloths andpacked it away carefully in a basket. "Perhaps you would like to seesome of my life work," he suggested, and without waiting for theirassent led them to another apartment, a large chamber in which wereforty or fifty people. All were sitting or standing quietly about thewalls, with the exception of one huge warrior who bestrode a greatthoat in the very center of the room, and all were motionless.Instantly there sprang to the minds of Tara and Turan the rows ofsilent people upon the balconies that lined the avenues of the city,and the noble array of mounted warriors in The Hall of Chiefs, and thesame explanation came to both but neither dared voice the question thatwas in his mind, for fear of revealing by his ignorance the fact thatthey were strangers in Manator and therefore impostors in the guise ofpupils.
"It is very wonderful," said Turan. "It must require great skill andpatience and time."
"That it does," replied the old man, "though having done it so long Iam quicker than most; but mine are the most natural. Why, I would defythe wife of that warrior to say that insofar as appearances areconcerned he does not live," and he pointed at the man upon the thoat."Many of them, of course, are brought here wasted or badly wounded andthese I have to repair. That is where great skill is required, foreveryone wants his dead to look as they did at their best in life; butyou shall learn--to mount them and paint them and repair them andsometimes to make an ugly one look beautiful. And it will be a greatcomfort to be able to mount your own. Why, for fifteen hundred years noone has mounted my own dead but myself.
"I have many, my balconies are crowded with them; but I keep a greatroom for my wives. I have them all, as far back as the first one, andmany is the evening I spend with them--quiet evenings and verypleasant. And then the pleasure of preparing them and making them evenmore b
eautiful than in life partially recompenses one for their loss. Itake my time with them, looking for a new one while I am working on theold. When I am not sure about a new one I bring her to the chamberwhere my wives are, and compare her charms with theirs, and there isalways a great satisfaction at such times in knowing that they will notobject. I love harmony."
"Did you prepare all the warriors in The Hall of Chiefs?" asked Turan.
"Yes, I prepare them and repair them," replied the old man. "O-Tar willtrust no other. Even now I have two in another room who were damaged insome way and brought down to me. O-Tar does not like to have them gonelong, since it leaves two riderless thoats in the Hall; but I shallhave them ready presently. He wants them all there in the event anymomentous question arises upon which the living jeds cannot agree, ordo not agree with O-Tar. Such questions he carries to the jeds in TheHall of Chiefs. There he shuts himself up alone with the great chiefswho have attained wisdom through death. It is an excellent plan andthere is never any friction or misunderstandings. O-Tar has said thatit is the finest deliberative body upon Barsoom--much more intelligentthan that composed of the living jeds. But come, we must get to work;come into the next chamber and I will begin your instruction."
He led the way into the chamber in which lay the several corpses upontheir marble slabs, and going to a cabinet he donned a pair of hugespectacles and commenced to select various tools from littlecompartments. This done he turned again toward his two pupils.
"Now let me have a look at you," he said. "My eyes are not what theyonce were, and I need these powerful lenses for my work, or to seedistinctly the features of those around me."
He turned his eyes upon the two before him. Turan held his breath forhe knew that now the man must discover that they wore not the harnessor insignia of Manator. He had wondered before why the old fellow hadnot noticed it, for he had not known that he was half blind. The otherexamined their faces, his eyes lingering long upon the beauty of Taraof Helium, and then they drifted to the harness of the two. Turanthought that he noted an appreciable start of surprise on the part ofthe taxidermist, but if the old man noticed anything his next words didnot reveal it.
"Come with I-Gos," he said to Turan. "I have materials in the next roomthat I would have you fetch hither. Remain here, woman, we shall begone but a moment."
He led the way to one of the numerous doors opening into the chamberand entered ahead of Turan. Just inside the door he stopped, andpointing to a bundle of silks and furs upon the opposite side of theroom directed Turan to fetch them. The latter had crossed the room andwas stooping to raise the bundle when he heard the click of a lockbehind him. Wheeling instantly he saw that he was alone in the room andthat the single door was closed. Running rapidly to it he strove toopen it, only to find that he was a prisoner.
I-Gos, stepping out and locking the door behind him, turned toward Tara.
"Your leather betrayed you," he said, laughing his cackling laugh. "Yousought to deceive old I-Gos, but you found that though his eyes areweak his brain is not. But it shall not go ill with you. You arebeautiful and I-Gos loves beautiful women. I might not have youelsewhere in Manator, but here there is none to deny old I-Gos. Fewcome to the pits of the dead--only those who bring the dead and theyhasten away as fast as they can. No one will know that I-Gos has abeautiful woman locked with his dead. I shall ask you no questions andthen I will not have to give you up, for I will not know to whom youbelong, eh? And when you die I shall mount you beautifully and placeyou in the chamber with my other women. Will not that be fine, eh?" Hehad approached until he stood close beside the horrified girl. "Come!"he cried, seizing her by the wrist. "Come to I-Gos!"
The Chessmen of Mars Page 16
