"She is my mate, Ozara."
"You love her?" she demanded.
"Of course," I replied.
"That is all right," she said, "but she is gone, and you are mine now."
I had no time to waste on such matters then. It was apparent that the girl was self-willed; that she had always had her own way, had everything that she wished, and could not brook being crossed, no matter how foolish her whim might be. At another time, if we lived, I might bring her to her senses; but now I must bend every effort to escape.
"How can we reach this secret doorway?" I asked. "Do you know the way from here?"
"Yes," she replied; "come with me."
We crossed the room and entered the corridor. It was very dark, but we groped our way to the stairs that I had ascended from the pit earlier in the day. When she started down these, I questioned her.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" I asked. "This leads to the cell in which I was imprisoned."
"Perhaps it does," she said; "but it also leads to a distant part of the castle, close to the river, where we shall find the doorway we are seeking."
I hoped that she knew what she was talking about as I followed her down the stairway and through the Stygian darkness of the corridor below.
When I had come through it before, I had guided myself by pressing my right hand against the wall at my side. Now Ozara followed the opposite wall; and when we had gone a short distance, turned into a corridor at our right that I had passed without knowing of its existence, because I had been following the opposite wall; and of course in the absolute darkness of the corridor, I had not been able to see anything.
We followed this new corridor for a long distance, but finally ascended a circular stairway to the next level above.
Here we came into a lighted corridor.
"If we can reach the other end of this without being discovered," whispered Ozara, "we shall be safe. At the far end is a false door that leads into the secret passageway ending at the door above the river."
We both listened intently. "I hear no one," she said.
"Nor I."
As we started down the long corridor, I saw that there were rooms opening from it on either side; but as we approached each door I was relieved to find that it was closed.
We had covered perhaps half the length of the corridor when a slight noise behind us attracted my attention; and, turning, I saw two men step from one of the rooms we had recently passed. They were turning away from us, toward the opposite end of the corridor; and I was breathing a sigh of relief, when a third man followed them from the room. This one, through some perversity of fate, glanced in our direction; and immediately he voiced an exclamation of surprise and warning.
"The Jeddara!" he cried, "and the black-haired one!"
Instantly the three turned and ran toward us. We were about halfway between them and the door leading to the secret passage that was our goal.
Flight, in the face of an enemy, is something that does not set well upon my stomach; but now there was no alternative, since to stand and fight would have been but to insure disaster; and so Ozara and I fled.
The three men pursuing us were shouting at the tops of their voices for the evident purpose of attracting others to their assistance.
Something prompted me to draw my long sword as I ran; and it is fortunate that I did so; for just as we were approaching a doorway on our left, a warrior, attracted by the noise in the corridor, stepped out. Ozara dodged past him just as he drew his sword. I did not even slacken my speed but took him in my stride, cleaving his skull as I raced past him.
Now we were at the door, and Ozara was searching for the secret mechanism that would open it to us. The three men were approaching rapidly.
"Take your time, Ozara," I cautioned her, for I knew that in the haste of nervousness her fingers might bungle the job and delay us.
"I am trembling so," she said; "they will reach us before I can open it."
"Don't worry about them," I told her. "I can hold them off until you open it."
Then the three were upon me. I recognized them as officers of the Jeddak's guard, because their trappings were the same as those worn by Zamak; and I surmised, and rightly, that they were good swordsmen.
The one in the lead was too impetuous. He rushed upon me as though he thought he could cut me down with his first stroke, which was not the part of wisdom. I ran him through the heart.
As he fell, the others were upon me but they fought more cautiously; yet, though there were two of them, and their blades were constantly thrusting and cutting in an endeavor to reach me, my own sword, moving with the speed of thought, wove a steel net of defense about me.
But defense alone would not answer my purpose; for if they could keep me on the defensive, they could hold me here until reinforcements came; and then, by force of numbers, I must be overcome.
In the instant, following a parry, my point reached out and pricked one of my adversaries sharply above the heart. Involuntarily, he shrank back; and as he did so I turned upon his companion and opened his chest wide.
Neither wound was mortal, but they slowed my adversaries down. Ozara was still fumbling with the door. Our situation promised to be most unpleasant if she were unable to open it, for now at the far end of the corridor I saw a detachment of warriors racing toward us; but I did not warn her to hurry, fearing that then, in her excitement, she would never be able to open it.
The two wounded men were now pressing me hard again. They were brave warriors and worthy foemen. It is a pleasure to be pitted against such, although there are always regrets when one must kill them. However, I had no choice, for then I heard a sudden cry of relief from Ozara.
"It is open, John Carter," she cried. "Come! Hurry!"
But now the two warriors were engaging me so fiercely that I could not break away from them.
But just for an instant was I held. With a burst of speed and a ferocity such as I imagine they had never beheld before, I took the battle to them. A vicious cut brought down one; and as he fell, I ran the other through the chest.
The reinforcements running toward us had covered half the length of the corridor as I hurried through the doorway after Ozara and closed the door behind me.
Now again we were in complete darkness. "Hurry!" cried Ozara. "The passageway is straight and level all the way to the door."
Through the darkness, we ran. I heard the men behind me open the door, and knew that they were in the passageway at our rear; fully twenty of them there must have been.
Suddenly I ran full upon Ozara. We had come to the end of the passage, and she was standing at the door. This door she opened more quickly; and as it swung in, I saw the dark river flowing beneath us. Upon the opposite shore was the gloomy outline of the forest.
How cold and mysterious this strange river looked. What mysteries, what dangers, what terrors, lay in the sinister wood beyond?
But I was only vaguely conscious of such thoughts. The warriors who would seize us and carry us back to death were almost upon us as I took Ozara in my arms and jumped.
CHAPTER XXIV. BACK TO BARSOOM
Dark, forbidding waters closed over our heads and swirled about us as we rose to the surface; and, equally dark and forbidding, the forest frowned upon us. Even the moaning of the wind in the trees seemed an eerie warning, forbidding, threatening. Behind us, the warriors in the doorway shouted curses upon us.
I struck out for the opposite shore, holding Ozara in one arm and keeping her mouth and nose above water. She lay so limp that I thought she had fainted, nor would I have been surprised, for even a woman of the strongest fibre might weaken after having undergone what she had had to during the last two days.
But when we reached the opposite shore, she clambered out on the bank in full possession of all her faculties.
"I thought that you had swooned," I said; "you lay so very still."
"I do not swim," she replied; "and I knew that if I struggled, it would hamper you." Th
ere was even more to the erstwhile Jeddara of the Tarids than I had imagined.
"What are we going to do now, John Carter?" she asked. Her teeth were chattering from cold, or terror; and she seemed very miserable.
"You are cold," I said; "if I can find anything dry enough to burn, we shall have a fire."
The girl came close to me. I could feel her body trembling against mine.
"I am a little cold," she said, "but that is nothing; I am terribly afraid."
"But why are you afraid now, Ozara? Do you think that Ul Vas will send men after us?"
"No, it is not that," she replied. "He couldn't make men come into this wood at night, and even by daylight they would hesitate to venture into it on this side of the river. Tomorrow he will know that it will be useless to send after us, for tomorrow we shall be dead."
"What makes you say that?" I demanded.
"The beasts," she said, "the beasts that hunt through the forest by night; we cannot escape them."
"Yet you came here willingly."
"Ul Vas would have tortured us," she replied; "the beasts will be more merciful. Listen! You can hear them now."
In the distance, I heard strange grunts and then a fearsome roar.
"They are not near us," I said.
"They will come," she replied.
"Then I had better get a fire started; that will keep them away."
"Do you think so?" she asked.
"I hope so."
I knew that in any forest there must be deadwood; and so, although it was pitch dark, I commenced to search for fallen branches; and soon I had collected a little pile of these and some dry leaves.
The Tarids had not taken away my pocket pouch, and in it I still had the common Martian appliance for making fire.
"You said that the Tarids would hesitate to enter the forest on this side of the river even by day," I remarked, as I sought to ignite the dry leaves with which I hoped to start my fire. "Why is that?"
"The Masenas," she replied. "They often come up the river in great numbers, hunting the Tarids; and unfortunate is he whom they find outside the castle walls. It is seldom, however, that they cross to the other side of the river."
"Why do they hunt the Tarids?" I asked. "What do they want of them?"
"Food," she replied.
"You don't mean to say that the Masenas eat human flesh?" I demanded.
She nodded. "Yes, they are very fond of it."
I had succeeded in igniting the leaves, and now I busied myself placing small twigs upon my newborn fire and building it up into the semblance of something worth while.
"But I was imprisoned for a long time with one of the Masenas," I reminded her.
"He seemed very friendly."
"Under those circumstances, of course," she said, "he might not try to eat you. He might even become very friendly; but if you should meet him here in the forest with his own people, you would find him very different. They are hunting beasts, like all of the other creatures, that inhabit the forest."
My fire grew to quite a respectable size. It illuminated the forest and the surface of the river and the castle beyond.
When it blazed up and revealed us, the Tarids, called across to us, prophesying our early death.
The warmth of the fire was pleasant after our emersion from the cold water and our exposure to the chill of the forest night. Ozara came close to it, stretching her lithe, young body before it. The yellow flames illuminated her fair skin, imparted a greenish tinge to her blue hair, awakened slumberous fires in her languorous eyes.
Suddenly she tensed, her eyes widened in fright. "Look!" she whispered, and pointed.
I turned in the direction that she indicated. From the dense shadows just beyond the firelight, two blazing eyes were flaming.
"They have come for us," said Ozara.
I picked a blazing brand from the fire and hurled it at the intruder. There was a hideous, bloodcurdling scream as the eyes disappeared.
The girl was trembling again. She cast affrighted glances in all directions.
"There is another," she exclaimed presently, "and there, and there, and there."
I caught a glimpse of a great body slinking in the shadows; and all about us, as I turned, I saw blazing eyes. I threw a few more brands, but the eyes disappeared for only a moment to return again almost immediately, and each time they seemed to come closer; and now, since I had cast the first brand, the beasts were roaring and growling and screaming continuously-a veritable diapason of horror.
I realized that my fire would not last long if I kept throwing it at the beasts, as I had not sufficient wood to keep it replenished.
Something must be done. I cast about me rather hopelessly in search of some avenue of escape and discovered a nearby tree that looked as though it might be easily scaled. Only such a tree would be of any advantage to us, as I had no doubt that the creatures would charge the moment that we started to climb.
I took two brands from the fire and handed them to Ozara, and then selected two for myself.
"What are we going to do?" she asked.
"We are going to try to climb that tree," I replied. "Perhaps some of these brutes can climb, too, but we shall have to take a chance. Those I have seen look too large and heavy for climbing.
"We will walk slowly to the foot of the tree. When we are there, throw your brands at the nearest beasts; and then start to climb. When you are safely out of their reach, I will follow."
Slowly we crossed from the fire to the tree, waving the blazing brands about us.
Here, Ozara did as I had bid her; and when she was safely out of the way, I grasped one of my brands in my teeth, hurled the other, and started to climb.
The beasts charged almost instantly, but I reached a point of safety before they could drag me down, though what with the smoke of the brand in my eyes and the sparks being scraped off against my naked hide, I was lucky to have made it at all; but I felt that we must have the light of the brand, as I did not know what arboreal enemies might be lurking in the branches above.
I immediately examined the tree, climbing to the highest branches that would support my weight. With the aid of my light, I discovered that no creature was in it, other than Ozara and myself; and high among the branches I made a happy find-an enormous nest, carefully woven and lined with soft grasses.
I was about to call down to Ozara to come up, when I saw her already ascending just below me.
When she saw the nest, she told me that it was probably one of those built by the Masenas for temporary use during a raid or expedition into this part of the forest. It was certainly a most providential find, as it afforded us a comfortable place in which to spend the remainder of the night.
It was some time before we could accustom ourselves to the noises of the beasts howling beneath us, but at last we fell asleep; and when we awoke in the morning, they had departed; and the forest was quiet.
Ozara had told me that her country, Domnia, lay across the mountains that rose beyond the forest and that it might be reached by following the river down for a considerable distance to the end of the range, where we could follow another river up to Domnia upon the opposite side.
The most remarkable feature of the following two days was the fact that we survived them. We found food in plenty; and as we were always near the river, we never suffered for lack of water; but by day and by night we were constantly in danger of attack by the roving flesh-eaters.
We always sought to save ourselves by climbing into trees, but upon three occasions we were taken by surprise; and I was forced to fall back upon my sword, which had seemed to me a most inadequate weapon of defense against some of the ferocious beasts that assailed us.
However, in these three instances, I managed to kill our attackers, although, I must confess, that it seemed to me then, and still does, wholly a matter of luck that I succeeded.
By now, Ozara was in a more sanguine frame of mind.
Having survived this long, she felt that it wa
s entirely possible that we might live to reach Domnia, although originally she had been confident that we could not come through the first night alive.
She was often quite gay now, and she was really very good company. Especially was this true on the morning of the third day as we were making good progress toward our distant goal.
The forest seemed to be unusually quiet; and we had seen no dangerous beasts all that day, when suddenly a chorus of hideous roars arose all about us; and simultaneously a score or more of creatures dropped from the concealing foliage of the trees about us.
Ozara's happy chatter died on her lips. "The Masenas!" she cried.
As they surrounded us and started to close in on us, their roaring ceased and they commenced to meow and purr. This, to me, seemed far more horrifying. As they came closer, I decided to make our capture cost them dearly, though I knew that eventually they would take us. I had seen Umka fight, and I knew what to expect.
Although they closed about me, they did not seem anxious to engage me. By pushing close to me on one side and then on the other, by giving away here and then there, I was forced to move about considerably; but I did not realize until it was too late that I was moving in the direction that they wished me to move and in accordance with their designs.
Presently they got me where they wanted me, beneath the branches of a great tree; and immediately a Masena dropped upon my shoulders and bore me to earth.
Simultaneously, most of the others swarmed on top of me, while a few seized Ozara; and thus they disarmed me before I could strike a blow.
There was a great amount of purring after that, and they seemed to be having some sort of a discussion; but as it was in their own language, I did not understand it. Presently, however, they started down river, dragging us along with them.
After perhaps an hour, we came to a section of the forest from which all the brushwood had been cleared. The ground beneath the trees was almost like a lawn.
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