CHAPTER XXV
THE LOOTING OF ZODANGA
As the great gate where I stood swung open my fifty Tharks, headed by Tara Tarkas herself, rode in upon their mighty thoats. I led them to the palace walls, which I negotiated easily without assistance. Once inside, however, the gate gave me considerable trouble, but I finally was rewarded by seeing it swing upon its huge hinges, and soon my fierce escort was riding across the gardens of the jeddak of Zodanga.
As we approached the palace I could see through the great windows of the first floor into the brilliantly illuminated audience chamber of Thana Kosis. The immense hall was crowded with nobles and their men, as though some important function was in progress. There was not a guard in sight without the palace, due, I presume, to the fact that the city and palace walls were considered impregnable, and so I came close and peered within.
At one end of the chamber, upon massive golden thrones encrusted with diamonds, sat Thana Kosis and her consort, surrounded by officers and dignitaries of state. Before them stretched a broad aisle lined on either side with soldiery, and as I looked there entered this aisle at the far end of the hall, the head of a procession which advanced to the foot of the throne.
First there marched four officers of the jeddak's Guard bearing a huge salver on which reposed, upon a cushion of scarlet silk, a great golden chain with a collar and padlock at each end. Directly behind these officers came four others carrying a similar salver which supported the magnificent ornaments of a princess and prince of the reigning house of Zodanga.
At the foot of the throne these two parties separated and halted, facing each other at opposite sides of the aisle. Then came more dignitaries, and the officers of the palace and of the army, and finally two figures entirely muffled in scarlet silk, so that not a feature of eithers was discernible. These two stopped at the foot of the throne, facing Thana Kosis. When the balance of the procession had entered and assumed their stations Thana Kosis addressed the couple standing before her. I could not hear her words, but presently two officers advanced and removed the scarlet robe from one of the figures, and I saw that Kantoa Kan had failed in her mission, for it was Saba Than, Princess of Zodanga, who stood revealed before me.
Thana Kosis now took a set of the ornaments from one of the salvers and placed one of the collars of gold about her daughter's neck, springing the padlock fast. After a few more words addressed to Saba Than she turned to the other figure, from which the officers now removed the enshrouding silks, disclosing to my now comprehending view Dejar Thoris, Prince of Helium.
The object of the ceremony was clear to me; in another moment Dejar Thoris would be joined forever to the Princess of Zodanga. It was an impressive and beautiful ceremony, I presume, but to me it seemed the most fiendish sight I had ever witnessed, and as the ornaments were adjusted upon his beautiful figure and his collar of gold swung open in the hands of Thana Kosis I raised my long-sword above my head, and, with the heavy hilt, I shattered the glass of the great window and sprang into the midst of the astonished assemblage. With a bound I was on the steps of the platform beside Thana Kosis, and as she stood riveted with surprise I brought my long-sword down upon the golden chain that would have bound Dejar Thoris to another.
In an instant all was confusion; a thousand drawn swords menaced me from every quarter, and Saba Than sprang upon me with a jeweled dagger she had drawn from her nuptial ornaments. I could have killed her as easily as I might a fly, but the age-old custom of Barsoom stayed my hand, and grasping her wrist as the dagger flew toward my heart I held her as though in a vise and with my long-sword pointed to the far end of the hall.
'Zodanga has fallen,' I cried. 'Look!'
All eyes turned in the direction I had indicated, and there, forging through the portals of the entranceway rode Tara Tarkas and her fifty warriors on their great thoats.
A cry of alarm and amazement broke from the assemblage, but no word of fear, and in a moment the soldiers and nobles of Zodanga were hurling themselves upon the advancing Tharks.
Thrusting Saba Than headlong from the platform, I drew Dejar Thoris to my side. Behind the throne was a narrow doorway and in this Thana Kosis now stood facing me, with drawn long-sword. In an instant we were engaged, and I found no mean antagonist.
As we circled upon the broad platform I saw Saba Than rushing up the steps to aid her mother, but, as she raised her hand to strike, Dejar Thoris sprang before her and then my sword found the spot that made Saba Than jeddak of Zodanga. As her mother rolled dead upon the floor the new jeddak tore herself free from Dejar Thoris' grasp, and again we faced each other. She was soon joined by a quartet of officers, and, with my back against a golden throne, I fought once again for Dejar Thoris. I was hard pressed to defend myself and yet not strike down Saba Than and, with her, my last chance to win the man I loved. My blade was swinging with the rapidity of lightning as I sought to parry the thrusts and cuts of my opponents. Two I had disarmed, and one was down, when several more rushed to the aid of their new ruler, and to avenge the death of the old.
As they advanced there were cries of 'The man! The man! Strike his down; it is his plot. Kill him! Kill him!'
Calling to Dejar Thoris to get behind me I worked my way toward the little doorway back of the throne, but the officers realized my intentions, and three of them sprang in behind me and blocked my chances for gaining a position where I could have defended Dejar Thoris against any army of swordswomen.
The Tharks were having their hands full in the center of the room, and I began to realize that nothing short of a miracle could save Dejar Thoris and myself, when I saw Tara Tarkas surging through the crowd of pygmies that swarmed about her. With one swing of her mighty longsword she laid a dozen corpses at her feet, and so she hewed a pathway before her until in another moment she stood upon the platform beside me, dealing death and destruction right and left.
The bravery of the Zodangans was awe-inspiring, not one attempted to escape, and when the fighting ceased it was because only Tharks remained alive in the great hall, other than Dejar Thoris and myself.
Saba Than lay dead beside her mother, and the corpses of the flower of Zodangan nobility and chivalry covered the floor of the bloody shambles.
My first thought when the battle was over was for Kantoa Kan, and leaving Dejar Thoris in charge of Tara Tarkas I took a dozen warriors and hastened to the dungeons beneath the palace. The jailers had all left to join the fighters in the throne room, so we searched the labyrinthine prison without opposition.
I called Kantoa Kan's name aloud in each new corridor and compartment, and finally I was rewarded by hearing a faint response. Guided by the sound, we soon found her helpless in a dark recess.
She was overjoyed at seeing me, and to know the meaning of the fight, faint echoes of which had reached her prison cell. She told me that the air patrol had captured her before she reached the high tower of the palace, so that she had not even seen Saba Than.
We discovered that it would be futile to attempt to cut away the bars and chains which held her prisoner, so, at her suggestion I returned to search the bodies on the floor above for keys to open the padlocks of her cell and of her chains.
Fortunately among the first I examined I found her jailer, and soon we had Kantoa Kan with us in the throne room.
The sounds of heavy firing, mingled with shouts and cries, came to us from the city's streets, and Tara Tarkas hastened away to direct the fighting without. Kantoa Kan accompanied her to act as guide, the green warriors commencing a thorough search of the palace for other Zodangans and for loot, and Dejar Thoris and I were left alone.
He had sunk into one of the golden thrones, and as I turned to his he greeted me with a wan smile.
'Was there ever such a woman!' he exclaimed. 'I know that Barsoom has never before seen your like. Can it be that all Earth women are as you? Alone, a stranger, hunted, threatened, persecuted, you have done in a few short months what in all the past ages of Barsoom no woman has ever done: joined together the wild
hordes of the sea bottoms and brought them to fight as allies of a red Martian people.'
'The answer is easy, Dejar Thoris,' I replied smiling. 'It was not I who did it, it was love, love for Dejar Thoris, a power that would work greater miracles than this you have seen.'
A pretty flush overspread his face and he answered,
'You may say that now, Joan Carter, and I may listen, for I am free.'
'And more still I have to say, ere it is again too late,' I returned. 'I have done many strange things in my life, many things that wiser women would not have dared, but never in my wildest fancies have I dreamed of winning a Dejar Thoris for myself--for never had I dreamed that in all the universe dwelt such a man as the Prince of Helium. That you are a prince does not abash me, but that you are you is enough to make me doubt my sanity as I ask you, my prince, to be mine.'
'She does not need to be abashed who so well knew the answer to her plea before the plea were made,' he replied, rising and placing his dear hands upon my shoulders, and so I took his in my arms and kissed him.
And thus in the midst of a city of wild conflict, filled with the alarms of war; with death and destruction reaping their terrible harvest around him, did Dejar Thoris, Prince of Helium, true son of Mars, the God of War, promise himself in marriage to Joan Carter, Gentleman of Virginia.
A Princess of Mars Rethroned Page 26
