Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  O-Tar was exhorting his warriors to attack, when a bloody and disheveled padwar burst into the chamber through a side entrance. “The city has fallen!” he cried aloud. “The hordes of Manatos pour through The Gate of Enemies. The slaves from Gathol have arisen and destroyed the palace guards. Great ships are landing warriors upon the palace roof and in the Fields of Jetan. The men of Helium and Gathol are marching through Manator. They cry aloud for the Princess of Helium and swear to leave Manator a blazing funeral pyre consuming the bodies of all our people. The skies are black with ships. They come in great processions from the east and from the south.”

  And then once more the doors from The Hall of Chiefs swung wide and the men of Manator turned to see another figure standing upon the threshold — a mighty figure of a man with white skin, and black hair, and gray eyes that glittered now like points of steel and behind him The Hall of Chiefs was filled with fighting men wearing the harness of far countries. Tara of Helium saw him and her heart leaped in exultation, for it was John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom, come at the head of a victorious host to the rescue of his daughter, and at his side was Djor Kantos to whom she had been betrothed.

  The Warlord eyed the assemblage for a moment before he spoke. “Lay down your arms, men of Manator,” he said. “I see my daughter and that she lives, and if no harm has befallen her no blood need be shed. Your city is filled with the fighting men of U-Thor, and those from Gathol and from Helium. The palace is in the hands of the slaves from Gathol, beside a thousand of my own warriors who fill the halls and chambers surrounding this room. The fate of your jeddak lies in your own hands. I have no wish to interfere. I come only for my daughter and to free the slaves from Gathol. I have spoken!” and without waiting for a reply and as though the room had been filled with his own people rather than a hostile band he strode up the broad main aisle toward Tara of Helium.

  The chiefs of Manator were stunned. They looked to O-Tar; but he could only gaze helplessly about him as the enemy entered from The Hall of Chiefs and circled the throne room until they had surrounded the entire company. And then a dwar of the army of Helium entered.

  “We have captured three chiefs,” he reported to The Warlord, “who beg that they be permitted to enter the throne room and report to their fellows some matter which they say will decide the fate of Manator.”

  “Fetch them,” ordered The Warlord.

  They came, heavily guarded, to the foot of the steps leading to the throne and there they stopped and the leader turned toward the others of Manator and raising high his right hand displayed a jeweled dagger. “We found it,” he said, “even where I-Gos said that we would find it,” and he looked menacingly upon O-Tar.

  “A-Kor, jeddak of Manator!” cried a voice, and the cry was taken up by a hundred hoarse-throated warriors.

  “There can be but one jeddak in Manator,” said the chief who held the dagger; his eyes still fixed upon the hapless O-Tar he crossed to where the latter stood and holding the dagger upon an outstretched palm proffered it to the discredited ruler. “There can be but one jeddak in Manator,” he repeated meaningly.

  O-Tar took the proffered blade and drawing himself to his full height plunged it to the guard into his breast, in that single act redeeming himself in the esteem of his people and winning an eternal place in The Hall of Chiefs.

  As he fell all was silence in the great room, to be broken presently by the voice of U-Thor. “O-Tar is dead!” he cried. “Let A-Kor rule until the chiefs of all Manator may be summoned to choose a new jeddak. What is your answer?”

  “Let A-Kor rule! A-Kor, Jeddak of Manator!” The cries filled the room and there was no dissenting voice.

  A-Kor raised his sword for silence. “It is the will of A-Kor,” he said, “and that of the Great Jed of Manatos, and the commander of the fleet from Gathol, and of the illustrious John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom, that peace lie upon the city of Manator and so I decree that the men of Manator go forth and welcome the fighting men of these our allies as guests and friends and show them the wonders of our ancient city and the hospitality of Manator. I have spoken.” And U-Thor and John Carter dismissed their warriors and bade them accept the hospitality of Manator. As the room emptied Djor Kantos reached the side of Tara of Helium. The girl’s happiness at rescue had been blighted by sight of this man whom her virtuous heart told her she had wronged. She dreaded the ordeal that lay before her and the dishonor that she must admit before she could hope to be freed from the understanding that had for long existed between them. And now Djor Kantos approached and kneeling raised her fingers to his lips.

  “Beautiful daughter of Helium,” he said, “how may I tell you the thing that I must tell you — of the dishonor that I have all unwittingly done you? I can but throw myself upon your generosity for forgiveness; but if you demand it I can receive the dagger as honorably as did O-Tar.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Tara of Helium. “What are you talking about — why speak thus in riddles to one whose heart is already breaking?”

  Her heart already breaking! The outlook was anything but promising, and the young padwar wished that he had died before ever he had had to speak the words he now must speak.

  “Tara of Helium,” he continued, “we all thought you dead. For a long year have you been gone from Helium. I mourned you truly and then, less than a moon since, I wed with Olvia Marthis.” He stopped and looked at her with eyes that might have said: “Now, strike me dead!”

  “Oh, foolish man!” cried Tara. “Nothing you could have done could have pleased me more. Djor Kantos, I could kiss you!”

  “I do not think that Olvia Marthis would mind,” he said, his face now wreathed with smiles. As they spoke a body of men had entered the throne room and approached the dais. They were tall men trapped in plain harness, absolutely without ornamentation. Just as their leader reached the dais Tara had turned to Gahan, motioning him to join them.

  “Djor Kantos,” she said, “I bring you Turan the panthan, whose loyalty and bravery have won my love.”

  John Carter and the leader of the new come warriors, who were standing near, looked quickly at the little group. The former smiled an inscrutable smile, the latter addressed the Princess of Helium. “‘Turan the panthan!’” he cried. “Know you not, fair daughter of Helium, that this man you call panthan is Gahan, Jed of Gathol?”

  For just a moment Tara of Helium looked her surprise; and then she shrugged her beautiful shoulders as she turned her head to cast her eyes over one of them at Gahan of Gathol.

  “Jed or panthan,” she said; “what difference does it make what one’s slave has been?” and she laughed roguishly into the smiling face of her lover.

  His story finished, John Carter rose from the chair opposite me, stretching his giant frame like some great forest-bred lion.

  “You must go?” I cried, for I hated to see him leave and it seemed that he had been with me but a moment.

  “The sky is already red beyond those beautiful hills of yours,” he replied, “and it will soon be day.”

  “Just one question before you go,” I begged.

  “Well?” he assented, good-naturedly.

  “How was Gahan able to enter the throne room garbed in O-Tar’s trappings?” I asked.

  “It was simple — for Gahan of Gathol,” replied The Warlord. “With the assistance of I-Gos he crept into The Hall of Chiefs before the ceremony, while the throne room and Hall of Chiefs were vacated to receive the bride. He came from the pits through the corridor that opened behind the arras at the rear of the throne, and passing into The Hall of Chiefs took his place upon the back of a riderless thoat, whose warrior was in I-Gos’ repair room. When O-Tar entered and came near him Gahan fell upon him and struck him with the butt of a heavy spear. He thought that he had killed him and was surprised when O-Tar appeared to denounce him.”

  “And Ghek? What became of Ghek?” I insisted.

  “After leading Val Dor and Floran to Tara’s disabled flier which they repaired,
he accompanied them to Gathol from where a message was sent to me in Helium. He then led a large party including A-Kor and U-Thor from the roof, where our ships landed them, down a spiral runway into the palace and guided them to the throne room. We took him back to Helium with us, where he still lives, with his single rykor which we found all but starved to death in the pits of Manator. But come! No more questions now.”

  I accompanied him to the east arcade where the red dawn was glowing beyond the arches.

  “Good-bye!” he said.

  “I can scarce believe that it is really you,” I exclaimed. “Tomorrow I will be sure that I have dreamed all this.”

  He laughed and drawing his sword scratched a rude cross upon the concrete of one of the arches.

  “If you are in doubt tomorrow,” he said, “come and see if you dreamed this.”

  A moment later he was gone.

  JETAN, OR MARTIAN CHESS

  For those who care for such things, and would like to try the game, I give the rules of Jetan as they were given me by John Carter. By writing the names and moves of the various pieces on bits of paper and pasting them on ordinary checkermen the game may be played quite as well as with the ornate pieces used upon Mars.

  THE BOARD: Square board consisting of one hundred alternate black and orange squares.

  THE PIECES: In order, as they stand upon the board in the first row, from left to right of each player.

  Warrior: 2 feathers; 2 spaces straight in any direction or combination.

  Padwar: 2 feathers; 2 spaces diagonal in any direction or combination.

  Dwar: 3 feathers; 3 spaces straight in any direction or combination.

  Flier: 3 bladed propellor; 3 spaces diagonal in any direction or combination; and may jump intervening pieces.

  Chief: Diadem with ten jewels; 3 spaces in any direction; straight or diagonal or combination.

  Princess: Diadem with one jewel; same as Chief, except may jump intervening pieces.

  Flier: See above.

  Dwar: See above.

  Padwar: See above.

  Warrior: See above.

  And in the second row from left to right:

  Thoat: Mounted warrior 2 feathers; 2 spaces, one straight and one diagonal in any direction.

  Panthans: (8 of them): 1 feather; 1 space, forward, side, or diagonal, but not backward.

  Thoat: See above.

  The game is played with twenty black pieces by one player and twenty orange by his opponent, and is presumed to have originally represented a battle between the Black race of the south and the Yellow race of the north. On Mars the board is usually arranged so that the Black pieces are played from the south and the Orange from the north.

  The game is won when any piece is placed on same square with opponent’s Princess, or a Chief takes a Chief.

  The game is drawn when either Chief is taken by a piece other than the opposing Chief, or when both sides are reduced to three pieces, or less, of equal value and the game is not won in the ensuing ten moves, five apiece.

  The Princess may not move onto a threatened square, nor may she take an opposing piece. She is entitled to one ten-space move at any time during the game. This move is called the escape.

  Two pieces may not occupy the same square except in the final move of a game where the Princess is taken.

  When a player, moving properly and in order, places one of his pieces upon a square occupied by an opponent piece, the opponent piece is considered to have been killed and is removed from the game.

  The moves explained. Straight moves mean due north, south, east, or west; diagonal moves mean northeast, southeast, southwest, or northwest. A Dwar might move straight north three spaces, or north one space and east two spaces, or any similar combination of straight moves, so long as he did not cross the same square twice in a single move. This example explains combination moves.

  The first move may be decided in any way that is agreeable to both players; after the first game the winner of the preceding game moves first if he chooses, or may instruct his opponent to make the first move.

  Gambling: The Martians gamble at Jetan in several ways. Of course the outcome of the game indicates to whom the main stake belongs; but they also put a price upon the head of each piece, according to its value, and for each piece that a player loses he pays its value to his opponent.

  THE MASTER MIND OF MARS (1928)

  CONTENTS

  I. — A LETTER

  II. — THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD

  III. — PREFERMENT

  IV. — VALLA DIA

  V. — THE COMPACT

  VI. — DANGER

  VII. — SUSPICIONS

  VIII. — ESCAPE

  IX. — HANDS UP!

  X. — THE PALACE OF MU TEL

  XI. — PHUNDAHL

  XII. — XAXA

  XIII. — THE GREAT TUR

  XIV. — BACK TO THAVAS

  XV. — JOHN CARTER

  I. — A LETTER

  HELIUM, June 8th, 1925

  MY DEAR MR. BURROUGHS:

  It was in the Fall of nineteen seventeen at an officers’ training camp that I first became acquainted with John Carter, War Lord of Barsoom, through the pages of your novel “A Princess of Mars.” The story made a profound impression upon me and while my better judgment assured me that it was but a highly imaginative piece of fiction, a suggestion of the verity of it pervaded my inner consciousness to such an extent that I found myself dreaming of Mars and John Carter, of Dejah Thoris, of Tars Tarkas and of Woola as if they had been entities of my own experience rather than the figments of your imagination.

  It is true that in those days of strenuous preparation there was little time for dreaming, yet there were brief moments before sleep claimed me at night and these were my dreams. Such dreams! Always of Mars, and during my waking hours at night my eyes always sought out the Red Planet when he was above the horizon and clung there seeking a solution of the seemingly unfathomable riddle he has presented to the Earthman for ages.

  Perhaps the thing became an obsession. I know it clung to me all during my training camp days, and at night, on the deck of the transport, I would he on my back gazing up into the red eye of the god of battle — my god — and wishing that, like John Carter, I might be drawn across the great void to the haven of my desire

  And then came the hideous days and nights in the trenches — the rats, the vermin, the mud — with an occasional glorious break in the monotony when we were ordered over the top. I loved it then and I loved the bursting shells, the mad, wild chaos of the thundering guns, but the rats and the vermin and the mud — God! how I hated them. It sounds like boasting, I know, and I am sorry; but I wanted to write you just the truth about myself. I think you will understand. And it may account for much that happened afterwards.

  Here came at last to me what had come to so many others upon those bloody fields. It came within the week that I had received my first promotion and my captaincy, of which I was greatly proud, though humbly so; realizing as I did my youth, the great responsibility that it placed upon me as well as the opportunities it offered, not only in service to my country but, in a personal way, to the men of my command. We had advanced a matter of two kilometers and with a small detachment I was holding a very advanced position when I received orders to fall back to the new line. That is the last that I remember until I regained consciousness after dark. A shell must have burst among us. What became of my men I never knew. It was cold and very dark when I awoke and at first, for an instant, I was quite comfortable — before I was fully conscious, I imagine — and then I commenced to feel pain. It grew until it seemed unbearable. It was in my legs. I reached down to feel them, but my hand recoiled from what it found, and when I tried to move my legs I discovered that I was dead from the waist down. Then the moon came out from behind a cloud and I saw that I lay within a shell hole and that I was not alone — the dead were all about me.<

  It was a long time before I found the moral courage and the ph
ysical strength to draw myself up upon one elbow that I might view the havoc that had been done me.

  One look was enough, I sank back in an agony of mental and physical anguish - my legs had been blown away from midway between the hips and knees. For some reason I was not bleeding excessively, yet I know that I had lost a great deal of blood and that I was gradually losing enough to put me out of my misery in a short time if I were not soon found; and as I lay there on my back, tortured with pain, I prayed that they would not come in time, for I shrank more from the thought of going maimed through life than I shrank from the thought of death.

  Then my eyes suddenly focussed upon the bright red eye of Mars and there surged through me a sudden wave of hope. I stretched out my arms towards Mars, I did not seem to question or to doubt for an instant as I prayed to the god of my vocation to reach forth and succor me. I knew that he would do it, my faith was complete, and yet so great was the mental effort that I made to throw off the hideous bonds of my mutilated flesh that I felt a momentary qualm of nausea and then a sharp click as of the snapping of a steel wire, and suddenly I stood naked upon two good legs looking down upon the bloody, distorted thing that had been I. Just for an instant did I stand thus before I turned my eyes aloft again to my star of destiny and with outstretched arms stand there in the cold of that French night — waiting.

  Suddenly I felt myself drawn with the speed of thought through the trackless wastes of interplanetary space. There was an instant of extreme cold and utter darkness, then — But the rest is in the manuscript that, with the aid of one greater than either of us, I have found the means to transmit to you with this letter. You and a few others of the chosen will believe in it — for the rest it matters not as yet.

  The time will come — but why tell you what you already know?