The Collected John Carter of Mars (Volume 3)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  “I think that you are lying to me,” said the fellow. “Come along with me, all of you.”

  Here seemed an end of our hopes of escape. I glanced up and down the street. It appeared to be a quiet, residential avenue. There was no one near us. Several small ships rested at the curb in front of drear, brown domiciles. That was all. No eyes were upon us. I stepped close to the fellow who had thus rashly presented himself as an obstacle in the way of Dejah Thoris’ rescue. I struck him once. I struck him with all my strength. He dropped like a log.

  “You have killed him,” exclaimed Vorion. “He was one of Bandolian’s most trusted officers. If we are caught now, we shall be tortured to death.”

  “We need not be caught,” I said. “Let’s take one of these ships standing at the curb. Why take the time and the risk to go farther?”

  Vorion shook his head. “They wouldn’t do,” he said. “They are only for intramural use. They are low altitude ships that would never get over even a relatively small mountain range; but more important still, they cannot be rendered invisible. We shall have to go on to the field as we have planned.”

  “To avoid another such encounter as we have just experienced,” I said, “we had better take one of these ships at least to the vicinity of the field.”

  “We shall be no worse off adding theft to murder,” said Zan Dar.

  Vorion agreed, and a moment later we were all in a small ship and sailing along a few yards above the avenue. Keenly interested, I carefully noted everything that Vorion did in starting the motor and controlling the craft. It was necessary for me to ask only a few questions in order to have an excellent grasp of the handling of the little ship, so familiar was I with the airships of two other worlds. Perhaps I should never have the opportunity to operate one of these, but it could do no harm to know how.

  We quitted the flier a short distance from the field and continued on foot. As Vorion had predicted, a guard halted us and questioned him. For a moment everything hung in the balance. The guard appeared skeptical, and the reason for his skepticism was largely that which had motivated the officer I had killed to question the regularity of Vorion’s asserted mission—the fact that Vorion was unarmed. The guard told us to wait while he summoned an officer. That would have been fatal. I felt that I might have to kill this man, too; but I did not see how I could do it without being observed, as there were many Morgors upon the field, though none in our immediate vicinity.

  Vorion saved the day. “Come! Come!” he exclaimed in a tone of exasperation. “I can’t wait here all day while you send for an officer. I am in a hurry. Let me take these slaves on and start them to work. The officer can come to the ship and question me as well as he can question me here.”

  The guard agreed that there was something in this; and, after ascertaining the name and location of the ship which we were supposed to clean, he permitted us to proceed. I breathed an inward sigh of relief. After we had left him, Vorion said that he had given him the name and location of a different ship than that which we were planning to steal. Vorion was no fool.

  The ship that Vorion had selected, was a slim craft which appeared to have been designed for speed. We lost no time boarding her; and once again I watched every move that Vorion made, questioning him concerning everything that was not entirely clear to me. Although I had spent some eighteen days aboard one of these Morgorian ships, I had learned nothing relative to their control, as I had never been allowed in the control room or permitted to ask questions.

  First, Vorion magnetized the hull and sprayed it with the fine sands of invisibility; then he started the motor and nosed up gently. I had explained my plan to him, and once he had gained a little altitude he headed for the palace of Bandolian. Through a tiny lens set in the bow of this ship the view ahead was reflected upon a ground glass plate, just as an image is projected upon the finder of a camera. There were several of these lenses, and through one of them I presently saw the square tower at the rear of the palace, the tower in which Dejah Thoris and Vaja were confined.

  “When I bring the ship up to the window,” said Vorion, “you will have to work fast, as the moment that we open the door in the ship’s hull, part of the interior of the ship will be visible. Some one in the palace or upon the ground may notice it, and instantly we shall be surrounded by guard and patrol ships.”

  “I shall work fast,” I said.

  I must admit that I was more excited than usual as Vorion brought the craft alongside the tower window, which we had seen was wide open and unbarred. U Dan and Zan Dar stood by to open the door so that I could leap through the window and then to close it immediately after I had come aboard with the two girls. I could no longer see the window now that the craft was broadside to it; but at a word from Vorion, U Dan and Zan Dar slid the door back. The open window was before me, and I leaped through it into the interior of the tower room.

  Fortunately for me, fortunately for Dejah Thoris, and fortunately for Vaja, it was the right room. The two girls were there, but they were not alone. A man held Dejah Thoris in his arms, his lips searching for hers. Vaja was striking him futilely on the back, and Dejah Thoris was trying to push his face from hers.

  I seized the man by the neck and hurled him across the room, then I pointed to the window and the ship beyond and told the girls to get aboard as fast as they could. They needed no second invitation. As they ran across the room toward the window, the man rose and faced me. It was Multis Par! Recognizing me, he went almost white; then he whipped out his sword and simultaneously commenced to shout for the guard.

  Seeing that I was unarmed, he came for me. I could not turn and run for the window: had I, he could have run me through long before I could have reached it; so I did the next best thing. I charged straight for him. This apparently suicidal act of mine evidently confused him, for he fell back. But when I was close to him, he lunged for me. I parried the thrust with my forearm. I was inside his point now, and an instant later my fingers closed upon his throat. Like a fool, he dropped his sword then and attempted to claw my fingers loose with his two hands. He could have shortened his hold on it and run me through the heart, but I had had to take that chance.

  I would have finished him off in a moment had not the door of the room been then thrown open to admit a dozen Morgor warriors. I was stunned! After everything had worked so well, to have this happen!

  Were all our plans to be thus thwarted? No, not all.

  I shouted to U Dan: “Close the door and take off! It is a command!”

  U Dan hesitated. Dejah Thoris stood at his side with one hand outstretched toward me and an indescribable expression of anguish on her face. She took a step forward as though to leap from the ship back into the room. U Dan quickly barred her way, and then the ship started to move away. Slowly the door slid closed, and once again the craft was entirely invisible.

  All this transpired in but a few seconds while I still clung to Multis Par’s throat. His tongue protruded and his eyes stared glassily. In a moment more he would have been dead; then the Morgor warriors were upon me, and I was dragged from my prey.

  My captors handled me rather roughly and, perhaps, not without reason, for I had knocked three of them unconscious before they overpowered me. Had I but had a sword! What I should have done to them then! But though I was battered and bruised as they hustled me down from the tower, I was smiling; for I was happy. Dejah Thoris had been snatched from the clutches of the skeleton men and was, temporarily at least, safe. I had good cause for rejoicing.

  I was taken to a small, unlighted cell beneath the tower; and here I was manacled and chained to the wall. A heavy door was slammed shut as my captors left me, and I heard a key turn in a massive lock.

  chapter VII

  PHO LAR

  IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT unrelieved by even a suggestion of light, one is thrown entirely upon the resources of one’s thoughts for mitigation of absolute boredom—such boredom as sometimes leads to insanity for those of weak wills and feeble nerves.
But my thoughts were pleasant thoughts. I envisaged Dejah Thoris safely bound for a friendly country in an invisible ship which would be safe from capture, and I felt that three of those who accompanied her would be definitely friendly and that one of them, U Dan, might be expected to lay down his life to protect her were that ever necessary. As to Vorion, I could not even guess what his attitude toward her would be.

  My own situation gave me little concern. I will admit that it looked rather hopeless, but I had been in tight places before and yet managed to survive and escape. I still lived, and while life is in me I never give up hope. I am a confirmed optimist, which, I think, gives me an attitude of mind that more often than not commands what we commonly term the breaks of life.

  Fortunately, I was not long confined in that dark cell. I slept once, for how long I do not know; and I was very hungry when a detail of warriors came to take me away, hungry and thirsty, for they had given me neither food nor water while I had been confined.

  I was not taken before Bandolian this time, but to one of his officers—a huge skeleton that continually opened and closed its jaws with a snapping and grinding sound. The creature was Death incarnate. From the way he questioned me, I concluded that he must be the lord high inquisitor. In silence, he eyed me from those seemingly hollow sockets for a full minute before he spoke; then he bellowed at me.

  “Thing,” he shouted, “for even a small part of what you have done you deserve death—death after torture.”

  “You don’t have to shout at me,” I said; “I am not deaf.”

  That enraged him, and he pounded upon his desk. “For impudence and disrespect it will go harder with you.”

  “I cannot show respect when I do not feel respect,” I told him. “I respect only those who command my respect. I surely could not respect a bag of bones with an evil disposition.”

  I do not know why I deliberately tried to infuriate him. Perhaps it is just a weakness of mine to enjoy baiting enemies whom I think contemptible. It is, I admit, a habit fraught with danger; and, perhaps, a stupid habit; but I have found that it sometimes so disconcerts an enemy as to give me a certain advantage. In this instance I was at least successful in part: the creature was so furious that for some time it remained speechless; then it leaped to its feet with drawn sword.

  My situation was far from enviable. I was unarmed, and the creature facing me was in an uncontrollable rage. In addition to all this, there were four or five other Morgors in the room, two of whom were holding my arms—one on either side. I was as helpless as a sheep in an abattoir. But as my would-be executioner came around the end of his desk to spit me on his blade, another Morgor entered the room.

  The newcomer took in the situation at a glance, and shouted. “Stop, Gorgum!” The thing coming for me hesitated a moment then he dropped his point.

  “The creature deserves death,” Gorgum said, sullenly. “It defied and insulted me—me, an officer of the Great Bandolian!”

  “Vengeance belongs to Bandolian,” said the other, “and he has different plans for this insolent worm. What has your questioning developed?”

  “He has been so busy screaming at me that he has had no time to question me,” I said.

  “Silence, low one!” snapped the newcomer. “I can well understand,” he said to Gorgum, “that your patience must have been sorely tried; but we must respect the wishes of the Great Bandolian. Proceed with the investigation.”

  Gorgum returned his sword to its scabbard and reseated himself at his desk. “What is your name?” he demanded.

  “John Carter, Prince of Helium,” I replied. A scribe at Gorgum’s side scribbled in a large book. I supposed that he was recording the question and the answer. He kept this up during the entire interview.

  “How did you and the other conspirators escape from the cell in which you were confined?” Gorgum asked.

  “Through the doorway,” I replied.

  “That is impossible. The door was locked when you were placed in the cell. It was locked at the time your absence was discovered.”

  “If you know so much, why bother to question me?”

  Gorgum’s jaws snapped and ground more viciously than ever. “You see, Horur,” he said angrily, turning to the other officer, “the insolence of the creature.”

  “Answer the noble Gorgum’s question,” Horur snapped at me. “How did you pass through a locked door?”

  “It was not locked.”

  “It was locked,” shouted Gorgum.

  I shrugged. “What is the use?” I asked. “It is a waste of time to answer the questions of one who knows more about the subject than I, notwithstanding the fact that he was not there.”

  “Tell me, then, in your own words how you escaped from the cell,” said Horur in a less irritating tone of voice.

  “We picked the lock.”

  “That would have been impossible,” bellowed Gorgum.

  “Then we are still in the cell,” I said. “Perhaps you had better go and look.”

  “We are getting nowhere,” snapped Horur.

  “Rapidly,” I agreed.

  “I shall question the prisoner,” said Horur. “We concede that you did escape from the cell.”

  “Rather shrewd of you.”

  He ignored the comment. “I cannot see that the means you adopted are of great importance. What we really wish to know is where your accomplices and the two female prisoners are now. Multis Par says that they escaped in a ship—probably one of our own which was stolen from a flying field.”

  “I do not know where they are.”

  “Do you know where they planned to go?”

  “If I did, I would not tell you.”

  “I command you to answer me, on pain of death.”

  I laughed at the creature. “You intend to kill me anyway; so your threat finds me indifferent.”

  Horur kept his temper much better than had Gorgum, but I could see that he was annoyed. “You could preserve your life if you were more co-operative,” he said. “Great Bandolian asks but little of you. Tell us where your accomplices intended going and promise to aid Great Bandolian in his conquest of Helium, and your life will be spared.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Wait,” urged Horur. “Bandolian will go even further. Following our conquest of Helium, he will permit you and your mate to return to that country and he will give you a high office in the new government he intends to establish there. If you refuse, you shall be destroyed; your mate will be hunted down and, I promise you, she will be found. Her fate will be infinitely worse than death. You had better think it over.”

  “I do not need to think over such a proposition. I can give you a final answer on both counts—my irrevocable answer. It is—never!”

  If Horur had had a lip, he would doubtless have bitten it. He looked at me for a long minute; then he said, “Fool!” after which he turned to Gorgum. “Have it placed with those who are being held for the next class,” then he left the room.

  I was now taken to a building located at some distance from those in which I had previously been incarcerated, and placed in a large cell with some twenty other prisoners, all of whom were Savators.

  “What have we here?” demanded one of my fellow prisoners after my escort had left and locked the door. “A man with a red skin! He is no Savator. What are you, fellow?”

  I did not like the looks of him, nor his tone of voice. I was not seeking trouble with those with whom I was to be imprisoned and with whom I was probably destined to die; so I walked away from the fellow and sat down on a bench in another part of the chamber, which was quite large. But the fool followed me and stood in front of me in a truculent attitude.

  “I asked you what you were,” he said, threateningly; “and when Pho Lar asks you a question, see that you answer it—and quickly. I am top man here.” He looked around at the others. “That’s right, isn’t it?” he demanded of them.

  There were some sullen, affirmative grunts. I could see at once that the fellow was
unpopular. He appeared a man of considerable muscular development; and his reception of me, a newcomer among them, testified to the fact that he was a bully. It was evident that he had the other prisoners cowed.

  “You seem to be looking for trouble, Lo Phar,” I said; “but I am not. I am already in enough trouble.”

  “My name is Pho Lar, fellow,” he barked.

  “What difference does it make? You would stink by any name.” The other prisoners immediately took interested notice. Some of them grinned.

  “I see that I shall have to put you in your place,” said Pho Lar, advancing toward me angrily.

  “I do not want any trouble with you,” I said. “It is bad enough to be imprisoned, without quarrelling with fellow prisoners.”

  “You are evidently a coward,” said Pho Lar; “so, if you will get down on your knees and ask my pardon, I shall not harm you.”

  I had to laugh at that, which made the fellow furious; yet he hesitated to attack me. I realized then that he was a typical bully—yellow at heart. However, to save his face, he would probably attack me if he could not bluff me. “Don’t make me angry,” he said. “When I am angry I do not know my own strength. I might kill you.”

  “I wonder if this would make you angry,” I said, and slapped him across the cheek with my open palm. I slapped him so hard that he nearly fell down. I could have slapped him harder. This staggered him more than physically. The blood rushed to his blue face until it turned purple. He was in a spot. He had started something; and if he were to hold his self-appointed position as top man, as he had described himself, he would have to finish it. The other prisoners had now all arisen and formed a half circle about us. They looked alternately at Pho Lar and at me in eager anticipation.

  Pho Lar had to do something about that slap in the face. He rushed at me and struck out clumsily. As I warded off his blows, I realized that he was a very powerful man; but he lacked science, and I was sure that he lacked guts. I determined to teach him a lesson that he would not soon forget. I could have landed a blow in the first few seconds of our encounter that would have put him to sleep, but I preferred to play with him.