The Gods of Mars

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  CHAPTER XXI

  THROUGH FLOOD AND FLAME

  Yersted's information convinced me that there was no time to be lost.I must reach the Temple of Issus secretly before the forces under TarsTarkas assaulted at dawn. Once within its hated walls I was positivethat I could overcome the guards of Issus and bear away my Princess,for at my back I would have a force ample for the occasion.

  No sooner had Carthoris and the others joined me than we commenced thetransportation of our men through the submerged passage to the mouth ofthe gangways which lead from the submarine pool at the temple end ofthe watery tunnel to the pits of Issus.

  Many trips were required, but at last all stood safely together againat the beginning of the end of our quest. Five thousand strong wewere, all seasoned fighting-men of the most warlike race of the red menof Barsoom.

  As Carthoris alone knew the hidden ways of the tunnels we could notdivide the party and attack the temple at several points at once aswould have been most desirable, and so it was decided that he lead usall as quickly as possible to a point near the temple's centre.

  As we were about to leave the pool and enter the corridor, an officercalled my attention to the waters upon which the submarine floated. Atfirst they seemed to be merely agitated as from the movement of somegreat body beneath the surface, and I at once conjectured that anothersubmarine was rising to the surface in pursuit of us; but presently itbecame apparent that the level of the waters was rising, not withextreme rapidity, but very surely, and that soon they would overflowthe sides of the pool and submerge the floor of the chamber.

  For a moment I did not fully grasp the terrible import of the slowlyrising water. It was Carthoris who realized the full meaning of thething--its cause and the reason for it.

  "Haste!" he cried. "If we delay, we all are lost. The pumps of Omeanhave been stopped. They would drown us like rats in a trap. We mustreach the upper levels of the pits in advance of the flood or we shallnever reach them. Come."

  "Lead the way, Carthoris," I cried. "We will follow."

  At my command, the youth leaped into one of the corridors, and incolumn of twos the soldiers followed him in good order, each companyentering the corridor only at the command of its dwar, or captain.

  Before the last company filed from the chamber the water was ankledeep, and that the men were nervous was quite evident. Entirelyunaccustomed to water except in quantities sufficient for drinking andbathing purposes the red Martians instinctively shrank from it in suchformidable depths and menacing activity. That they were undauntedwhile it swirled and eddied about their ankles, spoke well for theirbravery and their discipline.

  I was the last to leave the chamber of the submarine, and as I followedthe rear of the column toward the corridor, I moved through water to myknees. The corridor, too, was flooded to the same depth, for its floorwas on a level with the floor of the chamber from which it led, nor wasthere any perceptible rise for many yards.

  The march of the troops through the corridor was as rapid as wasconsistent with the number of men that moved through so narrow apassage, but it was not ample to permit us to gain appreciably on thepursuing tide. As the level of the passage rose, so, too, did thewaters rise until it soon became apparent to me, who brought up therear, that they were gaining rapidly upon us. I could understand thereason for this, as with the narrowing expanse of Omean as the watersrose toward the apex of its dome, the rapidity of its rise wouldincrease in inverse ratio to the ever-lessening space to be filled.

  Long ere the last of the column could hope to reach the upper pitswhich lay above the danger point I was convinced that the waters wouldsurge after us in overwhelming volume, and that fully half theexpedition would be snuffed out.

  As I cast about for some means of saving as many as possible of thedoomed men, I saw a diverging corridor which seemed to rise at a steepangle at my right. The waters were now swirling about my waist. Themen directly before me were quickly becoming panic-stricken. Somethingmust be done at once or they would rush forward upon their fellows in amad stampede that would result in trampling down hundreds beneath theflood and eventually clogging the passage beyond any hope of retreatfor those in advance.

  Raising my voice to its utmost, I shouted my command to the dwars aheadof me.

  "Call back the last twenty-five utans," I shouted. "Here seems a wayof escape. Turn back and follow me."

  My orders were obeyed by nearer thirty utans, so that some threethousand men came about and hastened into the teeth of the flood toreach the corridor up which I directed them.

  As the first dwar passed in with his utan I cautioned him to listenclosely for my commands, and under no circumstances to venture into theopen, or leave the pits for the temple proper until I should have comeup with him, "or you know that I died before I could reach you."

  The officer saluted and left me. The men filed rapidly past me andentered the diverging corridor which I hoped would lead to safety. Thewater rose breast high. Men stumbled, floundered, and went down. ManyI grasped and set upon their feet again, but alone the work was greaterthan I could cope with. Soldiers were being swept beneath the boilingtorrent, never to rise. At length the dwar of the 10th utan took astand beside me. He was a valorous soldier, Gur Tus by name, andtogether we kept the now thoroughly frightened troops in the semblanceof order and rescued many that would have drowned otherwise.

  Djor Kantos, son of Kantos Kan, and a padwar of the fifth utan joinedus when his utan reached the opening through which the men werefleeing. Thereafter not a man was lost of all the hundreds thatremained to pass from the main corridor to the branch.

  As the last utan was filing past us the waters had risen until theysurged about our necks, but we clasped hands and stood our ground untilthe last man had passed to the comparative safety of the newpassageway. Here we found an immediate and steep ascent, so thatwithin a hundred yards we had reached a point above the waters.

  For a few minutes we continued rapidly up the steep grade, which Ihoped would soon bring us quickly to the upper pits that let into theTemple of Issus. But I was to meet with a cruel disappointment.

  Suddenly I heard a cry of "fire" far ahead, followed almost at once bycries of terror and the loud commands of dwars and padwars who wereevidently attempting to direct their men away from some grave danger.At last the report came back to us. "They have fired the pits ahead.""We are hemmed in by flames in front and flood behind." "Help, JohnCarter; we are suffocating," and then there swept back upon us at therear a wave of dense smoke that sent us, stumbling and blinded, into achoking retreat.

  There was naught to do other than seek a new avenue of escape. Thefire and smoke were to be feared a thousand times over the water, andso I seized upon the first gallery which led out of and up from thesuffocating smoke that was engulfing us.

  Again I stood to one side while the soldiers hastened through on thenew way. Some two thousand must have passed at a rapid run, when thestream ceased, but I was not sure that all had been rescued who had notpassed the point of origin of the flames, and so to assure myself thatno poor devil was left behind to die a horrible death, unsuccoured, Iran quickly up the gallery in the direction of the flames which I couldnow see burning with a dull glow far ahead.

  It was hot and stifling work, but at last I reached a point where thefire lit up the corridor sufficiently for me to see that no soldier ofHelium lay between me and the conflagration--what was in it or upon thefar side I could not know, nor could any man have passed through thatseething hell of chemicals and lived to learn.

  Having satisfied my sense of duty, I turned and ran rapidly back to thecorridor through which my men had passed. To my horror, however, Ifound that my retreat in this direction had been blocked--across themouth of the corridor stood a massive steel grating that had evidentlybeen lowered from its resting-place above for the purpose ofeffectually cutting off my escape.

  That our principal movements were known to the First Born I could nothave doubted, in vie
w of the attack of the fleet upon us the daybefore, nor could the stopping of the pumps of Omean at thepsychological moment have been due to chance, nor the starting of achemical combustion within the one corridor through which we wereadvancing upon the Temple of Issus been due to aught thanwell-calculated design.

  And now the dropping of the steel gate to pen me effectually betweenfire and flood seemed to indicate that invisible eyes were upon us atevery moment. What chance had I, then, to rescue Dejah Thoris were Ito be compelled to fight foes who never showed themselves. A thousandtimes I berated myself for being drawn into such a trap as I might haveknown these pits easily could be. Now I saw that it would have beenmuch better to have kept our force intact and made a concerted attackupon the temple from the valley side, trusting to chance and our greatfighting ability to have overwhelmed the First Born and compelled thesafe delivery of Dejah Thoris to me.

  The smoke from the fire was forcing me further and further back downthe corridor toward the waters which I could hear surging through thedarkness. With my men had gone the last torch, nor was this corridorlighted by the radiance of phosphorescent rock as were those of thelower levels. It was this fact that assured me that I was not far fromthe upper pits which lie directly beneath the temple.

  Finally I felt the lapping waters about my feet. The smoke was thickbehind me. My suffering was intense. There seemed but one thing todo, and that to choose the easier death which confronted me, and so Imoved on down the corridor until the cold waters of Omean closed aboutme, and I swam on through utter blackness toward--what?

  The instinct of self-preservation is strong even when one, unafraid andin the possession of his highest reasoning faculties, knows thatdeath--positive and unalterable--lies just ahead. And so I swam slowlyon, waiting for my head to touch the top of the corridor, which wouldmean that I had reached the limit of my flight and the point where Imust sink for ever to an unmarked grave.

  But to my surprise I ran against a blank wall before I reached a pointwhere the waters came to the roof of the corridor. Could I bemistaken? I felt around. No, I had come to the main corridor, andstill there was a breathing space between the surface of the water andthe rocky ceiling above. And then I turned up the main corridor in thedirection that Carthoris and the head of the column had passed ahalf-hour before. On and on I swam, my heart growing lighter at everystroke, for I knew that I was approaching closer and closer to thepoint where there would be no chance that the waters ahead could bedeeper than they were about me. I was positive that I must soon feelthe solid floor beneath my feet again and that once more my chancewould come to reach the Temple of Issus and the side of the fairprisoner who languished there.

  But even as hope was at its highest I felt the sudden shock of contactas my head struck the rocks above. The worst, then, had come to me. Ihad reached one of those rare places where a Martian tunnel dipssuddenly to a lower level. Somewhere beyond I knew that it rose again,but of what value was that to me, since I did not know how great thedistance that it maintained a level entirely beneath the surface of thewater!

  There was but a single forlorn hope, and I took it. Filling my lungswith air, I dived beneath the surface and swam through the inky, icyblackness on and on along the submerged gallery. Time and time again Irose with upstretched hand, only to feel the disappointing rocks closeabove me.

  Not for much longer would my lungs withstand the strain upon them. Ifelt that I must soon succumb, nor was there any retreating now that Ihad gone this far. I knew positively that I could never endure toretrace my path now to the point from which I had felt the waters closeabove my head. Death stared me in the face, nor ever can I recall atime that I so distinctly felt the icy breath from his dead lips uponmy brow.

  One more frantic effort I made with my fast ebbing strength. Weakly Irose for the last time--my tortured lungs gasped for the breath thatwould fill them with a strange and numbing element, but instead I feltthe revivifying breath of life-giving air surge through my starvingnostrils into my dying lungs. I was saved.

  A few more strokes brought me to a point where my feet touched thefloor, and soon thereafter I was above the water level entirely, andracing like mad along the corridor searching for the first doorway thatwould lead me to Issus. If I could not have Dejah Thoris again I wasat least determined to avenge her death, nor would any life satisfy meother than that of the fiend incarnate who was the cause of suchimmeasurable suffering upon Barsoom.

  Sooner than I had expected I came to what appeared to me to be a suddenexit into the temple above. It was at the right side of the corridor,which ran on, probably, to other entrances to the pile above.

  To me one point was as good as another. What knew I where any of themled! And so without waiting to be again discovered and thwarted, I ranquickly up the short, steep incline and pushed open the doorway at itsend.

  The portal swung slowly in, and before it could be slammed against me Isprang into the chamber beyond. Although not yet dawn, the room wasbrilliantly lighted. Its sole occupant lay prone upon a low couch atthe further side, apparently in sleep. From the hangings and sumptuousfurniture of the room I judged it to be a living-room of somepriestess, possibly of Issus herself.

  At the thought the blood tingled through my veins. What, indeed, iffortune had been kind enough to place the hideous creature alone andunguarded in my hands. With her as hostage I could force acquiescenceto my every demand. Cautiously I approached the recumbent figure, onnoiseless feet. Closer and closer I came to it, but I had crossed butlittle more than half the chamber when the figure stirred, and, as Isprang, rose and faced me.

  At first an expression of terror overspread the features of the womanwho confronted me--then startled incredulity--hope--thanksgiving.

  My heart pounded within my breast as I advanced toward her--tears cameto my eyes--and the words that would have poured forth in a perfecttorrent choked in my throat as I opened my arms and took into them oncemore the woman I loved--Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium.